So Long

Well, to start off honestly, I cannot say I enjoyed this class. Reason being, I procrastinated excessively, so it is hard to enjoy a class when you're cramming a week of work into 3 hours, every week. That's my fault though. Apart from that, I did like some of the assignments that we were given, I found them to be insightful and thought provoking. I feel that I learned a lot about myself, more than I might have expected, and I also learned alot about my classmates as well. I was given the opportunity to present my outlook on the world through these blogs, and I was able to see how others saw things as well. I think it would be fair to say that we were all generally open and honest with each other, and I truly valued that. I found myself learning that even when I do not agree with someone, I can respect them, and even try to understand their views.
Because I realized this I feel it is fair to say that I have grown up a bit because of this class. Having gone to Desert Christian Schools since 6th grade, I have led a fairly sheltered life. We all had the same general views, the first time I can remember any major differences between us would be in our ethics class senior year. So to go from that to this class, I found that I really enjoyed it. As an eyeopener, I cannot think of one better than here, with a class of people who are open to honest discussion, not worrying about offending each other, but also not trying to. So for that, I loved this class.
I also enjoyed some of the works we read in this class, I must admit. I am generally a big reader, but when it comes to school topics I am known to slack off a little, but there was a good handful this semester that I could say I enjoyed. It was nice to have so many to read, I always knew I could find at least one that appealed to me within such a large selection, even if it took some time to find it.
On the whole, I found this to be a great and beneficial class. I certainly did not approach it in the best manner, but generally speaking I liked it. It made me think for myself, more than anything else, and I always admire that in a class, I hate to be spoon fed. Therefore this class appealed to me, and I think I would like to do more of the sort, thought maybe after I gain a little more discipline.
Lastly, I want to thank everyone who was apart of the discussions in this class. As I said, I really value the honesty we had with each other and I will miss having that in the months to come. I hope I was able to impart some small wisdom with someone, I know many of you did so for me, and I thank you for that. I had a great time this semester, I hope you all did as well! Have a great summer!

Love Through the Ages

I personally find it hard to compare modern songs with these older poems. Personally I find that I lean more towards the modern songs because that is my personal preference, but I also can certainly appreciate these poems as well. There is a depth to them that is impressive and inspiring. There is such power and thought behind them that I think touches all of our hearts, and a passion as well. They also have a different purpose behind them, in some cases, than the more modern songs might possess.
These poems are written for varying reasons, as with anything. In my personal opinion they are often written to woo the girl who they are after, or describe her, or something of the sort. Sometimes they tell a story of love, or how a heart is broke, really anything is possible. But these poems are written with a true sense of passion, its almost palpable as you read it, impressively so. They go into such detail and specifics, it is rarely matched, especially in today's form of poetry, which is primarily music. As I said, I generally am not a huge poem person, but I greatly enjoy and appreciate the passion in these poems, how strongly they are written. They always make me wonder, what must this girl have been like to inspire such a poem to be written about her. One of Shakespeares sonnets I had to memorize in high school was like that, it was written so that even once this girl had passed on, her beauty, her memory, would live on forever through his words, and they clearly have. I actually liked that sonnet, which is certainly saying alot.
When it comes to modern pop songs, I am far from an expert. I honestly rarely listen to common popular music anymore, I'm nearly always listening to my ipod, which has rather minimal amounts of pop music. I do know some though, and I generally get the idea that they tend to tell a story of love, in some sense. While there are exceptions, I also feel that the primary passion of the poems is often lacking in these modern songs. I feel there are many reasons as to why this is so, one of which being that we ourselves might lack that passion. How many men actually appreciate women on that level anymore? Definitely something to consider. However, I like the modern songs because I love the stories that are painted. They might not have that passion, but they can so clearly spell out that story, and within it you find hints of that passion.
I'll post at the bottom of this the lyrics I'm about to talk about. I recently found a song through Pandora radio that I personally really like. It is called "Pocket Change" by Josh Damigo. Just a simple acoustic song that tells a little story, but for some reason I really like it. It talks about this guy who is just playing his guitar and singing on a street corner, thinking about a girl he's no longer with. The key line is "He sings a song that he wrote for her, even though she's miles and miles away." I love that. Especially when it is sung, I hear such passion in that line, that this guy, whoever he was, cared so much about this girl that he is singing for her, even though she is not there. That is the passion that I love.
So I could not find the full lyrics anywhere online so I wrote down some of the main chorus at least.
You see back where he's from there's a girl who broke his heart
That blonde hair and giggle just tore the boy apart
So he's driving to the city where he flat out disappears
Second street and broadway in a town not far from here
And he sings the song that he wrote for her
Even though she's miles and miles away
And he dreams of when he held her close
Yeah cause oh how times have changed
Then he switches to a minor key but her memory wont fade away

Is the Past really past?

I found that I actually enjoyed the presentations about the different creation myths. I cannot say I am too suprised at this, but I am suprised at how much I enjoyed them. You see, I personally really want to study theology, not just for my own faith, but of all religions. I am highly curious as to what is out there, not because I am looking for a religion, but I am curious what it is that attracts others. I would love to be able to do an in depth study on all the major religions of the world, so as to know why people are so passionate about what they believe, instead of just calling them religious fanatics. I liked this assignment because it reminded me of this passion I have myself, that I had forgotten about in the past few years.
To start, this assignment made me consider how little we know can know or remember of our roots. Sure we can trace back a few generations on the family tree, but it is rare that we really look any farther than that, or any deeper. This assignment got me thinking about those people of the past, who basically founded their people groups and their religions or mythical beliefs. I started to wonder what it was like for them, having nothing, and formulating a religion based on stories passed down, a religion that really comes to define the nations within which they reside.
I was also interested in how some of the myths had similar aspects to them. Even though they were spread out over the continent or world, there were some similarities that I found to be interesting. It just showed me that there really is evidence of a common ancestry, that humans did not just appear at random all over the globe, but that they seemingly originated from one ancestor and then proceeded to disperse.
I really think that we can learn a lot from studying myths such as these, from creation to whatever else might be considered a myth. In my personal opinion, whether the myth is true or not matters little. What is really important is why it became a myth, why it lasted, where it originated. At the time, it obviously was not a myth, or at least not one of such magnitude as they might be today. Because of that it makes me think, what is there that we consider to be obvious or truth today that may become a myth in the future? Something to think about. This all really makes me think more about who I am and why I do what I do, because we never know what effects our actions might have. Like I mentioned, at the time, these myths were more than that, they were real, important to the lives of those who lived them.
We can learn a lot from these myths, by translating them to our lives today. By that I mean we think about why that myth became what it is, and how would that same idea or principal translate into the modern age. Are there any myths now similar to that? There is so much room to dig deeper into this, it just simply depends on how much weight we place in the subject.

Do I Really Want to Know?

For me an obvious example of a character that suffers from the burden of knowing would have to be May. Her big issue is that any sorrow, pain, or hurt in the world, causes her to feel precisely the same way. She cannot help but have that empathy for those around her, something that reaches down to her core. She has to try very hard to stay aloof, to not know about the world around her, because when she does learn of whatever hardships and issues exists, it hits her harder than almost anyone else. In a sense she has a supernatural sense of compassion, one that reaches out to any and everyone. In a sense I am truly impressed by it, and ashamed that I do not have a heart like that, but I also have pity for her, for she is unable to control it. She does not have the ability to separate herself from the problems, to remain apart from them, while still having a heart for them. When something happens, when she learns of that pain, she feels for it without holding back.
As I mentioned, I find that I wish I had that heart for people. So often do we hear of things going on in this world, and we just ignore them. We might think about how sad it is, but really it has no personal meaning to our lives. We notice, accept, and pay attention to these things, at most, but really, it has very little meaning in our own lives. This is something I struggle with so much, and that I desperately wish I could change. I do not want to become like May of course, but at the same time I do, at least the good part of things. I truly wish I actually cared more about the world outside of myself, but I know that this is hard for me. There is so much going on in the world, and yet, while I try to take notice of it sometimes, I find that I rarely worry about it much, or care enough to let it influence me. Even the things I do care about have little affect on me. I realize that we are not meant to try and take on all of the world's problems ourselves, but I just wish that I cared more.
Another way that I personally deal with the burden of knowing is that I struggle more so with not knowing. I am one of those people who likes to be in the loop, I always have to know what is going on, and if I know that there is something I do not know, it drives me crazy. For instance, if someone buys me a present for my birthday, which I dislike from the beginning, and then tell me that they did so but will not tell me what it is, that kills me. I cannot stand not being able to know. Even when I was little, I hated the games like hide and seek or marco polo, because I wanted to know where everyone was. Because of that, I usually would not play, so that I could sit on the side and know what was going on as a whole, where everyone was, and so forth. The problem with this is, sometimes I find out things that I do not want to know. Something will come up in a conversation, and then I bug the person about it until they tell me whatever. More than once I have found that I really did not want to know, just as they had told me, and yet I ignored them. Along the same idea, sometimes I am told secrets, or anything else, that I really did not want to know, and end up becoming almost a burden on me. Such is part of life. We all deal with knowledge that we did not ask for, but comes to us anyways.

The Loss of Grief

For me personally, I found I actually liked the story "Beginning Dialogues", and that it made sense to me. I am not sure that it is so much that I relate to it, feel the same way, or what, but I just really found it to be a good writing that I enjoyed. As Derricotte talks about how she feels about her mothers death, I felt like I understood it. I realize that grief is the expected emotion when someone dies, but I do not think that that should be such a mandatory thing. Sometimes, for a persons individual life, it is easier or better for them when someone passes. Whether we admit it or not, there are some people in our lives who just make things harder for us. Now please do not misunderstand me, I do not wish that anyone would die just to make things easier for me. But it is a true statement that if someone were no longer a part of our lives, it would make things simpler, and that is understandable and acceptable.
Within the story, Dericotte does mention that there was a time when she did feel grief, primarily immediately after the death of her mother, but after that things change for her. She moved forward with her life, feeling almost as if she was free of an enormous burden, placed on her by her mother. Not that her mother was a bad person or anything, she just did not always make things easier for Derricotte.
For me, being someone who has been to more than a couple funerals, I do not feel as much grief as I might even have hoped. This is something that saddens me. Now, because of my faith, if I know that the person who passed shared my faith, than I need not feel grief, for they have taken a step forward that I am near jealous of. But when it comes to people who I am not super close to, but I know to some extent and love, I find it hard to find that grief. I have always struggled with showing much emotion, especially anything that might make me vulnerable. Because of that, while funerals have been hard for me, I have always refrained from thinking about it or feeling to much. Because of this, I am not sure that I have ever really grasped the magnitude of death, primarily because it has never been someone who I had an intimate or personal relationship with. I just managed to accept it, feel some grief, and then move on. I guess it never hit home for me. Because of all this, when I see Derricotte's reaction to the death of her mother, it sort of makes sense to me, because like her, after the initial shock, death loses its sting for me pretty quickly, and I just incorporate the experience into my life. I remember the person, I never forget them, but I move forward, doing my best to learn and move on.

Blessing of Life

In my personal opinion, suicide is never something that is or can be justified. Now I do not judge anyone for it, nor condemn them either, but it is not something I can ever say is justified. I can understand why someone feels that why, the thoughts and life that leads up to it, but I do not condone suicide. I have talked to a suprising number of people who have attempted or contemplated suicide, and because of that I know a small portion of why it is different people have gotten to that point. While it is not a point I have ever reached myself, I do understand how people can get there, how the desire to escape their problems is so strong, the pain so great, that they might want to use any means possible to escape. I understand that, but I also do not feel that that justifies forfeiting their life.

One perspective that I hold is that no matter how bad your life is, no matter how hard things are or have been, someone else has had it worse. I do not in any way shape or form belittle the individual struggles we all have, and I know that I have not experienced a whole lot myself. I just simply am saying that there are others out there who have overcome worse, which proves to me that it is possible to overcome any problem or life experience. No matter what has happened, as humans we can overcome, perservere, survive. That is why I do not think we should ever give up hope.

I also know that my faith plays a large part in how I feel about this topic as well. Interestingly enough though, it is not because I am focused on the idea that if you committ suicide you cannot go to heaven or whatever. I have not studied the topic enough to have a say in that, and I am not the one to make that judgement anyways. The part that my faith plays is that in my mind, there is always hope. I have hit my own personal rock bottom, and survived it. What pulled me through was my faith. I have heard of even tougher stories and experiences, and God has pulled these people through it as well. I know that despite the depth of the circumstances and pain, my God can heal, restore, and give new life to anybody.

In my eyes, there is always another option. No matter what, we should never give up on life. We have so much to live for. Regardless the problems we face, things we must deal with, we have so much more to live for. I realize how hard it can be to see that, in the face of our problems, but that is no excuse. Especially all the people I know who have gone through these hard times, living here in America, we have no right to say our life is so bad that we should die. Our blessings far outweigh the hard times, we just have to see them. This is something I have personally come to terms with, that no matter how frustrated or tired I get, I am so immensely blessed. I know this is the same for everyone else who takes a breath today, simply because they were able to take that breath. We have no right to or reason to end our lives, when things can turn around so simply, so easily.

Life is like a box...

Ok, so I got the metaphor to end all metahphors, right here. Well not really, but I'm pretty proud of it so don't knock me for it, at least not till you hear me out. First, we have life, the experience. Vague I know, but intentionally so. Second, the metaphorical part. Life is like unleashing the power of a super bouncy ball inside a small confined space. There, I said it. Track with me, let's see where this goes, I'm curious myself.
So, first off, that would be a pretty cool thing to see, take a glass box and just launch in a super ball and watch it go. You have no way of knowing what is going to happen. You can guide it at the beginning, we can choose the angle and speed at which said ball enters the box, but once it is in there, we can do nothing but sit back and watch. If we were to try to interfere, for the most part we would only make things worse. I feel that the entrance in is really like childhood in our lives. We are shaped by our surroundings, guided by our parents, preparing for our entrance into the world outside, or in this case, inside. Once our parents release us, it is up to us to make the best of our situation and do what we can with what we are given.
Once inside, especially if this super ball entered at high speed, things are going to be spectacular. Rebounding constantly at high speed, there is no way of possibly knowing what is going to happen next. We try to trace the movements of the ball, seeing where it was and where it is going, but it can be hard. In the early stages of life, we all tend to move around a lot, figuring things out for ourselves. We want to constantly try something new, if this does not work, how about that, and so forth, just constantly bouncing around, experiencing everything we can.
Also, you can try to predict the path of the ball. You look at it, try to judge the speed and angles etc, hoping to understand the rebound and what will happen next. The thing is, even if you could predict the next rebound or two even, after that, you are out of luck, and even those two would be hard to see coming. It is the same in life. As humans, we change constantly. We do not even know where we ourselves are going to end up next, and to try and predict us from an outside perspective, tis nigh impossible. We might look ahead in our lives, during high school for instance, and see that we are going to graduate and then go to college, but from there do we really know what is next? I know that I don't, not for myself. I expect to be shaped by coming experiences, in ways I cannot predict, and that I will push off of those experiences into new things I cannot even fathom at this moment.
Finally, things eventually come to an end. The ball slows down, becomes more predictable, eventually just rolling to a stop in a corner of the box. The same can be said, to some extent, for us as humans. We bounce around so quickly early on, but eventually we settle into the pace of life, to the point that we can see our own inevitable future. While it is unavoidable, it is also not some terrible fate either. That ball may have come to a stop, but one shake of the box and there is a whole new adventure on the move again. It comes down to the same for us. We eventually come to the end of our crazy and rambunctious lives, but that is only the beginning of the next adventure. So yeah, life, it is totally like a box...with a bouncy ball inside...

Professional vs. Personal

The only time I can think of where I was forced to behave in a way that I personally did not agree with was in a debate assignment for a school. I was taking a summer class at a college, and in the second week of the class we were all assigned different sides of debates, in which we had to research and argue whichever side we were given. In this assignment, I was forced to argue, or debate, in favor of torture. I had to arge for the sanction of prisoners held by the United States, in hopes of gaining information or anything else that might be gained. This was hard for me, because that was not a topic which I agreed with. Even after doing some research into this topic, reading many arguements for torture, I found that I still could not bring myself to agree with it.
This became a challenge for me, to actually prepare and compose arguements for something that I in my heart did not agree with. While we were not expected to relate to our topics, we were still required to prepare the arguements for them, and then have an actual debate about it with the opposing party. But I found it was quite a learning experience for me, I had to force myself to look at a topic that I did not see favorably, and do my best to understand it. I had to put myself in the shoes of someone who I did not see eye to eye with, and do my best to relate to them, to understand why they felt the way they did, and to do my best to agree with them, even if our agreement would not be permanent.
When I look back now, this is an assignment that I am so very thankful for. It taught me that there is always another side to every story, that no matter how I feel, there are other perspectives out there that I must respect. Now obviously this was not a very easy thing for me to do, but I learned so much in the process of it. Since then I have been able to put this into practice more and more, in many different ways. It continues to be a challenge for me, to remember that no matter how strongly I feel, how strong my opinions are, that there will be an opposing side who feels just as strongly as I do. There is nothing wrong with this, it is the right of everyone to make decisions of this sort for themselves. We cannot force our opinions on anyone else, we can only present our side, listen to their side, and basically just agree to disagree.

Death After Life

I found the poem "All Shall Be Restored" to be very neutral in a sense. It spoke exactly of what the title says, everything returning to the way it was. This is not presented in a positive or negative tone, but instead in a matter of fact way. It speaks of death in relation to culture, in that it is simply what happens. No matter what we do, where we go, death will find us and return us to the earth. Everything shall return to where it came from, this idea is repeated and compounded upon within this poem. As far as culture relates to this, I feel we somewhat echo the idea, while also fighting it. We are not completely shocked at deaths in our lives, we know they are expected, regardless of age, it is an unavoidable fate. So we may mourn, we may remember, but we accept it as the order of life, as what is to come.

I say this not to be depressing or somber. While death is something that comes for us all, it is not something that must be feared, not for me. I fear dying, but not death itself. This is because of my religion, of my confidence it what I have to expect. Therefore this is not an idea I can expect to be shared by all, but it is one I hope reaches out to many. Regardless of religion, I feel we all can accept that the lives we are given are blessings, and it is up to us to make the best of them. We could let ourselves lead an abysmal life, always afraid of death, of the unavoidable future, or we could rejoice in our present times. As I said, I do not hold a fear of death, only of dying. That is not to say it is something I hope to hurry along, but I have come to terms with it, and I know for myself there is more to come, something better by far. With that in mind, I still choose to enjoy the life I have now. I know I am here for a reason, I have a purpose, so I choose to enjoy the process of learning all I can, finding that purpose, and fulfilling it as best I can. There is no greater joy in my mind, not in this life, than doing what we were meant to do.

What sadden's me about todays culture is the overall fear of death. How desperately so many people try to escape it, how they cling to the fragile lives we hold. People want so badly to live on, to live forever, that they will go to extremes to attempt this. I am not against fighting diseases or living healthy lives, to live as long as we can, I embrace that idea. What I do not like is when someone tries to go above and beyond. I am not against this, but it is not something I favor or support either, it is simply a personal choice. I just feel that we get too comfortable in this life on Earth, when really it is temporal. We know it to be temporary, and those of us with religion, we know more is to follow, and yet we cling to what we know, for fear of that we do not know.

Peace in The Middle East

The topic of the American presence in the Middle East is something I am actually very passionate about. I got to take a three week class at UCSD a couple years ago that covered Terrorism primarily, and the third week was spent entirely on this topic. Having actually spent the time digging into this, I now feel that it is so much more complicated than I or most people have ever expected. The possibility of a self elected government is something I personally hope for, and would support whole-heartedly.

If there were to be a fully organized, proper, and open election for a legitimate government, I feel that it is something that should be supported by the United States. There are many things that we can do for the Middle East and the countries involved, but we can in no way provide them with a government of any sort. That is something that must completely come from within. We can try to help and guide them in some small behind the scenes ways, but on the whole, it is not up to us. I feel that we do not even want to play a large part in supporting certain candidates for fear of influencing the results, positively or negatively. We could try to instill our own idea of a government, put in power the individuals we choose, but that would only make things harder for the countries involved. We might as well be considering them to be colonies if that is how we act, and that is a hole we do not want to dig for ourselves.

A government is something that must be discovered by the country itself. That is what the United States did, we decided that we did not like the government we were under, so we left and created our own. Obviously the Articles of Confederation are proof that it was not a hole in one, but a process. We had to create the government ourselves, based on what we decided on as a people group. The same process must happen in the Middle East. We cannot expect them to automatically accept whatever government and leaders we think is good for them. Instead we must allow them to do this for themselves, make the necessary mistakes, and build it for themselves.

The United States must step back and let things work out for themselves in the Middle East. I also know that we are hunting for terrorists, and working to keep our own country safe from said threats, that is a large part of our presence in these countries. That is fine, it is necessary. On the other hand, we cannot force our way into their newly growing political structure, just because we are America and we think we know best. There are already a suprisingly large number of players in the decision making processes, they do not need an obnoxious third party who thinks they know everything there is to know. The United States really needs to step back, keep ourselves and the civilians safe as best we can, and let them learn on the own, like a child really. There are some lessons that simply cannot be taught, only learned.

The Image of the Invisible

In many ways, the idea of invisibility is completely underestimated. Many times it is considered to simply not be seen, to be unable to be seen. To make the choice to be hidden, disguised, in a way that no one else can see you. The basic definition of it even is "impossible to see". And yet, there is so much more to it. For someone to be invisible, it is not always their choice, their desire. It can be forced upon them, that others ignore them so much that they forget the person is even there, even exists. We are all guilty of it too. Sometimes it is intentional, sometimes it is not. I know we've all been walking or driving and seen that person, and instead of even a smile, we simply lower our head, look away, and just pretend we did not even notice them.

Other times, we really don't. We get so caught up in ourselves, in our lives, and we completely forget to acknowledge that there is life outside our own bubble. This is something that I completely despise, because I was surrounded by it at my high school. The groups and clicks were formed early, and after that, it was a rare thing for a new person to be allowed in. Those who were not in that group simply did not matter, did not exist unless there was a reason, and once that was gone, they disappeared with it. I have always hated that about my high school, and then tonight as I was talking to someone who went to the school with me, I realized I was guilty of doing just that myself. As I was talking to her I realized that multiple times in my last year at the school I had the chance to talk to her, get to know her, and yet I didn't. I wimped out, and just figured someone else would talk to the new girl, I don't have to. She's probably fine on her own. Realizing now that I did that to someone else, I truly feel horrible and ashamed of myself. I've been there and I know what it is like to feel invisible, to the point that no one else sees me, and yet here I inflicted that on someone else? Disgusting.

I feel this is something that is really convicting to me, who are we not seeing? If someone being invisible means they're impossible to see, who made them that way? Did they inflict this on themselves, or is it something that they have just accepted, something that was forced on them? Either way, what can I do to change it? I want to see these people, to not let them feel ignored and forced out like we all have felt at one time or another. We can all understand that feeling of being overlooked and I know that I never want to be the cause of that again. Instead of ignoring people, I want to step and step out, reach out to them and be a reminder that there is such a thing as a stranger who cares. No one should ever have to feel invisible, not when we are all looking right at them...

The Not So Selfless Side of Life

This was a topic I really had to think about before I could come up with a time in which I had thought I was acting in a selfless manner, only to find that I really had my own motives tied into it. For me I realized that last year during my time in my ASB class, I would very often try to help out any of my friends in the class, running errands or whatever may be needed. This in itself was not the worst thing, except that generally I was free to do these things because I was never doing anything for myself, and wanted a reason to get out of the class. I was never causing problems or anything, and I was generally trying to help, but more because I did not want to have to do the harder tasks that were available, so I just got out of the classroom doing the menial things whenever I got the chance.

This isn't to say that I never did anything in the class, I ran the Student Store as Treasurer, but I almost took that to mean that I did not need to do anything else, as that had enough involved in it. In reality it took minimal brain power and effort to keep the store running, with an occasional requirement of effort, but on the whole, I could have very easily taken on much more in the class than I did. Yet I convinced myself that by simply helping out the others with their little tasks that I was being productive enough.

Looking back now, I would happily go back and change this situation for the entire year. I had such an easy course load, and the requirements placed on me for my position in the class really were not demanding too much of me, so I really should have been eager to step up and do more in the class. There were many other people in the class with a full class load of ap classes that also had constant requirements on them from their position in the class, but they also constantly stepped forward to help in or lead the group projects. I applaud them immensely, and am currently working towards improving myself so as to never be so lazy or entitled again.

Just another example of a time in which I was attempting to be selfless, but really being far from it would have to be again in high school. I had a free 6th period so sometimes I would just go out and try to clean up the campus or picking up trash, whatever I could do to help out, and yet I know that this was never just because. I know that part of me always wanted some sort of recognition for it, for someone to think that I was some great guy just because I was willing to do that on my own accord. I would love to say that it was just a spontaneous act because I thought it was a good thing to do, but I know that was never all of it. I always hoped that someone would notice, would say something, that I would be seen as a better person at least because of it. I am thankful now that that never happened.

The Critical View of Literature

I feel that we all have our own ways of reacting to literature, some people write more in their own words, others translate it into another medium that means more to them, and some might simply choose to simply apply it to their lives, however they must dos so. I know that for me personally, when I read something, especially a story or novel that I like, I get completely engrossed in it. When the story ends, or something is not completely explained, oftentimes I will start to delve into it on my own, considering what could have been written there, how things could have gone. This is something I tend to do often, and I really do enjoy it, it makes the story come alive even more to me, I already see it as a movie going on in my mind, and then I get to basically control how things go on my own.
How we respond to literature really can change our lives, I know it has changed mine. Simply in seeing another perspective, be it that of the character or the author, opens my eyes to a world larger than my own. If the story is fiction or fact is irrelevant, it still has life in it, with wisdom to teach us. So often I will read a story or poem or verse that touches my heart in a new way, reveals something new to me. I learn new things about myself, the world around me, or a new way of looking at things, and I love it. Perhaps my favorite thing is when I read something I have read many times before, and yet something completely new pops out to me in a way that I had never even imagined before. That is one of the reasons why if I like a book I tend to reread it many times, I love learning new things from the same story. Every time I come back and read the story again, I am a different person, I have changed since the last time I read it, and so it really is a whole new experience to read it again, because different things become so much more prevalent to me.
When we really critically analyze literature, I think we really are fulfilling the goal of the author, in that we are attempting to fully understand as much as we can of what they are telling us, on as many levels as we can find. I do agree with the idea that we can never expect to completely understand everything that an author says or means, I am sure there are always more to it than we realize, but at the same time, it should be our goal to get as much out of it as we can. When literature is written, it is rarely written offhandedly, but instead is written with a purpose, be it a purpose to inspire, convince, or just simply reveal truth, there is some meaning behind it. Therefore when we analyze literature we immediately boost our understanding of it, and begin to comprehend a world outside ourselves. While we may never understand everything intended by the author, we will also come up with new ideas that they may not have thought of themselves when writing their thoughts, and in the sharing of our ideas, we all get to grow and drastically change in our lives, simply through the written word.

The Meaning of Literature

Literature really matters to me because I have learned so much from it. I get to read not just a story, fiction or fact, but really also someones take on life. Regardless the subject matter, you get to see into the heart of the author, and learn their thoughts, how they really feel about what they are writing about. Generally speaking, we write about things that we are passionate about, and I am always interested to find out what other people are passionate about. I know I personally love to talk about what I am passionate about, and I am quite sure that that is a love shared by many other people as well.
For instance, some of my favorite books I will reread often and yet learn something new everytime I go through them. They teaching me something, about myself, the world around me, the author, anything really, and for that reason they are my favorites. I do not want to read something that does not teach me anything, that just repeats something I already know, but instead I want to be taught, to learn, or just to be shown something in a way that I have not seen it before, from a perspective that is not my own.
Also, I love literature just because it lets me escape. When I pick up a book, I quite literally become immersed in the story, to the extent that I can forget myself. I drink in the words, flying through the pages, enjoying every single bit of emotion portrayed through the language. I love feeling like I'm somwhere or someone else, in a life so much different than my own that I could never expect to understand it, and yet at the same time I do, I feel the characters echoing with my heart in one way or another.
When I read, I really try to find some way to internalize it, make it apply to me. Yes I read for fun, or because it is assigned, but I want it to mean something to me as well. I do not want to read it and be done with it, but instead I think a lot about what I read. I try to take it a step further, see into the characters themselves, not just what is represented on the page. A book is far better than a movie to me because I get to see inside their heads, understand them on a level far deeper than what can simply be seen on the surface, and feel that I know them by the time I finish. I learn from them, just as a character grows through the experiences they go through in the story, I find that I learn things myself, not just from the experiences, but in how they handle them in their own way.
I do not think I could honestly say that I have never been changed by a book I have read. Even if it is one that I do not like as much as others, each is full of wisdom, and worth enjoying. I love literature, primarily books, but in general I find that there is something worthwhile in any written word, it is simply up to me as the reader to discover it.