Tag: reality

Coping with Thanksgiving

“In light of recent world events (the election of Donald Trump), many Americans are facing a particularly daunting Thanksgiving dinner with relatives who voted differently on Election Day, and may be in need of a lighthearted activity to reach across the aisle. Here are some art projects to help you and your family work through your feelings and heal political divisions — if only for an hour or two.” Source

It’s weird that the world has come to this. Thanksgiving was always a fun holiday, but it was also always a nightmare for folks who don’t get along with their folks. And that’s a lot of people.

In the same way, the US election has had the world — and the US, of course — divided beyond recognition. With red and blue flags waving all around, some people standing with her, yet some others vouching to make America great again, I’m pretty sure Thanksgiving isn’t the most anticipated holiday right now. And it’s understandable too. After all, I wouldn’t want to talk about politics with my family. Or talk about anything at all, if I could.

But times are blue and red has taken over. So how would you deal with a whole day locked up in a room with people you don’t like, stuffing yourself with stuffed turkey? Alanna Martinez from the Observer (quoted above) says you should do some craftwork together. It builds teamwork and can keep you from raging into a political debate, she says.

I agree. Crafting is a nice activity and it would make the day all the more bearable. But here’s what I don’t understand: why have we come to a situation where we need art to keep our mouths shut?

Sure, art soothes your soul, calms your nerves, and helps you dial down your tone when speaking to the uncle, twice removed. But as a humanities student myself, I can say that the Arts are a way of life, and not something you do when you can’t find an alternative coping mechanism.

In this piece, the author explains a few specific “Thanksgivingy” crafts which, I think, are all great. What I can’t agree, though, is that we need a reason—president-elect Trump in this case— to make these crafts. People should turn to art because they like creating art and not just because their therapist told them to. Proud though I am that therapists recommend art, it’s still an insult to us who’ve been insulted our whole lives just because we spend our lives on arts.

I’d share this article with my friends, I’d tell them it’s all true and that making these crafts together with their families would make Thanksgiving more like giving thanks than giving sparks. However, I still believe that by limiting arts and crafts to such petty issues, we limit the potential of art itself. We don’t need art as a temporary stress buster. Art for the sake of art — that’s what we need more of.

incredible-blogger-marathon-challenge-7I’ve signed up for the Incredible Blogger Marathon Challenge. It’s a ten-task-challenge that can span up to fifteen days. This post is my response to the seventh day: The News and Paper Challenge. The challenge is to discuss my views on a news article.

Studying Gone Amiss

“You need not answer all the questions! You can just laugh and laugh again.”

David read and read the sentence. When he walked in for the prestigious examination, he hadn’t expected such adverse directions. What do they mean he could laugh and laugh again? Was this some kind of sick game they’re playing on the candidates? His brother had warned him that the exam would hurl unexpectedness at his face, but this was more than what David had expected, even for unexpectedness.

He flipped the page to the first question. It was about fitting quadrangles into triangles. He knew that one, and so he wrote the answer. He moved on to the next: circles and cylinders. Easy. Next: a fraction of Fraction. Next: decoding BODMAS. Next: passive and active voice. Ok, thought David. Weird, but easy. Next: Calculating calculus. Equating differentials. Pi value. And the case of the missing pies.

David closed the question booklet and stared at the board in front of him. What the hell was this? How could such a question paper determine the next generation’s Discipliners?

His brother had written the same test four years ago and was now a qualified Discipliner. He was David’s inspiration. And yet, even his brother had had hard times grasping his job.

His brother’s words rang in his ears: “I am confused at times. Should I sound? Should I echo?” The boss would scream swear words, and he had to react by either repeating or protesting. Being impassive led to the gallows while a wrong reaction resulted in a beating. He told David that he could never understand what he had to do.

Every morning, he’d dress up ready for battle. Some days the Coaches made him rub the floor, and some days they’d hunt aliens. It was a weird job, his brother had said. But it’s worth it; it made their parents proud and the girls all loved a Discipliner.

David was still looking at the empty blackboard facing him. He didn’t know what to do, or how to go on. All of a sudden, a supervisor stood in front of him, blocking out the blackboard. “You done?” He crouched down at David, peering above the horn-rimmed magnifying glasses on his nose.

“I’m just thinking,” David managed a menial reply.

At this, the supervisor threw his head back and laughed long and hard. “Thoughts!” he rumbled so that the whole classroom could hear “— they do what we don’t ask for!” He laughed again, turned around, and swept away to torment a candidate in the next row. David watched as his long robes billowed about his heels.

David looked down at the footer of the question paper: Inter- Intra- Galactic Discipliners — Preliminary Examination. He had thought this would be a tough exam. He had thought the test would test him against aliens, ask about their weaknesses, their strengths, and combat strategies. And instead, the questions were about his high school subjects.

At times, we pretend to think on one and actually think everything else! The voice in his head pointed out like a wise sage. You lied to your parents about studying for your semester exams and binged in Men in Black instead. You pretended to study math but digressed.

David looked down at the footer of the question paper: Mathematic Principles. And then it hit him.

“I knew it!” He whispered to himself, clenching his fists under the table and kicking himself in his mind. “I knew that I didn’t know math!”

And that’s why you should’ve studied, the voice in his head supplied.

incredible-blogger-marathon-challenge-5I’ve signed up for the Incredible Blogger Marathon Challenge. It’s a ten-task-challenge that can span up to fifteen days. This post is my response to the fifth challenge: Not So Quite Quote. The challenge is to write a story including the following quotes:

Quote 1: I am confused at times. Should I sound? Should I echo?

Quote 2: You need not answer all the questions! You can just laugh and laugh again.

Quote 3: Thoughts – they do what we don’t ask for!

Quote 4: I knew it! That I don’t know!

Quote 5: At times, we pretend to think on one and actually think everything else!

Speaking in Haikus…

Some things are for sure:
sunrise, sunset, rent next month—
like clockwork is life.

incredible-blogger-marathon-challengeI’ve signed up for the Incredible Blogger Marathon Challenge. It’s a ten-task-challenge that can span up to fifteen days. This post is my response to the fourth challenge: Hunt a Haiku. The challenge is to write an interpretation of the following haiku:

the sun will set slow
people go home for shelter
sun will rise again

Ramdomizer

Why would anyone leave the house without a paperclip in his pocket? BuzzFeed knows my age, my zodiac sign, and my favourite colour based on how long I stayed online. High tide or a low tide, I’ll be by your side with a can of beer and a plate of fish. According to Facebook, today is world toilet day, but a friend of mine posted that it’s men’s day. A party without champagne is a conversation without a meaning. I spent a fortune on a single course and a lifetime wondering why. Want a wedding dress, hardly used? I’m under a moral obligation to keep to the code. Death by chocolate — still a better love story than Twilight. Let’s hit the road.

incredible-blogger-marathon-challenge-3

 

I’ve signed up for the Incredible Blogger Marathon Challenge. It’s a ten-task-challenge that can span up to fifteen days. This post is my response to the third challenge: Risk for a Random. The challenge is to write ten sentences that have no connection to one another.

Making the Meaningful Meaningless

So many of my friends had told me about the wonderfulness that’s 1984. The book, I mean.

big-brother-1984

I, however, never had the chance to read the book, until now. I started reading it a while ago, and as much as I’d love to get through it in one sitting, reality keeps distracting me. Nevertheless, every chance I get, I try to sneak in a page or two in the least. And with every page I turn, I turn over a new perspective.

I haven’t even crossed a hundred pages yet, and yet every statement hits me hard in the face making me glad I’m not in 1984. To say that Orwell has a way with words is an understatement. He twists and warps simple words to suit his needs and instills fear and aversion in the reader.

As a lover of words myself, when I took in words that claimed it was a beautiful thing to destroy the words themselves, I felt my deepest horrors renewed.

After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other words?

That’s a way of looking at words, unlike any way I’d come to accept. Words, for me, are not just means of expression but also means of expression in every wild way imaginable. It’s wonderful that we have so many different words describing the same thing; it’s what gives rise to rhyming words and rhythmic prose and just plain readable writing.

In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words — in reality, only one word. Don’t you see the beauty of that, Winston?

I don’t. I don’t see the beauty of it, and instead, I see only the barrenness of it. What’s the point of communication if you can’t communicate as you’d like to? If we could strip down the English language to a mere handful, then that would become the end of human interaction. We’d speak to convey messages and not ideas. We’d talk sense but wouldn’t talk from our senses. We’d think we’re free to speak, without realising we’re free from language itself.

The book throws terrifying ideas. It outlines everything that could go wrong with the world, and everything that could happen as a consequence. And shocked though I am, it makes me want to keep reading.