what DO we "need"...?

"What do we need" is a question that most people ponder on a variety of levels, but few actually live by what they say they believe. Typically we divide what we "need" into a few basic categories. There are needs for surviving: water, oxygen, protection from extreme weather. Needs we have socially: the "right" car or job or outfit. And needs we have emotionally: security, love, etc. which are perhaps the most basic and necessary "needs". 

At the risk of sounding extremely sappy and twelve, I have to admit that after a full day of pondering this question I have come to the conclusion that I believe (at least at this point in my life and with a not-so-impressive maturity level...) that all we need is love. Love is the one thing that ALL people (no matter their social standing, income level, cultural background, age, etc.) strive for. Be it from one's family, friends, romantic interest, or God, everyone wants to feel needed and cherished; being truly happy and content relies on one satisfying this craving. With love, the poor feel rich, the rich feel equal, the powerful are humbled, the insignificant gain meaning. To survive, yes we need basic bodily substances, but surviving is not truly living. Material possessions, also, to not allow us to live. Love, though, makes true living possible. It is therefore the one thing that we truly need.

*end rant*  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLGWyfGk_LU

Final Project

First, I would like to note that I do not, in fact, dislike tragedy. On the contrary, I very much enjoy reading it, perhaps more than any other genre. In my last post, I merely meant that personally I do not believe life itself to be tragic. Yes, it contains tragedies, but those are what steers life away from monotony and toward "worthwhile". Tragedy, also, is a matter of personal circumstance - we can only, I believe, experience tragedy to the extent of which we allow ourselves to experience it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hieros Gamos, the topic that I have chosen for my final project, is something that fascinates me more and more as i continue to familiarize myself with the works of William Shakespeare. Back in January, I was already considering pursuing my analysis of holy marriage further (see older blogs) and, as we pass the midpoint of this course, I am even more convinced that this is the topic I wish to write about. 

The focus of this piece will be The Tempest, namely the relationship between Ferdinand and Miranda, but I will also reference A Midsummer Night's Dream and Hamlet. Hughes and Turner, as well as The Bottom Translation will serve as my outside sources. 

I plan on discussing not only holy marriage, but also love in general, infatuation, passion, and looking with the eyes v.s. the mind v.s. the heart. I will also show how the Shakespearean angle of these concepts is timeless, and how it relates to our current American culture.  

Signs and Symbols

"This, and much more, she accepted - for after all, living did mean accepting the loss of one joy after another, not even joys in her case - mere possibilities of improvement." Honestly I was not even planning on reading the Signs and Symbols piece by Vladimir Nabokov - at least not during spring break. But I ended up having a little down-time at work this evening and was able to pull the pdf up on my phone...and wow. Without being overly wordy, excessively descriptive, or sickeningly emotional, this short, inconclusive piece is intriguing and beautifully written. It embodies lovely rhetoric with suspense and raw human emotion, all in less than four pages. 

Contemplating this piece, and more so simply the idea of life itself being a tragedy, I would have to say that I disagree with this summarization - life is not tragic...it has no ability to absorb such personification. Life simply is. And at a risk of sounding cliche, it is what we as individuals make it. This concept is especially hard for our current culture to grasp - because many people today are raised in a world where they feel a strong sense of entitlement, they focus solely on their own public image in society—when the emphasis of existence orbited survival, many of these feelings of worthlessness and confusion weren't as prevalent. Now, though, society has reached a mile-marker where people have excess time and excess intelligence for the lives many of us choose to live. We make situations tragic. There is no "good" situations, or "bad" situations - they are merely what we interpret them to be.

In Nabokov's story, the parents' entire outlook is changed once they make a decision to better their situation, and that of their son. Even before the situation is changed, the tragic element is taken out of it once a conscious choice is made. To complain that "life" is a tragedy is, I feel, is merely an attempt to escape one's own credibility.The reason, then, that many people are so miserable, is because we allow ourselves to strut and fret and then blame it on the "institution" of existence.

-AS     

My Sonnet

To give a heart yet loose one’s very self

A death; surrender to what cannot be

Alone until that light of promise brings

A troubled soul and body pulled to me

His rich low voice sent tremors to my core

A miracle again to feel at all

Calm now interrupts internal war

A spring to counter never ending fall

Familiar lips can mask a stranger’s eyes

A temporary cure of shattered hearts

In days gone by a heart that solely cries

This time though a fine and abstract art

A warmth replaces empty dreams forlorn

A hope the nightstand fee left in the morn’  

As I've said before, I don't much care for the sonnet format. I still don't really care for it. But after experimenting with it, I have decided that it is a good tool, if nothing else, to assist poetry writers with allowing their writing to flow within a frame; to embody an entire meaning in fourteen lines. I strove to let the format simply be. So this is my result. While it doesn't exactly follow the prompt, I tried to keep it along the lines of butterfly-love...albeit a slightly unconventional kind. Enjoy.