nature is beauty or beauty is nature?

‘From the earth, as a shore, I look out into that silent sea. I seem to partake its rapid transformations: the active enchantment reaches my dust, and I dilate and conspire with the morning wind. How does Nature deify us with a few and cheap elements!’

This passage from ‘Nature’ shows that we do not get to decide what nature is. We do not get to decide what beauty is. Nature itself decides what beauty is and because we are a part of nature, we are a part of the beauty of it. We are wrapped up in it and surrounded by it. We are almost like passengers because we are not in control of the rapid transformations, but we are still a part of them. And we watch them not only with our eyes, but also with our whole bodies as we partake in the active enchantments. Emerson writes that nature deifies us with few and cheap elements almost as if he is upset, but he says it not out of disappointment, but out if amazement. He wants to know how it is that nature does something so good with so little.

its okay to be a kid

When we were assigned this blog, to write about a piece of art that meant something to us, something we connected with, and something that helped us make sense out of life, I started to look for a piece that were deep and meaningful. I looked for something that I could get a lot out of. I found one. It’s a photograph of a woman looking out of the window. She looks like she is longing for something. I really do love this picture. {} … But, I must say that I was looking through more art to try to se if there was something I liked better, something I connected with more. I found a drawing. I knew I had to use it for my blog. I know that most everyone in the class will find some painting with deep meaning, or a painting that is really famous. You could say that I wasn’t taking this seriously based on the picture, but I am completely serious. This to me, means that it is always okay to be a kid. You don’t have to be serious all of the time. You don’t have to pick the most serious piece of art and explain why its important and analyze why the artist painted it a certain way.
I like to not be serious all of the time.
I picked this drawing, which I swear was in the MOMA, because its something that I love, its something that my family loves and bring us together. Most people know that I am pretty close with my family, so this is something that is small and silly, but really important to me.

ignorance is never bliss

At the end of the novel Wright comes to the realization that the world is never what it seems to be. He feels like no matter what people will never be able to unite. He knows that the best way to make sense of everything for him is to write. He starts to and he tries, but he can’t. He says he will sit and wait until he can because he knows it is the best way to figure out the world. He knows that if he can help himself through writing, he can maybe help others when they read it. The more people that can make sense of the meaningless suffering, the more connected and less superficial people can become.
I agree that Wright needs to continue to try to write and try to figure out what is happening because that is the only way he will ever feel accomplished or satisfied. Everyone needs to continue to do what helps them make sense of the world, because without anyone making sense, the world and people would be walking around being unaware of their surrounding, and being uninformed and ignorant.

they will never understand

I do agree with Wright’s idea that artists and politicians stand at opposite poles. The artist will always look at life and analyze it. They don’t just take it at face value. They will sit and wait and watch life until they understand what it is. Wright himself does this. He uses writing to figure out what life is. He uses writing to question what life is, to find out what the meaningless suffering is.
A politician does not what to know what life is. They don’t sit around and wait for the answer. They decide what the answer is, and don’t care if it is real or not. They just pick what they think it should be, especially the Communist Party. A politician, like Ed Green can’t understand why Richard would want to write about a person’s life. Richard is just learning and telling as many stories as he can to help himself and others find out what the reason for the meaningless suffering is. A politician, can’t understand this and will automatically think that, because the artist is questioning life, and will not just accept what they are being told, that they are a threat to society.

older and wiser

On page 265, the entire page is full of insight from the older Wright, writing the memoir and thinking back. The first paragraph says ‘(It was not until I had left the delicatessen job that I saw how grossly I had misread the motives and attitudes of Mr. Hoffman and his wife. I had not yet learned anything that would have helped me to thread my way through these perplexing racial relations. Accepting my environment at its face value, trapped by my own emotions, I Kept asking myself what had black people done to bring this crazy world upon them?)’
These thoughts are almost like after thoughts. Obviously these are thoughts as an adult, but they don’t seem like he wrote them in because he premeditated them. They feel like as he was writing this, he realized this and wrote it in, so that the reader knew his thought process. Of course he probably did think about these before he wrote them in the book.
In this particular passage, he talks about why would a white Jewish couple want to hire a black man. All of his life he would think that they would hire him because he was black and just as low as they were. They then had something to control. He thinks this until he finally realizes that they just hired him because they needed help. They didn’t think much of the fact that he was black. He talks about being trapped in his own emotions, and to me this means that because he has always been taught to think this way, it is really hard for him to think any other way. He knows that he should start to be more open minded like the rest of the North, but he can’t. He asks himself what had black people done to deserve this. They have done nothing, but because they were raised in the south, they do not know any other way to think. This is why they have a crazy world upon them. In the South, it is because of the white people there. In the North it is because of the way that the white Southerners have made them think to bring this world upon them.

now or never.

A the end of the first part of the book, Richard has decided that he should move to the North. Of course he has already decided this, but now he has decided that he isn’t going to wait. He knows that if he waits and tries to save enough money before he leaves he will never get out. He decides that the best thing to do is to get out now, while he has the support of his brother and his mother. I think that this is a positive change. He even says himself that if he doesn’t leave now he might end up like Shorty, something he would rather die than do. With anything in life the longer you wait the less likely you are to do it. Leaving for the North now, and then making the money to bring his mother and brother up is the second best major decision yet in the book, the first being his decision to move North in the first place.

give in to get out.

Stealing. Richard, while working at the hotel is faced with the dilemma of whether or not to steal. He knows that morally stealing is wrong. He also knows that the white race, and even the black race have decided that, and expect him to steal. Richard is a poor black man. They expect poor black men to steal. Society expects Richard to steal. All of his life he has lived against the expectations of him because he is a poor black man. He wants to get to the North because in his mind, the only way to be able to live without these restrictions is to get out of the South. He knows that the sooner he gets out, the better. Stealing will get him out faster. This is when he decides that he will do anything to get out. In his mind he justifies stealing. They already expect him to steal, and even he doesn’t they will still suspect it, so why not just do it. I agree that this is a good justification, but I think this makes him extremely hypocritical. It makes perfect sense, but he has done so much to not give in. He gives in to get out. I too would steal to get out. I won’t deny that. I just feel that if he truly wanted to rise above what is expected of him, he would have found another way. He obviously regrets stealing, considering he starts sobbing in the train during his trip to the North. Perhaps this is why I don’t think he is good, or bad. He is neutral.

give up. give in. eat

When Griggs says that Richard needs to learn how to live in the South, he means that he needs to learn how to act around white people. He doesn’t have to like the white people, he can continue to hate them like he does, but he must hide it. He must act like a black person. He currently doesn’t act like white people are superior, and he must stop this. The way that Richard acts gets noticed by the white people in town and he is ‘marked’ he is now always being watched. Richard says that the problem with black people is that the do too much waiting. Griggs thinks that Richard is too impatient. His impatient ness is really his way of not submitting to white supremacy. Griggs says that he must pretend that he has given in. To Richard this is the same thing.

words. speeches. never give in

I think that Richard is perfectly justified in giving his own speech. Giving the speech that was written for him is admitting that whatever he has to say for himself isn’t good enough and that he is inferior. Giving the speech that was appropriate to be heard by white people, to Richard, is like saying that he knows he is not good enough, or smart enough to express his own thoughts. When he gives his own speech he says what he wants to say, but he has to leave before anyone can say anything to him. He cannot be truly proud of his words because he knows that they may not be received well. Even when he does what he knows is right he might be punished for it.

Grr angryyyy

Richard becomes so angry with his uncle when his uncle comes into his bedroom and asks what time it is. When Richard replies, with the time, his uncle doesn’t believe him. Richard checks the time and says he was close enough. This angers his uncle and he wants to beat Richard for being disrespectful. Richard becomes so angry because he is going to be beaten for something that he didn’t even do, and even if he did it was not worth a beating. His uncle takes out all of his anger on Richard. The reason that Richard gets angry at his uncle is because he is tired of being punished for things he doesn’t deserve. He is tired of submitting to others especially white people, and his uncle is just one more person he is tired of listening to.