Hawaii!

My blog becomes my journal

Today I entered a room on campus that I had not been in for about six years. I looked at the wall and immediately recognized a poster that has been there for all of my absence, statically staring down at countless unknowingly fleeting students. For some reason, I felt an aversion, an animosity even, for the poster. Why does it have a greater power than myself? How can it possess time in its clutches? I found myself utterly helpless in an attempt to hold on to a moment, feeling the suffocating of time passing even as I scowl at the poster, yet there it remains: immutable, omnipotent, constant. Why do I find in inanimation a life force that doesn't exist in life? "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am know."

Moby Dick

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am going to try reviewing my books again. I was assigned to read this book for a college English class two years ago, by one of the best Professors that I have had. I didn't get the chance to read the entire book while I was taking the class, but I knew it would become a favourite.

Melville is one of those reminders that I have in life that I will "never be but a shy guest at the feast of the world's culture." His vocabulary and use of allusion show a scholastic endeaver that exceeds anything that I find in the last century. I disagree with those who say that our language is simply "changing over time," and would boldy declare that our language is slipping towards the pits of tartarus, with Moby Dick as my blazing standard.

My favourite quote:
"He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it."

Go read a book!
“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”

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Institution Of Higher Learning

Several People have told me that I am wasting my time taking frivolous classes that don't accomplish anything. I am writing to explain myself.

The University today is simply a prerequisite for entering the workforce. I think that most college students are missing out on a fleeting opportunity. There are scads of topics being discussed all over campus, while students sit in the food court deciding whether they should join Occupy Wall Street or not.

In Classical Studies, Dance, Art, and Philosophy, I have gained experiences that I would have never found elsewhere. Computer Engineering is only one limited lens for viewing the world.

I would like to encourage every college student, especially those without jobs, to take the chance to gain an education rather than just a diploma.

Morals

The Stranger by Albert Camus

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


Once again I find myself with that post-salinger feeling. There have been several books I have read since the Catcher in the Rye that have evoked the same feeling. This is yet another book that is seeking to make a point that I do not find unique or unexplored in my life.

At this point, I feel like I should start giving Salinger credit. It seems that there were an abundance of authors trying to reach the same sort of ideas during the 20th century. I would have to say that he did the best job of summing them up.


This brings me to my discovery. Over the past year, I have completed 32 books from my list. The main thing I have gotten out of this is that I really like novels written before the 20th century.



It seems to me that these novels were able to bring into focus the flaws of "morality" as defined by society. Here are a few examples:

Huckleberry Finn: An unschooled child is the only one in the novel who seems to understand what is right.

The Scarlet Letter: "It was an age in which the human intellect, newly emancipated, had taken a more active and a wider range than for many centuries before. Men of the sword had overthrown nobles and kings. Men bolder than these had overthrown and rearranged—not actually, but within the sphere of theory, which was their most real abode—the whole system of ancient prejudice, wherewith was linked much of ancient principle. Hester Prynne imbibed this spirit. She assumed a freedom of speculation, then common enough on the other side of the Atlantic, but which our forefathers, had they known of it, would have held to be a deadlier crime than that stigmatized by the scarlet letter."

A Tale of Two Cities: The French revolters are as oppressive and amoral as the leadership they overthrow.

20th century novels, on the other hand, seem to me to take this idea one step further. It seems that following conclusion is drawn:

Society's morals are relative and incorrect. Therefore, all morals must be relative.

I do not agree with this conclusion at all. The one exception I have found is To Kill a Mockingbird, which was written in the 20th century. Lee once again points out that morals as dictated by society are often wrong, but shows that morality is a very real and absolute truth.




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