Round One...Fight!

Wednesday:

Today's adventure was interesting to say the least. I began my solitude by walking off the ledge my family’s home sits on. As I tumbled through fifty feet of thick jade plant, I seriously doubted what this project was going to teach me. I finally untangled myself from the soft clutches of the Jade, I found myself at the beginning of a huge patch of cacti. Twenty feet to my left I saw the bones of some long dead critter, which probably perished from lack of water in the summer and was trapped on the hill. I decided to sit down to contemplate life for a little, and found a comfortable looking stump sticking out of the hill at a strange angle. Thoughts flew in and out of my head, none of them sticking for more than a fleeting moment. The calm was interrupted by a sharp screech as two little birds fluttered to my side. The two chirping feather balls seemed to be fighting over a seemingly insignificant piece of bread, probably from my sloppy brother. This petty squabble shot a thought into my head that I couldn’t shake. How many people fought over food each day? Why is it that I get my fill of delicious morsels, while children across the world struggle to merely survive? These birds led me by the hand to my first realization in nature, the world is seriously messed up. As I began to think of ways I might be able to help, the alarm started to blare, and my 20 minutes for the day were up.

McCandless' life

After reading more into the life of Christopher McCandless’ early life, the way he lived his final months actually makes sense to me. Chris lived his life as many American teens do, he grew up in the suburbs, with a mother and father who wanted the best for him. The story about McCandless’ relationship with his dog, Buckley, showed me just how determined he was. He raced this dog on a run every day only to lose. Yet he continued to try, and one day he did it. He beat Buck, and ran around this house in excitement. Later in life, he was the sort of kid who was really into philosophy and actually doing something that could matter in the world. He shows his kindness by feeding the homeless, and his lack of faith in the world in his arguments about society. However Chris’ world shattered one faithful summer when he drove to his father’s old neighborhood in California. McCandless unearthed secrets that tore his image of his dad straight down. Walter McCandless had led a sort of double life. His previous marriage hadn’t really ended when his relationship began with Chris’ mother. Chris seemed secretly devastated by this, and I can only imagine the betrayal he felt. But it didn’t surprise me at all that the man who died by himself in the middle of Alaska had a home life like this. If society were to show me its true colors in that way, I could see myself just trying to get away from it and what it stood for.

Anticipation

I’m looking forward to my next week of wilderness. For the next 5 days, I will be going out into nature for about a half an hour a day, I look forward to the serenity of being alone. With any luck, I’ll come out of this with a different perspective on life. Who knows, this project could very well change me as a person. Or I might just sit around bored for 20 minutes a day, I guess the only way to find out is to try.

Standing fifty feet away, looking kind of spooked...

Mrs. Bradbury’s third grade class stepped into Dover Memorial Mortuary at the worst possible time. Due to a freak acronym mixup, the annual field trip to the Dover Museum of Modern Art had been switched to a trip to the local mortuary. Jimmy and Veronica, two of Bradbury’s favorite students, rounded the corner into the crematorium and were blinded by a sudden flare of the furnace. The class was greeted by creepy old Mr. Miranda, who worked the fires. As the middle-aged man leaned over to comfort a particularly scared third-grader, he tripped over a slight crack in the linoleum tile. With a scream and another flare, the man suddenly disappeared behind a curtain of flames. Mrs. Bradbury scurried to the control switch with as much speed as possible for the eighty year old widow. Alas, by the time she reached the board of shining buttons the screams had subsided. Shock and dismay swirling around the room, Jimmy edged near the furnace and saw nothing of the mortuary worker but a small pile of ashes mixed in with the previous inhabitant. The elderly teacher ushered her children out of the room, shielding her mouth and nose from the recent death as she did so. Authorities finally arrived at the scene nearly forty-five minutes later and after they cleared the death as a horrific accident, the lead man let the children zoom off in their dilapidated bus. Steve, the newest driver for Dover Scholastic Buses, who had just come off a long night, was  slightly hung over and seriously tired. The high-school dropout started to doze off as the 37 children in the back of the bus murmured about what just happened. Tires screeched and a child wailed when Steve came to, but it was too late, the bus was already careening of the cliffs and into the sea but there was nothing anyone could do.

A Letter to Lady Brett Ashley

Dear Lady Brett,

                I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your many relationships have to come to a stop. Not only are they completely inappropriate in your engagement to Mr. Mike Campbell, but you may very well be tearing the lives of your other partners apart. Take Robert Cohn for instance, he seemed quite the nice and faithful man before he met you, yet now he may very well be the most hated member of your small circle of friends. Cohn’s life has been turned upside down since his brief affair with you. Prior to your “relations” Cohn was living a very nice, if somewhat subdued, life with his longtime girlfriend Frances.  In fact, the two seemed almost destined to be married before you showed up to the party. Worse still, Cohn is not your only victim, Jake Barnes, who is clearly in love with you, has had his relationship with Robert completely blown to pieces due to you. Had you kept your cool and stayed faithful to your betrothed, these two men could very well be the best of friends. Yet all of this should pale in comparison to what you could very well be doing to Mike. This man has pledged himself with you but you’ve thrown it all down the gutter. Your lives could be perfect, but you forsake a man who will be good to you, and if you don’t change your ways, you will lose everything.

Best Luck in Fixing your Life

A Worried Observer

A further look into Jake Barnes, War Vet and Victim

Jake Barnes, the narrator in The Sun Also Rises, provides a look at a post war Europe, occupied by several American travelers. The man, whose injury in World War I has left him impotent, lives a life in the lap of luxury. Starting the novel in Paris, the War Vet frequents the party scene of 1920’s Europe and is highly characterized by his injury. He lives like any other rich American in Paris, until of course he finds himself with his girlfriend, the Lady Brett Ashley. By just living through all of this without so much as a complaint, the reader sees just how strong willed and determined this man is to overcome what he has become since the end of the war. Later in the book, we see that Jake is a catholic, though he admits he is a “rotten Catholic” after he prays at a large cathedral. Another quality that Jake shows is his constant changing of his opinion of things. At first he describes Robert Cohn as one of his good friends, a man that is exceedingly nice, but it is this niceness that Jake comes to hate as the book wears on. He also speaks of the Cathedral he prayed at when he says that “the first time I ever saw it I thought the façade was ugly, but I liked it now.” Both of these show that Barnes may be easily malleable, a man who will bend over time.

The Meaning of Life, according to Jake Barnes and Robert Cohn

                Throughout The Sun also Rises, one of Ernest Hemingway’s masterpieces, Jake Barnes and his companions seem to be going to nowhere in life. Hemingway places a huge emphasis on travel which his characters’ embark on almost haphazardly. Jake wonders throughout Europe, in an almost constantly drunk state, which leads me to think that he is looking for something in life. The reader gets an insight into the head of Jake in a scene where he goes into a cathedral to pray. His prayers are shallow and materialistic, hoping for money and entertainment. Up until Jake sets off to Pamplona, he lives in an illusion of happiness, where his personal meaning to life is to live each day at a time, having fun, and doing what he feels.  This gives meaning to Hemingway’s title of the novel, where he quotes Ecclesiastes. Hemingway is telling his audience that everything comes to pass, and to live each day to its fullest, leaving no regrets. He further exemplifies this with Robert Cohn, a character introduced in the very opening of the novel. Cohn starts his life miserably, getting divorced early, and then dating a woman who controls his every move. Yet Cohn shrugs off his earlier misery and instead begins to live his own dreams. While Jake may dislike Robert, the reader can clearly see that a man who lives how he wants is truly happier.