Live Journal Weeks 1-6
My best livejournal entry from Weeks 1-6 is Week 5's. The url is http://madmickmilgsy.livejournal.com/10623.html?mode=reply.
Here's the entry
12:02 pm: Literature Week 5
Live Journal Week 5
Hi Everyone,
The texts we’ve studied this week have been rather interesting especially from a view of looking at the techniques they use. I found Eliot’s “Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock rather interesting, especially the vast number of inter-textual references he employs. Allusion to other texts can add a great deal of depth to a text and Eliot does so with distinction. The stream of consciousness that Virginia Woolf utilizes in “Mark on the Wall” is an interesting concept, not only in a literary sense but also a sense of understanding our own being a place within the greater world, or more importantly within our own minds. In light of this I’ve developed my own passage that was inspired by both of these writers.
“What is this rock? It is no more than a mere pebble and yet far more than a stone. It is but a composite of sand, built up of millions of generations and then degraded almost as equally. It is the foundation block of civilization; the stone the pyramids were built on. O mighty Pharaoh, was it you that cast this mighty piece of nature into the abyss? Was it you that manipulated it, used it for your own ends only to cast it out from your empire and let it tumble through the sands of time. Or perhaps you were the weapon of mass destruction dear nugget, the one that boy David used to topple a tyrant. You were a giant killer and empire builder. You stood by and watched the world go by, knowing you would outlast the Greeks, the Persians and the Romans. You made the Babylonians looks folly and laughed in the face of the Egyptians. You sat back as a world went to war…and then again a second time.
Am I a rock? Is that what I am? I felt the earth on Monday, move beneath my feet. I stood by as monkey became man; and man back to monkey. I watched this race; a race with no winners. This race that prides itself on being the first to wear pants, make plans, to be advanced. What is my place on this dry earth, this stone earth? Where do I stand? I lie beneath these clones, these people who do not recognize the fact that they have not changed for thousands of years. They call it evolution but I see merely revolution. Over and over they repeat their mistakes. They return to dust eventually. All things do and when they come home, do I judge? Of course not! It is not our place to judge. We provide the footings, the foundations for their lives. We exist only to serve. We require no praise, no applause nor reception; for we will never be received nor thanked nor loved. But we will always remember; for we came first and will go last. We will experience everything in between and no one will ever know the truth; that is our duty.
If only I could understand the mind of this rock, to understand its thoughts and feelings. Does it think? Does it feel? Does it dream? Or are these merely human concepts? Are they lost in the fullness of nature? Do they hold a place or are they but figments of the mind, destined to be trapped there forever. Do I dare to touch this rock, to hold it, to skim it across the pond?
No I don’t. I step back. Retreat into the darkness. The selfish they all wait in line, faithing and hoping to buy themselves time. Me? I figure as each breath goes by, I only own my mind. I let the rock pass. Let it continue on whatever great adventure it may embark on and recoil to the safety of my mind.
I will never know what possessed that rock to look upon me the way it did, to trespass across my path. But I glad it did. For it showed me the magnitude of my existence and made the journey all the more worthwhile.
Here's the entry
12:02 pm: Literature Week 5
Live Journal Week 5
Hi Everyone,
The texts we’ve studied this week have been rather interesting especially from a view of looking at the techniques they use. I found Eliot’s “Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock rather interesting, especially the vast number of inter-textual references he employs. Allusion to other texts can add a great deal of depth to a text and Eliot does so with distinction. The stream of consciousness that Virginia Woolf utilizes in “Mark on the Wall” is an interesting concept, not only in a literary sense but also a sense of understanding our own being a place within the greater world, or more importantly within our own minds. In light of this I’ve developed my own passage that was inspired by both of these writers.
“What is this rock? It is no more than a mere pebble and yet far more than a stone. It is but a composite of sand, built up of millions of generations and then degraded almost as equally. It is the foundation block of civilization; the stone the pyramids were built on. O mighty Pharaoh, was it you that cast this mighty piece of nature into the abyss? Was it you that manipulated it, used it for your own ends only to cast it out from your empire and let it tumble through the sands of time. Or perhaps you were the weapon of mass destruction dear nugget, the one that boy David used to topple a tyrant. You were a giant killer and empire builder. You stood by and watched the world go by, knowing you would outlast the Greeks, the Persians and the Romans. You made the Babylonians looks folly and laughed in the face of the Egyptians. You sat back as a world went to war…and then again a second time.
Am I a rock? Is that what I am? I felt the earth on Monday, move beneath my feet. I stood by as monkey became man; and man back to monkey. I watched this race; a race with no winners. This race that prides itself on being the first to wear pants, make plans, to be advanced. What is my place on this dry earth, this stone earth? Where do I stand? I lie beneath these clones, these people who do not recognize the fact that they have not changed for thousands of years. They call it evolution but I see merely revolution. Over and over they repeat their mistakes. They return to dust eventually. All things do and when they come home, do I judge? Of course not! It is not our place to judge. We provide the footings, the foundations for their lives. We exist only to serve. We require no praise, no applause nor reception; for we will never be received nor thanked nor loved. But we will always remember; for we came first and will go last. We will experience everything in between and no one will ever know the truth; that is our duty.
If only I could understand the mind of this rock, to understand its thoughts and feelings. Does it think? Does it feel? Does it dream? Or are these merely human concepts? Are they lost in the fullness of nature? Do they hold a place or are they but figments of the mind, destined to be trapped there forever. Do I dare to touch this rock, to hold it, to skim it across the pond?
No I don’t. I step back. Retreat into the darkness. The selfish they all wait in line, faithing and hoping to buy themselves time. Me? I figure as each breath goes by, I only own my mind. I let the rock pass. Let it continue on whatever great adventure it may embark on and recoil to the safety of my mind.
I will never know what possessed that rock to look upon me the way it did, to trespass across my path. But I glad it did. For it showed me the magnitude of my existence and made the journey all the more worthwhile.