Response to a Response

I just read a post by Eamon Callahan called Story Endings (click title for Eamon’s post). The post isn’t really about one book, It is about Eamon often rereads books that have sad endings. He then gives a few examples of these books and the tragic endings they have. He writes about how he might be always rereading them because he keeps hoping the ending will change even though he knows it wont. He writes that that is the difference between books and reality, we can change reality, but we can’t change the book.

The first reason I chose this was that I relate to it. I was recently rereading one of my favorite books, Nobody’s Princess (features in this blog). Unfortunately, I hate the ending. I never want the bad things to happen even though I know they will. This post has made me think more about why I keep rereading even though it annoys me. The thoughts in Eamon’s post also make me think about how in that particular book it is not that the ending sucks but that I would not make the same choice the main character did at the end of the book. I had no power over the ending and that bothered me. I kept hoping that if I read it one more time I would influence the main character’s choices.

            Another thing Eamon writes about briefly in his post is how part of the reason people love TV shows and books is because you never know what will happen and it leaves you on the edge of your seat. I think that Eamon could have expanded on this because it is a very interesting idea. However, he did not, so I will do it for him. I do agree with the initial idea Eamon has here, but there is more to it. I do not think it is just the fact that it leaves people on the edge of their seats that makes people like movies and books. There is, of course, the fact that they transport you to another world. I also think it is partly that they relieve you of responsibility for anything that happens in the book. You did not make the choice, the writer did, so you are not responsible for anything bad that happens. It allows for gilt free experiences. If the book of TV show is written well, we will be sad if something bad happens, but not guilty.

On the other side of why we like things, Eamon wrote about how people like video games because they give you complete control while still feeling safe. I again agree and will again expand on this interesting idea. This also relates to gilt. In video game you can go around shooting people and blowing things up without a pang of gilt because you know it is fake and no one has given the characters a personality, which would make them seem more real. Video games also allow us to do things otherwise impossible and try out things we know would be terrible ideas in real life.

Over all this was a great post. I think that a lot of the ideas he brought up were really interesting. After reading this post, I looked though some of Eamon’s older posts. This one was the best. It was also the longest. I think this is because in many of his other posts, Eamon touches on ideas then drops them. He even does some of that in this post. If Eamon were to elaborate a little more, all of his posts would be incredible.

Google in your Brain

I am currently reading Feed by M.T. Anderson. The book is about a futuristic world where people have tiny computers called Feeds in their brains. In this world the corporations control everything, including the schools. Students no longer learn about English or History. Instead they have classes about how to use your Feed and cool ways to decorate your room. The main character, a teen named Titus, thinks this is great and the old subjects are unnecessary because everyone is super smart thanks to the Feed. Anything someone wants to know can be looked up in his or her head. There is no need for personal thought or opinion. The Feed does it for you.

My first reaction to this was that the people in this book aren’t smart because these people don’t know things. The Feed knows things, and people who want to sell stuff control the feed. But then I started thinking, well even if someone did know all of the information the Feed could provide, would that really make them intelligent? I started thinking about this in terms of the search engines that we have today, such as Google. If someone searches something on Google, they will get a lot of information about it. They will get different opinions and thoughts and ideas about the topic with special interest groups lobbying for certain opinions. If someone were to have Google in their head with all the information on medieval times available to them on command, someone might think they were smart, until they asked the person what their opinion was on the condition that serfs lived in. They could look it up, but reciting the opinion of another person doesn’t make you personally more intelligent.

There is a certain aspect of being a smart person that is knowing facts, but if you can’t do anything with those facts then what is the point of knowing them. When we wrote our picture book forwards we had to do research, but we also included our own opinions about the subject, which is what got whatever our point was across. If we had simply written a list of random facts on the topic no one would have know what we were talking about.

Being able to memorize a bunch of facts doesn’t really make you smart.  The ability to interpret, decipher and form opinions about information makes you smart. If someone has information without understanding it or thinking about what it means, then they don’t really know about it. They know a few pieces of it but they don’t fully understand it. This is not intelligence. If a world anything like the one in Feed is the one we are headed to, then that is not a future I want to live in

We Perceive What We Want To Be Reality

            I am currently reading The Lighting Thief by Rick Riordan. The book is about a boy named Percy Jackson and his two friends, Anabeth and Grover. In the book, the Greek Myths are real. Monsters, Gods and Titans really exist to this day. Percy and his friends are on a quest to retrieve Zeus’s master bolt. During their quest they stop and a casino called the Lotus Casino. They are given free rooms, free unlimited game cards and find clothing in their rooms that are just their sizes. It occurs to Percy that something weird may be going on, but he continues to dismiss it until he comes to the realization that time moves more quickly in the casino. When he and his friends exit the casino after being inside for a few hours, they realize five days had past. Percy had noticed odd things from the very beginning but he didn’t act on them because what was happening to him appeared to be good to be true. He wanted it to be true so badly that he was willing to ignore the inconsistencies.  This is something I have noticed that humans do a lot. When we want something to be true badly enough, we cant trick ourselves into believing it is true. We perceive what we want to be reality.

            During the Holocaust people wanted to believe that the concentration camps that Jews were being sent to were safe. Germans watched as their neighbors and friends were carted away and many did nothing to stop it. Even some of the Jews who were taken told themselves that the concentrations camps were okay places. The Red Cross even inspected one of the concentration camps and said that they were safe and okay. This is a terrifying example of how people can ignore the parts of their reality that don’t fit the picture they wanted to believe. The Red Cross is supposed to provide relief to people in need. The fact that they visited a concentration camp and declared it safe shows how powerful this can be.

            People often walk through life with blinders on. We hear information and then pick and choose which parts to listen to. This is an important part of what is wrong with our political climate as well. People edit clips to support their statement and only pay attention to the things that go with what they believe. This makes for a nation of ill-informed people who make bad decisions. People need to stop picking and choosing what they hear. Just because you want to believe something is true doesn’t make it okay to ignore the facts. If you want to make informed decisions in you life, you have to look at all aspects of it. Not just what you want to see.