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.