Not So Sure I'd Want That World

Weird New World

The next novel that I have moved onto since 1984, is a Brave New World. It was authored by Aldous Huxley in 1932

What a Book

After finishing up reading 1984, I think that I may have just found one of my new favorite novels. This book had so many points in it that were brought to light from real life events. The USSR and Nazi Germany tied in so closely with the main theme of the novel that its not even funny. The place that Winston and others called home in this novel was one of the dreariest places that I could ever fathom. I know that I would off myself before I ever had to live there, you know, with all the Big Brother shit going on and all. Who in their right mind would ever want live there. The place sucked from the very beginning and if anything, it only got worse as the novel went on. It was by far unsanitary to say the least. I'm a clean person, and besides camping, I do not like to live in a dirty or rundown shithole environment. This place fitted that description to a T. If anybody would actually opt to go and live there, then they are out of their damn minds. I know that it sounds like I don't like anything about the novel, but its actually on the contrary; I love reading about places like this, and the lives that people have to live while trying to survive in these conditions. It's just that I would not want, well that I would never live in such a place.

1984, "The Day That Will Hopefully Never Come"

After reading this book, I have new found respect for the world that I live in. I say this because if I had to live in the world of 1984's setting, then I would probably be dead. All the freedoms that we as Americans have, are freedoms that, for the most part, would not exist in the world of 1984. It almost seems as if the people in this book live in a world not all that different than that of Nazi Germany or Communist Russia. You have to constantly watch what you do or say every damn waking moment of your life. The telescreen was something new to me, I never thought of the government instrumenting such a device to keep an eye of all of its people. It must really suck to have to worry if you are being watched by "Big Brother" all the time. I personally would probably be dead if I lived in that world, cause I don't know how to keep my mouth shut as it is, let alone keeping it shut when the government is telling me what, when, where, and how to do something every damn day of my life. I'm not one for authority if you haven't already noticed, so yea, the world of 1984 would be a short lived one for me. I would have to say that I would stockpile a bunch of weapons and go down fightin in a blaze of glory if I was a person living in the world that this novel portrayed.

The Rich Don't Care and The Poor Already Live It

Henry David Thoreau was a very good writer. Thoreau is well known ,internationally, for being one of the most talented writers in our county's history. Besides that I really don't know a whole bunch about him, but one thing that I do feel that I know about him, is that he really was born into the wrong social class. To the best of my knowledge Thoreau was born in New England somewhere to a fairly well-off family. He was raised, I'm sure, to the highest that standards allowed back in the day, especially if the setting was in New England. So to say the least, he was brought up in a very prim and proper fashion. I felt that I was able to see this through his writings that we read in class. The passage was titled The Cabin, and it was a story that explained how Thoreau went out into the woods of Massachusetts, to get away from the everyday hustle and bustle of city and just overall modern day life of the time. He spoke all the time throughout the passage about how he hated the industrialization of the world, and how it would lead to the demise of all things good.

I'm gonna have to say that I agree with him on some level, but what I feel that he didn't get was the fact that the people who did have money at that time probably did not care what Thoreau was saying. They were making their money, and for all of history, that's all that has ever mattered, so why would it have been any different back then. Hell, if any thing, they probably would have cared even less in the 1840s, because this was the dawn of the industrial revolution, and there were millions to be made by anybody who had the brains to come up with a half decent invention. So, here's Thoreau writing about how the world needs to regress back to caveman time in the middle of the industrial revolution, and the only people who are going to take a look at his work are the people who can actually read, and they, most likely, will only be people with some money to show; who probably really don't care to take a hand in what Thoreau would like to see happen. The poor on the other hand, who were pretty much anybody that didn't have a nice job in the city, didn't have the money or the scholastic ability to purchase or even read Thoreau's books. Not only that, but they also had already been practicing the life that Thoreau purposely went out and tried to live for a year. So, pretty much the folks from both ends of the spectrum were not going to be giving out any sympathy to Thoreau's views on simplying, simplifying, simplifying.

Dumbest Generation? More Like Dumbest Society.

In this day and age, advances in technology have enabled us, as not only a single generation but as a society in whole, to not really have to perform or put very much time and effort into many of the tasks that we otherwise would have had to just a few years ago. Whether it is the amount of time that it takes to communicate with friends or family who live far away or the way that we can do our jobs from home on our computer, technology has given us this option and we have ran with it. We take these privileges for granted, and it really gets under my skin when some professor makes a statement that it is just my generation. I can tell you right now that I've spent more time working with my hands and being outside in wonderful mother nature than that professor on the video has. It's real easy for him to sit back and talk about how messed up the younger kids are today than for them to take a look back at themselves and see how they are the ones who gave us the opportunity get at all of this technology that we have today. When someone can make a living in a country by talking about how messed up the citizens of that country are, but really is not doing a damn thing to help the situation, then I'd say that we've all reached the pinnacle of patheticness, not just the most recent generations who were born into a world that has constantly shoved technology down their throats. How are they not supposed to be hooked on it, it's all they know.

Get Real With Yourself

This week's blog is going to be about our assigned reading from last week. The chapters covered in the assigned reading elaborated on several points of interest to me. All of which revolve around people's perceptions of what they should believe in. As I read these chapters, I was thinking, are people really this naive, or are we as a society really that entranced in all of this messed up stuff that the book talks about. So, I thought about it for awhile, and what I feel is that there are many people who suffer from this plague of consumerism and misguidance by the media, technology, or just another person's opinion. Yet, there are also folks out there who see the real picture and do not give into it. The ones who don't give into their desires of materialism, are the people who have a good head on their shoulders. If you are really that weak minded that you go out and buy or do something just because everyone else has, then I'm sorry, you are pathetic.

My dad always told me to be a leader and not a follower, and that is exactly what I've strived to grow up to be. There is not one soul out there who's going to talk me into something if I don't like the looks or sound of it. People who I consider to be my good friends are all mostly the same way. Being friends with a bunch of hard headed guys like myself leads to a lot of arguing amongst us, but that's what makes us so close. If we all just gave into what someone said to us right away, then what type of person would that make each of us. We would be a bunch of timid, easily persuaded pee-ons that couldn't think for ourselves. I see people who match that description everyday. I'm not saying they're bad people; they're actually probably more likely to be the ones who don't get into any hairy situations or trouble, because they don't have the self-will to stand up for themselves or what they believe in. Now I'd be a liar if I said that I'm not friends or acquaintances with anyone who is like this, but people like this will never be a good friend to me though. I just can't have a good friend who is going to agree with my every thought or be easily persuaded by the smallest of other people's whims. That is not healthy for them or you as their friend, because if one person makes a bad decision, then who's going to be there to speak up and let that person know that what they are doing or what they are about to do is not right, and how if they decide to make that bad choice, it could possibly lead to them getting into trouble or simply getting nowhere.