Eyeless

Utterly prophetic.

Look around you, we are getting 3D television, smartphones, new gaming consoles, and every day more and more technology is slipped into our lives.

Aldoux Huxley wrote in reaction to the industrial revolution, decades later, we are seeing the aftermath of it. Albert Einstein once said he was afraid we would one day let the machine outsmart the man, we are on the verge of Singularity.

Einstein and Huxley both  lived in the 1900's, they both died before they could see the theory of singularity come to live. Today we relay on the machine, machines fix people, they fix cars, and animals, and plants. Machines run the world.

Even beyond Huxley's and Einstein's words, men became dependent of the fast evolving technology. To my eyes, Huxley was a prophet, he predicted what we would become if we allowed ourselves to let go of our humanity. I just hope I don't live to see it happen.

The Power of Myth

Through the Hellenistic age in Greece, lived a man known to the modern civilization as Homer. Homer wrote the Illiad and the Odessey, which focus on the events and the aftermath of the Trojan War. Even today historians have not found the remains of the city of Troy, and of the war. Homer's texts which were a historian record, melted down in history as a myth. 

The definition of a myth is an unproved or false collective belief that is used to justify a social institution. A social institution; The Catholic Church, The Jewish believes, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism. All are social institutions, all unproved collective believes. Today we are living the time of disintegration of the catholic church. We have seen how a religion that has been a central power in the world, for centuries, is losing tons of believers to it's conservatism.

Ancient Greek Religion never died away, it transformed and progressed. It's Gods lived on in the Roman tradition and then went on living as a pagan minority. But today it is seen as a childish bedtime story, used to explain why is there a drought or a rough sea. 

Aldous Huxley portrays a very interesting scenario in his book Brave New World, in which he in a way shows us how the modern civilization has moved on from God, and now adores Henry Ford. Interesting enough, the idea of people adoring Henry Ford, seems as alienating to us as it may have seemed to the Ancient Greeks to adore a man by the name of Jesus.

When I went to Cuba, I found out that the African religion known as Santeria leaves still  in the dark skin and heavy words of the cuban mulattos. interesting enough, Santeria has been called witchcraft by the majorly Catholic Cuban state, because of it's pagan rites. Huxley portrays a flagellation in front of a cross, as a pagan rite, in Brave New World. Thereby showing us how our believes will one day too, melt into pure myth. 

Is a machine run world.

The Controversy lives. I would say if asked my thoughts on "Brave New World", the controversy lives as it  did in 1932. It lives in a book that talks about technology that we don't have now a days, that it talks about test tube babies and about the destruction of Christianity.  The controversy lives because it portrays what we may live one day. I've always wondered how Greek Mythology, once the equivalent to the fervent Christian faith, is now a mere echo of an early faith that has taken many forms over millenia.  One day, will people call Christianity mythology? Brave New World has shown me we may someday reject the power of story in favor of a society void of a soul.

Written as a reaction to industrialization, "Brave New World" portrays an attempt of an Utopian society, which like the asylum in "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest" works based on machinery. In both worlds happiness is relative, in "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest" the patients are maintained under a daily doze of "medication", while in "Brave New World" happiness is achieved by taking a hallucinogenic drug called SOMA, which blocks out bad feelings and allows a person to feel happiness exclusively, because "everyone has the right to be happy."

In both novels I have found there is a non conforming character, in teh case of "Brave New World" this character would be Marx, a man who lives thinking the world ought to be different to just soma prescriptions in order to achieve happiness. McMurphy on his side is a controlling man who refuses to take his "medication" and live by the rules posed by society. In both novels we see a machine like world, "One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest" runs over a perfect machine and "Brave New World" assembles the world so it reaches perfection.

Even then both authors are extremely reluctant to the societies they live in. Neither of them likes to think that the people on the top floor run the world, and therefore portray the lack of perfection in Utopian societies. Societies, that strive to run smoothly in this machine run world.

"I love deadlines - I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by."

As an avid reader (and a lover of the "Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy") I have to agree with Douglas Adams, one of the greatest writers of fiction works, that deadlines make a lovely whooshing noise as they go by deleting from our minds every thought of turning in that draft on time.

One of the most remarkable quotes on the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy states that “For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
 Adams relates the dolphins to the humans in the matter that they both think they have accomplished things that make them smarter than the other, when they have actually ignored how smart can the other be. In the end the ones who don't procrastinate and leave the earth on time are the dolphins, whom because of their greater knowledge understood that staying was a terrible idea, whereas men never got into developing a (near future) space program that would allow them to leave earth.

The number one rule on the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is "Don't Panic" which as a usual procrastinator I believe is a rule that everyone should live up to, if we panic about how fast a deadline is approaching I believe we will never reach it with enough preparation as to be able to watch it pass by with a tired smile on our face, stating we really didn't sleep the night before.

“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.”  Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Time is an illusion, what we do with it,  whether we waste it or not wont really matter at the end. What matters is what we achieve at the end of the day.

Just another day in drama class?

“Close your eyes and open your soul, what you are listening to now each of you will relate to in a different way, depending of the experiences that you’ve had throughout your life.” My drama teacher made us sit on the cold floor of the theater on a cold January day. The snowflakes lazily knocking against the windows reminded us that we were heading home early today and gave us hope to sit through yet another monologue in Drama class.

“We can't strike. Why not? Because it's against the law to strike! The king has declared that everything is a crime. Writing is a crime. Two weeks ago, the police destroyed the Galaty, the worker's newspaper. They smashed the press. They burned over two thousand newspapers but that didn't satisfy the king. Three days ago at a student meeting, a peaceful meeting, soldiers broke it up and arrested two of my friends. Writing, talking, going to class, speaking out is a crime. Being poor is a crime. Being poor is the worst crime of all. And if you commit these crimes, you are condemned for life. Our government has no mercy, no pity, no forgiveness. And there's no work for us. And because there's no work, our children are starving. Tell me: why are we powerless to save the people we love? All of you know. Tell me - why? The king betrayed us. We were promised the vote, do we have it? Do we have the vote? Where is the republic our fathers died for? It's here my brothers. It lives here in our heads. But most of all, best of all, it's here in our hearts. In our hearts - WE ARE THE REPUBLIC!”

As one of my classmates recited the monologue done by Marius in “Les Miserables”, his voice sounded void and empty of feeling for what he was saying. His father was in the army and he grew without ever seeing him, his close experience with war and national pride was minimum. But for me the sound of someone saying writing is a crime sent a flash of rage through my body. Between 1953 and 1957 my great grandfather was the general editor for the newspaper El Tiempo, this was also the time in which the military dictator Rojas Pinilla overtook the presidential palace and declared himself the legitimate president of Colombia. Rojas Pinilla commissioned my great grandfather to write an article about how he was a very good, and grand president which my Great grandfather refused to do, and he had to flee from the country because there was a price set on his life. About 20 years later my grandfather had a bullet wound on his left shoulder because he wrote the truth about the corrupted police forces of Colombia and finally now a days my uncle writes under a pseudo name, hiding from the people who have for years arisen a treat against him.

I think that the way an actor can really relate to the part he is playing is by assuming a role that is relatable to personal experiences.  In the podcast the prisoners that could really relate to the crime committed by the characters in the play because they had also committed a crime. They were bound to live up to their actions just like Hamlet, and that is what makes this a rather exceptional performance, because the actor can really connect with the character.

A comparison Between Hamlet and J. Alfred Prufrock

In the poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", the main character constantly compares himself with the rather unstable Prince of Denmark, Hamlet. In the Shakespearian tragedy, Hamlet is a highly dissatisfied character who hesitates after every decision he makes, and re - evaluates it. Prufrock dismisses the importance of Hamlet by stating in the poem "No! I am not Prince Hamlet", but just like the danish prince he lives in continuos self-deprecation, divulging that he is not and important character. But, Prufrock does resemble the danish Prince, as a matter of fact the greatest flaw of both Hamlet and Prufrock is their failure to convey an action. Both characters spend their entire existence in the play/poem, re-analyzing every decision without actually achieving much. Prufrock is constantly disregarding his own importance and sees himself as insignificant, seeing himself as very small in a very large universe.

Media: The Mind Manipulator

The Danger of a Single Story:

Plenty of times have I realized that people only receive through media a single story of the beautiful country in which I have the privilege to live in. Two of this have engraved themselves in my mind. 

The first happened the first time I traveled to Europe. I had the priviledge to go to France with the Colombian Ambassador in France, and he took us to an amusement park. His son was probably my age (I was 10 at the time) and we where in line for a roller coaster. We where talking in Spanish and two older men asked us where were we from, I proudly raised my head and answered “Colombia”  this men, who where probably 20 years old each gave us the finger and said that ours was a country plagued with “terrible deaths and a thousand drug dealers”. My dad told them to shut up and leave us kids alone, but I will never forget the hate in the men’s voice.

The second time happened when I moved to Italy, my English had refined before that and I could fluently speak it with confidence and almost seem American. My first day at ISF, several teachers asked me to introduce myself: “what is your name? how old are you? Where are you from?” I answered them without trouble in the first couple of classes, but then when I got to my Math class and I answered them I heard the boy behind me ask, “ And where did you leave the Cocaine?” I was furious and wanted to yell at him but instead I answered in a serious voice  “In your Mom’s drawer.” Soon enough people stopped talking about things they didn’t understand and I learned a lot about different cultures.

Like the old saying “Don’t Judge a book by it’s cover” ,  today we should encourage people to not only see the “Media” side of the story

Bananafish, The Fog, or The Horror?

Survivor’s guilt, an insight into Kurtz’s character:

When I first came to CNG I had an English teacher, which every boy in my class considered astonishingly beautiful. Her name was Mrs. Lawrynowicz, and she made us read short stories in order to help us analyze literature better. One day she handed to us a short story the tittle read “A perfect day for Bananafish” , and told us to read it for our HWK. I read it a thousand times over and couldn’t really assimilate it inside my head. Suddenly it clicked in my head. Something I had read in a psychoanalysis essay, something about survivor’s guilt.

After that I had another English teacher. His approach to literature was quiet different, and he had us read Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest “ I have since then assimilated Mcmurphy’s character with that of Seymour Glass, the main character in “A perfect Day for Bananafish”. About Seymour’s character I am only going to say that what he has in common with McMuphy is that people looked up to him to be a hero. This little girl Sybil walked up to him everyday in the beach because he was her personal story teller, he was her separation from the unjust world in which she lived in, a world in which both her parents where absent. McMurphy had the entire ward looking up to him, because they needed someone who was stronger than them to guide them trough.

When I first read about Mr. Kurtz I saw him as Marlow saw him. Better than him, stronger, greater and by the end of “Heart of Darkness” Kurtz has become a symbol of heroism and standing up to what you believe in even if must people brand you mad for believing that.

That is one thing that this three characters have in common. People who look up to them, standing up for a cause and last but not least an unpleasant death. Glass kills himself, McMurphy is chocked by Chief, and Kurtz dies, living in his regrets.

HEART OF DARKNESS

Impersonation and lack of names

As reading the first part of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness I realized that only two characters are identified with names: Marlow and Mr. Kurtz, what Conrad achieves by only naming this two characters is to accentuate their importance and make the reader understand that they are relevantly important.

Through his story telling Marlow gives up his own personality, but from every other character that pops up he only gives a random fact that helps us identify the person almost distinguish them, but barely, from the bunch. (The lawyer, the accountant, the director, the manager and the man with the big moustache) This lack of names is an impediment for the writer to connect to the character because they cannot give them a face, overall they cant give them a personality.

A shadow of evil hiding under the light of good: Villains in our world today.

“Evil is a point of view.”

ANNE RICE, Interview with the Vampire

Villains hide between shadows, not only in comic books, but also in real life. In some hidden dark ally where murder and rape take place these villains find some comfort for their hearts. There are also public villains, people that have the power to kill whoever speaks too loud. Most villains had a treacherous dark past, some experiences that changed them, while others are born sociopaths or psychopaths. Villains can be placed in history, in the form of country leaders, or in comic book as the archenemies of our favorite superhero, but at the end we like the bad guy despite what his motives are. We like him because, he is what gives a reason for the heroes to exist, for there to be some justice in the world. As for who created evil, we can say that evil is a state of mind, in which men could not bare perfection without it. We see it since the beginning as in when God expelled Lucifer from heaven and send him to hell, the thirst of power is just a form of villainy. It is hard to believe that those villains who hunt our nightmares, are human too. 

The ability to control the mind and the thoughts of others is the power of many super villains in comic books, and novels, Bram Stoker's Dracula who poses telepathic and hypnotic abilities, or Shakespeare's Iago who uses  the fears of his adversaries against them. Another fantastic example of a Villain using fear against her adversary is Ken Kessey's, Nurse Ratchet. 

Ratchet's character, has a complicated personality. Most women would grow up to be motherly like, sweet and kind. But Ratchet is the total opposite and she reminds the reader more of a remote control robot with a woman's body rather than  a woman herself. This robot like first impression is given to the reader at the beginning of the book when Chief describes her meticulous perfection. McMurphy is the complete opposite of, he is loud, messy, big, and in comparison to her nothing about him "runs smoothly."

Ratchet's character develops slowly throughout the novel, at first she seems unbreakable, stiff, strong, with an infinite patience and no need to raise her voice. But then McMurphy comes into the ward and their conflicting personalities clash,  showing how terribly vulnerable she can actually be, and so the hero of the story proves to be the strongest and she proves that no villain is invincible because even the manipulation of fear ends at some point in which not even the most broken mind is going to distort reality any more.

Women, and power and the Deep Fear of Men Towards Women

 “What is the importance of women in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”

Matriarchy |ˈmātrēˌärkē|

Noun (pl. matriarchies)

A system of society or government ruled by a woman or women.

The Definition of Matriarchy is as stated above “A system of society or government ruled by a woman or women.” In his novel "One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest", Ken Kessey portrays women as the dominant sex, them being stronger than men and having entire power over the guard.

The main female character is of course Nurse Ratched (ratchet |ˈraCHit| A device consisting of a bar or wheel with a set of angled teeth in which a pawl, cog, or tooth engages, allowing motion in one direction only.) She has always reminded me of a sort of robot, controlling the central machinery of the combine making sure it runs smoothly and eliminating those who don’t fit in  society. In this point of the book we have talked about the topic of Emasculation, which literally means to make (a person, idea, or piece of legislation) weaker or less effective. Which is exactly what Ratched does at the Guard, she makes people (no matter in which state they come in) weaker and less effective. In another point Emasculation also means to castrate a man.

The significant role of women is clear throughout the book “Year by year she accumulates her ideal staff: doctors, all ages and types, come and rise up in front of her with ideas of their own about the way a ward should be run, some with backbone enough to stand behind their ideas, and she fixes these doctors with dry-ice eyes day in, day out, until they retreat with unnatural chills.” Ratched is the only reason why the guard functions and runs smoothly, besides without her influence there would be no one running a guard for the insane.