2008年1月30日星期三

Jan 30

Even a real man will be afraid of ghosts

My greatest fear is about something scary. Since I was a little child, I was scared about if there were some ghosts around me. Maybe it caused by my watching some scary movies and hearing of some ghosts stories. Even after I grow up as a teenager, I am still afraid of them though they seem not so scared as before. Of course, as a young man, I am a little bit ashamed of being scared of that kind of unreal stuff. So, I often think about how to overcome this dread. I used to force myself to watch much scared movies so that I can be used to it, but it doesn’t work. Actually, besides this, I am also afraid of taking some hazardous games such as roller coaster, spaceship, and bungee jump. Although I became bolder to play such games, I can’t overcome it entirely. So, in the end, I decide just not to try those kinds of activities too much to stay out of the dread……

jan 30

What do you think was Whitman's motivation for writing "Leaves of Grass"?
Is his lifestyle threatening to our cultural order?
What does this have to do with the essential questions of our class?

In my opinion, these questions are related. What Whitman wants to do decides what his lifestyle is in the society. If we find out what his motivation is, we can understand what this has to do with the essential questions of our class.

From what he writes, there is a natural feeling in it which is wild and strange. He describes a lot about the nature around us. He describes the sun setting, the weather, the grass on the ground. Beside this, he talks about his life and hope with his people in that kind of nature, which he enjoys. So I think his motivation for writing it is to recall us to find the relationship between human beings and nature. In that period, maybe there were a lot of obstacles for Whitman to enjoy his own life: he must work to go on living; he didn’t have much time spent with people he enjoys being with; he even didn’t have much time spend on the nature. So to enjoy his life, he tries to get out of the cave that the stop him from having a happy life. What is more, he mentions about sex, being naked and live for us; this must be threatening our society because it is out of order. In an extent, I even call him anarchist because his ideas base on human nature but not concern about the other result of it to other people. Everything he describes and advocates seems free and happy, but, people are always concern about themselves. Try to imagine, if everyone does what he says, everyone can have sex anytime anywhere to anyone without thinking about any consequences; Does it sound crazy? So, in conclusion, his motivation has a conflict with our responsibilities to the society. Although his ideas has some good aspects to do with the society now such as being more free from the restriction and approaching the nature, we still worry about other consequences it might happen.

2008年1月29日星期二

JAN 29

Visionary Me

Visionary me, Nature.
The exciting day, the shining sun, the people I am interested in,
The happiness of the people I can not fell,
The warming sun I can not touch, but enjoying,
The calm lake I can not float on, but sitting next by,
The heart of the hot girl I can not own,

Everything in the nature seems escape from me,
like I am visionary to them.
The squirrels are running between the trees, collecting foods for the winter,
The leaves are falling down among the branches, waiting for their new lives,
The trees are still standing strongly, holding for their manliness,
The connections between them are still close,
But I, the visionary me, is separated from them,
It seems like I am the air in the top of the mountain,
It seems that I am the white colon button of the dryer,
It seems that I am the wheat bread in the laundry,
It seems, I should not be in this world,
Stay away in the galaxy,

I love the nature, I must run next to the lake without any decoration,
Now I am jumping out of the mountain, die among you guys,
I am rewriting myself to press button, touched by your dirty fingers
I am repainting myself to bread, feeling the peanut butter put by you guys.
I am no longer separated, I am in the nature now,
Although I will be dead, dirty or shit ,
I am still one of you guys, you can leave me , I am living in you.
Let’s jump of the mountain together,
Let’s become the dirty dryers together,
Let’s become the bread of peanut butter together,
Then you and me, are in the nature.

2008年1月25日星期五

jan 25

I think Whitman has the same idea with Thoreau and Emerson which is transcendentalism. In these pages, he tries to remind us to look through things with our “own eyes”. We can understand it better through the idea transcendentalism. Bother him and Thoreau went to live near the wood and tried to find the true meaning of life. They suggest that we should live for ourselves which means we can have our own perspectives toward the world. Moreover, Whitman is more active about that. He even advocates us to be naked approaching the nature to find ourselves. Obviously, I think it doesn’t work nowadays. Because of too many restrictions, more importantly, we will get discriminated by others in the society. At present, less and less people will comprehend what Whitman says; even they understand it, they wouldn’t do it either. So I guess when Whitman lived in this time, he would pay much attention to the utilitarianism in the society. People pay too much attention to their benefit so that they miss a lot even their morality.

2008年1月22日星期二

JAN16

How civil disobedience influence the action of Non-cooperation

Thoreau’s civil disobedience means reject to cooperate with governor if you think what he does is wrong. Beside this, it is a gentle action without violence or turbulence. Similarly, Gandhi’s non-cooperation means not to follow what the governor says if you are against them even if they use means to fight against you.
We can understand their ideas when we trace back to their era. During Thoreau’s period, American government was having a war with Mexico although lots of people were against this war within the country. Thoreau used his special action that he didn’t pay the toll tax to show his dissatisfaction to the government although he paid one day in jail as punishment. In colonial India, Ghandi even held a larger action of non-cooperation to protest the colony of British.
Thoreau, who is very close to another famous literature figure Emerson, was influenced by Emerson’s transcendentalism a lot. With the effect of transcendentalism, he made up his own ideas which are called individualism and activism. The ideas of spirit power of human beings courage him to do what he wants without concerning much about the consequences; at the same time, he did those kinds of things by himself for most the time. Ghandi absorbs Thoreau’s civil disobedience to use it as means to protest the British without violence action. Ghandi studied other culture and was impressed their advanced ideas. In that time, British were more advanced than India so that Indian would pay a lot to gain independence from British if they had war with them. To solve that problem peacefully and more efficient, Ghandi mixed Indian ideas and civil disobedience to form his non-cooperation.
“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” --from Ghandi
“The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, (2) the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for, in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure.” --– from Civil Disobedience
From the quotes, “an eye for an eye” is similar with “abused”. Both of the phase emphasize that we should not set the law of governing only for punishment with violent action, or it would make the society disordered and disharmonious.
“All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency is great and unendurable. . .
"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall — think of it, always."
“Fall, tyrants” and “tyranny, unendurable” implied that both of them were not satisfied with their government at that time. In their opinions, these kinds of government must be overthrown early or late. They deeply think it is the tendency of history, so they used their action to realize it.

Jan21

These two authors can contribute to their communities with these pieces in some aspects. After the reader read it, they can know what they should do. These two pieces will tell them to cherish time and take advantage of each second in their lives.

They can help themselves through writing the pieces to express themselves, in the meantime, the reader will know what they mean and do the thing with the author.Throught takeing the advantage of time,the community can produce their own spirit to have their own life.

2008年1月14日星期一

jan11

Injustice Law in China

Although China government always says Chinese are in communist society, however, there are a lot of injustices existing in not only the society but the law.
In China, laws are applied differently to member of Communist Party and common people. For example, if a minister gets bribery then it is discovered, though he will get caught and judged, he won’t be punished too heavily even though the bribery is a great amount. Opposite to this, recently, there was a guy found the ATM didn’t work in the right way and got two hundred thousand Yuan illegally. After a year, he reported it voluntary but was sentenced life imprisonment. From this case, we can see how the laws unfairly.
If we could change it, obviously, it seems easy, I can just apply the law the all kinds of people equally. Furthermore, for reminding people not to commit a crime, we can even more make it stricter to the members of Communist Party.

2008年1月8日星期二

Jan 8

Life without decorations

The marrow of life is to stay with nature,which means live simplely.Being simple is hard, so many people,including the writer,suffer a lot during their life. If we live in a busy life, we are not living for ourselves, we are living for going on living. Everyone should have his dream, which may be set when he is child.The marrow of life can be found during his way to chase his dream.In short, the marrow of life is to find a goal and to accomplish it although you can't finally, and not to care about too much things about living, live for ourselves,live base on the nature.
I would like use bee to describe what our life is. We are like bees, they busy collecting the honey most of the time for their life, but in the end, the honey is taken by human beings,leave nothing for the bees.Their life seems worthless with no goal except collecting honey.We are the same, we have such good place to live, howevey, we are chasing endless new things everyday,we forget why we live in this world, this life is worthless too.

2008年1月7日星期一

Jan 7

1.In the last part of the paragraph, writer tells us he thinks of the day with the wind blowing freely and forever. The blowing wind makes writer feels like staying in the heaven which is quiet and holy. Staying in the blowing wind is like being in the heaven without not much extra things. The paragraph is talking about how his life will be in his new house too. So if air can blow through his house, he can feel like being in the quiet nature himself again.

2.
1)To live so sturdily and Spartan- like so that he can suck out the marrow of the life. Hard life can let him find the origin meaning of life directly .
2)Living in such a simple life enable him to find out what is ensential to him and what he can live without. It teaches him how to choose to live.

3.
1)"though the fable tells us that we were long ago changed into men; like pygmies we fight with cranes; it is error upon error, and clout upon clout and our best virtue has for its occasion a superfluous and evitable wretchedness. Our life is frittered away by detail."
2)Because he mainly talked about life in this article .What he thinks living should be is to be simple. For example, blowing wind and living in the wood seems very simple and boring, but only this can make he understand where he lives and what he lives for. Simple life could mean we live for ourselves not others, we could live simplly withour caring so much about other things; we should not be controlled by the life.


What is the purpose for us to do such much things?Does it work for us or are we working for it?