Blog Review – #1

This week I reviewed a friend of mine, Dan.
Im good friends with Dan so I thought it’d be good to review his first.

Hey Dan,
I enjoyed the bit of research you did for this blog post, I don’t really know anything about Native American clans but it does sound like an interesting topic to research.
I think the only nitpick I can come up with for this post would be a lack of actually explaining how you personally believe:

“…that we can apply the Native American sense of the importance of nature to make our own lives whole and meaningful. “.

You do briefly touch on about how we can form a closer bond with animals to be closer to nature but it would have been nice to hear your own personal voice on how an everyday person can apply the sense of nature to make our own lives more whole and meaningful.

Overall I give you 4 crash “Woahs!” out of 5.

Adam.

https://daniel4946.wordpress.com/2017/08/15/blog-post-1-week-3-2/comment-page-1/#comment-80

American Literature – Blog #3

This week I’m going to try and give writing a poem like Emily Dickinson a try. It’ll probably fail horribly but eh its worth a shot. Going to say this is not about me I’m actually thinking of a specific character in mind while writing this, bonus points if you can guess who it is before hitting the last line.

I cannot live with you –
This feeling always persistent.
A once glistening light =
engulfed by perpetual darkness-

A Man broke down –
or perhaps – a Boy.
The glint in his eye –
long since gone –

Self Medicated, Self-destruction –
On edge –
Living through others –
is his last hope.

The only one he trusts –
a nervous wreck.
Yet he still finds comfort-
within his neurotic stupidity.

When it reaches a conclusion –
may be a while yet –
one thing is certain –
It’s all Jerrys fault.

Obviously much shorter than Emily Dickinson’s original poem as I am nowhere near as good. The amount of effort she must have put into her poetry is outstanding, especially to only see so little of her work published while being alive. I like her dark style so I wanted to use that to make a little joke that I’m sure most people around my age will get, because hey, some of the funniest humour comes from dark places.

American Literature – Blog #2

This week’s look into transcendentalism was quite refreshing and something I rather enjoyed. Recently I have found myself reading/watching and listening to different philosophers besides Emerson and Thoreau including Friedrich Nietzsche, Stefan Molyneux and while not technically a philosopher he does talk a lot about philosophy within his psychology lectures, Mr Jordan B. Peterson. Saying this ive chosen option one for today’s blog.

It is while reflecting on Emersons “Self Reliance” essay, however, that has affected me the most, specifically the following line:

“Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.”

I believe what Emerson is saying in this sentence is to not believe in external factors to bring you happiness, only your own morals, values and principles can lead you to a happy existence, Which is something I try to live by. While having new flashy things is nice I believe that to be truly happy you need to be happy with yourself. And by knowing where your own morals and values lay you can decide much easier for yourself what is right or wrong, what will make you happy or unhappy. I aim to live my life trying to do what I believe is morally correct and encourage others to do so, I think the world would be a much better place if we put aside what morals and values different ideologies and religions place upon us and stay true to our own internal morals and values.

I hope to read more philosophy based writings in the future and hopefully can take a unit in it for literature.

American Literature – Blog Entry #1

So where back, after a break which felt way too long it’s good to be back at uni. And I’ve decided to kick off the literature blog posts by answering the 1st question in the critical category.

“Can we apply the Native American sense of the importance of nature to make our own lives more whole and meaningful?”

I think this question is great, I whole heartedly believe that if everybody did impart some of the importance of nature within our lives that we would all live a much fuller and meaningful life. So much of our life these days is spent doing tasks that are either pointless or are just done with the sole attempt to just perpetuate our existence, not that this is a bad thing, but by being able to take a break from these tasks and step back and really embrace nature it could help us find who we truly are, and what we truly want in life. I know personally that if I’m ever stuck in a rut I’ll often take the dog for a walk out in the park and either just think about the situations I’m in and the actions I can take to put myself in a better position or throw on some philosophy podcast and truly self-reflect. I don’t think I’d be able to do this if I was stuck at a desk or doing some sort of activity that I don’t enjoy doing.
I believe that by embracing the importance of nature within one’s own life and getting away from the hustle and bustle of life can have great positive effects on one’s self, which in my case allows me to self-reflect on my current state and in turn allows me to strive towards the actions I have to take to live a much more whole and meaningful life.