i vs. crowd

i believe that in the begining of the peom, whitman starts out with a delema that he with eventually solve for us. he uses words like “I vs. crowd” and “I vs. tide,” i interpreted this as him feeling unattached to his surroundings. he was a human, not a drop of water, and therefore cannot completely relate witht he tides around him, nature. yet he saw others, dressed normally, going along with normal activities and was so intrigued by them. he still could not relate to them either. who was he? maybe the begining of the poem is a struggle of self-identity. he is not relating completely with his surroundings and is struggleing to find a way to embrase all of them equally. however, as expected, the end of the poem leads whitman to a solution. he says with great enthusiasm, ”

” and he goes on to state, “we recieve you with free sense at last.” i think the conslusion of the poem leads whitmans to see that his fellow man, weather in nature or city, is still a man. is still part of him and he must pick up the masses and embrass all forms on this earth. he finds a way to mesh all of what he loves so dearly together. like in the previous text, where he speaks of atoms coming together and meshing. i am drifting toward the same concept.

The wiki project

the project was insiteful because the photographs offered a different representation of the poem than i had ever considered before. i was also able to see what my classmates thought of the poem. almost like a collaberative work. it was quit fun actually, if i may say that without sounding like a complete nerd.

however, i thought that the directions could have been worded in a way that was less cluttered and more easily understandable. other than the directions, it was a wonderfully refreshing assignment. then again, maybe it was just me [the direction thing].

i was able to SEE the poem. i learned to read the poem differently because usually i simply read the text in front of me. i can read it clearly and comprehend it but being able to visually see the poem gave me different insite; opened my mind to different ways understanding the text. 

Song of Myself

“For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”

i chose this quote out of the essay because it is exactly what my mom used to tell me when i was little. i never really grasped the consept until i got a little older but it still spoke to me. my mother is big into quantum physics and is quite spiritual [you know, 'the secret' 'what the bleep do we know' etc.] i remember her teching me the ‘law of attraction’ and many other laws of the universe at a very young age, such as intentional manifestation and the power of the mind. this quote really ties all of her teachings together, saying that everyone is made of the same material, our minds vibrate on the same level and we can achieve such power, such levels of peace so out of this world that it would blow our minds. we, the human race, need to get back to a time when we had a peaceful purpose for being on this earth. this quote allows us to open those doors and see into the past, when we truely were all connected. our DNA has lost that over the decades. oh, and my picture was the one of the two hands drawing eachother. i thought it fit this quote to a T. im not exactly sure how to do all of the ‘linking’ though.

Emerson

Emerson writes: “Colleges and books only copy the language which the field and the work-yard made” (8) As he is so poeticly stating above, books and institutions, such as colleges, draw from the past to try and control the minds of the young. history, books, the past, it is all being taught today; but what is not being taught is how to be a ‘creative reader.’ to be a creative reader one must not take the words in a book as truth but rather question them, apply them to life and find new ways of interpreting them, even changing the words to fit today. a creative reader is inspired by books. inspired to create, to live, to better his and the life around him; the world. to not be moved or inspired by a book is simply to read words on a page. his quote explains, beautifully if i might add, that nature is where knowlege and perhaps Truth, even, is obtained, and that the human and nature interact on the same level. if there are laws in nature then those same laws are what humans abide by. they oporate on the same level. in order to gain new knowledge, one must not look to the past [books], but rather to nature, inward, and gain the new knowledge; the divine knowledge, Truth.

Pod 3

As I pointed his staff at a female figure on the path, in whom I recognized a very pious and exemplary dame, who had taught me my catechism in youth, and was still my moral and spiritual adviser, jointly with the minister and Deacon Gookin. I spoke aloud, “A marvel, truly, that Goody Cloyse should be so far in the wilderness at nightfall. But with you leave, friend, I shall take a cut through the woods until we have left this Christian woman behind. Being a stranger to you, she might ask whom I was consorting with and whither I was going.” My fellow-traveler replied, “Be it so. Betake you to the woods, and let me keep the path.” Accordingly I turned aside, but took care to watch my companion, who advanced softly along the road until he had come within a staff’s length of the old dame. She, meanwhile, was making the best of her way, with singular speed for so aged a woman, and mumbling some indistinct words – a prayer, doubtless – as she went. My companion put forth his staff and touched her withered neck with what seemed the serpent’s tail. She cried out, “The devil!”  My companion traveler seemed satisfied that Goody Cloyse recognized him to be so. She was fearful, “Ah, forsooth and is it your worship indeed?” Surprisingly the man proclaimed, “Yea, truly is it, and in the very image of my old gossip, Goodman Brown, the grandfather of the silly fellow that now is. But – would you worship believe it? – my broomstick hath strangely disappeared, stolen, as I suspect, by the unhanged witch, Goody Cory, and that, too, when I was all anointed with the juice of smallage, and cinquefoil, and wolf’s bane.” I announced, “Mingled with fine wheat and that fat of a new-born babe, yet the old lady cackled, “Ah, your worship knows the recipe.” “So, as I was saying, being all ready for the meeting, and no horse to ride on, I made up my mind to foot it; for they tell me there is a nice young man to be taken into communion tonight. But now your good worship will lend me your arm, and we shall be there in a twinkling.” Her friend answered, “That can hardly be, I may not spare you my arm, Goody Cloyse; but here is my staff, if you will.” He threw it down at her feet, where, perhaps, it assumed life, being on of the rods which its owner had formerly lent to the Egyptian magi. Of this fact, however, I could not take cognizance. I looked up, astonished, then looked down again, beheld neither Goody Cloyse nor the serpentine staff, but his fellow-traveler, alone, who waited for me as calmly as if nothing had happened. I told him, “This old woman taught me my catechism.” I thought aloud to myself, “There may be a devilish Indian behind every tree. What if the devil himself should be at my very elbow!”

Poe

the narrator of the story, ‘the man of the crowd,’ is so captured by a single individual in a crowd of people. the narrator is just getting over an illness and is sitting at a coffee shop wasting the day away. he exahusts the paper and his cigar and begins people watching out the window. he observes many people, most of which he can either describe or categorize. he feels as though he can pick some one out of the crowd and know their class, educational background, career, etc., until his eyes come across a man that he cannot. he takes it upon himself to follow the man around the city and is shocked at his behavior. the reason the narrator is so interested in this individual is pure curiosity. he is not like the others and the others are what the narrator knows. so he follows the man in order to gain more knowledge. he finds him to be dirty yet wearing plush clothing. this confuses the narrator because he is unable to categorize the man into a class. he questions why he is lurking in the night, alone, in crime-ridden parts of the town. he wants to know the mans secret, what he is doing and for what purposes. he never learns. but for the narrator, his human quality of curiosity has overcome him. i believe that most people fear the unknown, such as death, new cities, new schools, etc., yet the narrator does not. he is a bold man for following him so closely, even if he did happen to wear shoes that do not make any sound on that particular day. curiosity killed the cat but not the narrator. he went on an adventure with the man of the crowd, did not end up solving any questions about him because he lead the narrator only to more confusion, yet the narrator found comfort in learning that not all people are predictable. maybe what you see during the day is not who they are when night falls.

pollution

pollution exists all around us. not simply pollution in the sence of dirty L.A. smog or trash in the streets but also within society and humans themselves. as a child, we see those around us, our parents, babysitters, aunts and uncles, etc., to be pure. my conclusion as to why we generalize them as so is because these people make the biggest impacts in our lives. we know nothing better at the time. we look up to them and categorize them on the top of our lists with all others below. my first taste of pollution, of which i was not ready for in the least, was my parents unexpected divorce. they never fought, they never yelled, we always spent time together as a family and nothing ever seemed the matter. one day i came home from school, they sat me on the couch and with smiles on their faces, used as masks to keep me from seeing the total distruction of the world around me as i knew it, exlaimed proudly that they were to be divorced. how was i to react? i was stunned. i never saw it coming, the life i had with my family was pure and exact, now i see a polluted picture of my life hanging in front of me and i was either going to have to learn how to overcome and deal with this or completely loose faith in what i believed in. for a while there i had lost my faith. i was dissapointed with my parents, my role moles, because they were supposed to be perfect. they were supposed to be ideal. they were not. finally, i learned that i can either see the world as black and white with the good or the bad, or i could open my eyes and begin tho view the gery parts of life. i found the grey areas to be pleasently calming and i was able to find a balance with my life. my parents are wonderful people and have remained loyal friends thoughout the entire divorce and beyond. i can now see that just because they are no longer together does not mean that all of a sudden they were evil. infact, they are better people today. loving, supportive and active in their childrens lifes. the conclusion to all of my bable is that i have found pollution to be something that can either control ones life or that can enhance one life. enhancement if beautifel.

Was I Dreaming?

An interesting aspect of the story “Young Goodman Brown” was the ending, in the fact that what happended in the body of the story was left up to the reader. We were able to decide if what Goodman was experiencing was truth or fiction. i espessially enjoyed how graphic his visions were of the devil or devil like traveler that accompanied him. He saw burning bushes and rocks and alter like podiums but then later said that he touched the rock that was on fire and felt no heat; touched the branch and it was not burnt. when he returnes home he questions his sanity and faith. the end of the story spoke to me because i believe that being put through such ‘tests’ are designed to push ones sanity and belief system. having gone through events that tested my personal sanity and strength, i was able to conclued, for myself, that what he went though in the forest was fiction. none of it really happended. maybe he was dreaming, maybe he was exploring the depths and deep corners of his own mind; all of which drives someone to try and find ‘truth’. but what is ‘truth’? maybe there is no such thing, or maybe it is exclusive to ones own life, morals and beliefs. philosophers have been trying to define ‘truth’ and ‘Truth’ for centuries and i think that Goodman experienced his first taste of the many dimensions of the universe. he is just begining to question his beliefs and his way of life for that matter. as Karl Marx once said, “Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form.” i wish there was a Part II to the story, for i would love to see Goodman continue to push the boundaries and explore his mind more deeply.

Lola: About Me

I do not blog much so i am not sure how all of this works yet, so bear with me. My name is Erin but i go by Lola, however i respond to both. I am currently in my second year here at SFSU but plan on graduating in three. My major is sociology but i am interested in so much more, such as journalism, philosophy, photography, the arts, etc. I spend most of my time either at school or work [Nordstrum: Brass Plum Shoes], but when i do have time for ‘normal’ [I use that word loosely] activities you can always find me playing music, drinking coffee, tearing up the city, painting, creating art out of nothing, tattooing, hanging out awkwardly in used book stores with people way out of my age range, obsesively collecting records, etc. I am originally from Hollywood but have lived in Long Beach, New York City and now San Francisco. Back home i used to be in a sweet band but due to my moving is no longer. I am not exactly sure what i want to do with my life at this point but am satisfied with knowing that my excentric behavior and lifestyle will make a positive impact on this world. I am looking forward to this semester and hope to gain new knowledge and friends along the way.