freedom

                A single drop of water awoke me from my otherwise peaceful sleep. I tried to raise my hands to wipe my eyes but there was some type of restraint preventing me. As I became more conscience, I noticed there was some type of cold heavy apparatus about my neck. I tried to look around to figure out where I was, as I was in strange, unrecognizable territory. As I couldn’t twist my head, I looked forward and saw some type of distorted silhouettes flickering and swaying. I heard voices around me and figured that I wasn’t the only one here.

                As time passed, I became accustomed to my surroundings and became comfortable with them. This once strange and alien place soon became my home and I liked it. I felt as if I was covered by a veil of some sort, a warm, comforting veil that left me with no worries. Whenever a new object appeared before us, we would all come to a consensus to what it was. Anyone who disagreed would be ridiculed by the rest. Conformity became the norm; we lived day in and day in that same spot.

                One day something strange happened. A man came down to our little enclave and began urging us to leave. He told us that there was a world outside of this one, a grandiose world where everything is “colorful” and “vivid”. The images we saw in front of us were only poor distorted misrepresentations of what was really there. He told us that we could break free from these “fetters” that held us back, that they were only mentally there. The rest of the inhabitants looked at him strangely and scoffed at these ideas. You could see the frustration on his face that resulted from the futility of his attempts to convince us that there was much more to this.

I became conflicted; something inside of me told me to follow this man. I began to feel a sensation that I had never felt before, a sensation to fight conformity and to explore. I realized how monotonous life here had become. But the comfort of my home and the fear of the unknown prompted me to stay. I fought the temptation to follow the strange man as long as I could, but soon the temptation defeated me. I was set on exploring the outside, the unknown. With some strain, I was able to raise my arms and prop myself up. The restraints were broken! I was finally able to be out and about and to look around. I noticed that the place that I had called home for as long as I can remember was a dark, dank cave.

The man’s eyes lit up when he saw me get up. The others’ facial expressions turned aghast with a combination of fear and amazement. They didn’t believe it was possible. I left them with their mouth ajar as I followed my guide up the stop steps on the side of where we were prior. As we ascended the steps, I noticed that there was some type of light that cackled bright colors and felt warm when we drew near it. In front of it, men paraded sticks with figures on them, casting the images we saw and accepted as the real thing. In the distance I saw a tunnel of light and it drew me closer; it seemed to have been calling me. At this point, I began to race up the steps making sure not to lose sight of this precious gleam. As I had not used my legs for as long as I could remember, I stumbled a bit on the way up.

I broke through the darkness and into the blinding light. I shielded my eyes from the intensity but soon I became adjusted. At that moment, I was flooded with new, strange sights. Everything was so vibrant and vivid; I was finally free. The sheer awe of my surroundings made me drop to my knees and my eyes just became inundated with what I later came to know as tears. These sweet, salty droplets of water that originated from my eyes kept on coming without refrain. It was all just so beautiful. Everything around me, from the creatures up above, to the soft grass that hugged and caressed my body as I laid there and wept. I finally had my first taste of true freedom.

The freedom was overwhelming. Simply put, the real world was frightening. The monotony of conformity and life in the cave ceased to exist, and with it also died the veil of ignorance that once cradled me and protected me. I was no longer in my comforting cave. At times, I just wanted to return, to live a simpler, worry free life. But the freedom, the reality, the immaculateness of it all convinced me to stay. I was finally able to experience things for myself. I was finally… free.

JAVI "FLAMEZ" SOLIS READS "FOX IN SOCKS"

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX

Jean-Paul Sartre's No Exit can be seen as a more contemporary rendition of Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Both works deal with the concept of the metaphysical and ignorance. While both deal with similar topics, they are distinct in delivery and structure. 

• Both Plato and Sartre used an physical place to make their ideas of the limitations of the human mind much more tangible and somewhat easier to comprehend without exploding the reader's mind.
• Plato uses a cave and fetters as the restraints while Sartre uses a hotel room as his restraint.
• In Allegory of the Cave we see the story through the eyes of a visitor instead of an actual denizen of the cave, unlike in No Exit, where the story is conveyed through the eyes of the actual residents 
• The characters in both story end up in hell and in the cave because of their own choices. The cave and fetters are self-imposed; they are more than able to break them and turn around, but the fear of the reality (and the comfort of ignorance) prevents them from doing so. In No Exit, they all committed sins that landed them where they are. Both the hotel room and the cave are creations of the character's own mind and actions.
• In Allegory of the Cave, the denizens are free to leave, they just chose not to. In No Exit, they are desperate to leave, but they can't
• The character's of No Exit are well aware of what is going in the actual world but in Plato's Allegory, they are willingly oblivious to the nature of the outside world. The inhabitants of the cave can only see the shadows of reality.
• In No Exit, "Hell is other people".  This seems to be the case in the Allegory as well. The inhabitants of the cave keep the other inhabitants ignorant by all agreeing on false information (that the shadows are the actual objects). By further perpetuating this belief, they are discouraging anyone from ever breaking free and exploring because they cover them in a veil of ignorance and misinformation that comforts them. Much like in today's society, if the people are comfortable (or have the illusion of being so), they will not pursue change.
• Both deal with agony. The one prisoner who does escape the subterranean prison and sees the above-ground world and all the actual objects instead of just their shadow is awed. He returns to the cave and urges others to break free and explore, but they all scoff and ridicule him. Anyone who has tried to tell someone else something when then other party refuses to listen knows how agonizing this experience is.
• The agony in No Exit derrives from the other people in the room and how they must spend eternity with each other.

This video illustrates Plato's Allegory rather nicely and thought it might be useful to anyone lurking my blog.

On To The Questions!
Think about the place you have chosen as your hell. Does it look ordinary and bourgeois, like Sartre's drawing room, or is it equipped with literal instruments of torture like Dante's Inferno? Can the mind be in hell in a beautiful place? Is there a way to find peace in a hellish physical environment? 
I'm not an overly religious person so I'm a little uncertain on the existence of an actual hell. But since it's a sad thought that we all just rot in the ground, so for intents and purposes, I will assume there is a hell and/or heaven. Anyways, my Hell would look a lot like the neoclassical room towards the end of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. If anything, I'd be ruler of my hell, sitting on a throne of skulls. In a way, school is hell. The monotony of the every-day grind. Essentially SSDD. On top of that, being surrounded by a bunch of superficial, fraudulent people. That IS hell. But alas, we can find peace in hell. Dr. Preston's class is actually quite the alcove of peace; people in that class think on a higher level than the vast majority of our student body. I don't mean to be condescending but it's true.

Could hell be described as too much of anything without a break? Are variety, moderation and balance instruments we use to keep us from boiling in any inferno of excess,' whether it be cheesecake or ravenous partying?
Yes. After a while, it gets boring of doing the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, day in and day out, indefinitely until the end of time. The monotony slowly drives you insane. Variety makes it much more bearable. If I partied every day, regardless of how "turnt up" the parties are, I'd get sick of it within a month if not sooner.

How does Sartre create a sense of place through dialogue? Can you imagine what it feels like to stay awake all the time with the lights on with no hope of leaving a specific place? How does GARCIN react to this hell? How could you twist your daily activities around so that everyday habits become hell? Is there a pattern of circumstances that reinforces the experience of hell?
The dialogue between the characters indicates that they loathe being in each other's presence. Once, for an AVID fundraiser, we had to stay awake in the gym throughout the entire night until seven in the morning. We couldn't sleep. There was no rest at all and all 50+ of us were confined to single space. Given, we did have entertainment and it wasn't nearly as bad as No Exit, but I felt like I got a slight taste of hell. Garcin uuses his time in hell to reflect upon his life and legacy. By simply doing the EXACT thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, day in and day out, indefinitely until the end of time. 
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ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE SONNET

Aye, It is our conscience,the dread of the unknown
that makes us quiver in fear when we are shown
the frightful reality that at first is blinding
makes us don the shackles that are binding.
Ignorance, after all, is the biggest bliss.
Is what we see reality? Do our senses fool us?
What we see is not actuality, but only a shadow.
if we do not explore, our mind stays hollow.
Self-imposed fetters blind us from reality.
Not knowing what's out there causes agony
But is it truly reality which is better?
Or is human ignorance much better?

We must break free from our self-imposed confines
and remove our dank dark mental mines.

The Futility of Humanity

The other day, I was walking Mia to her AP Statistics class. We passed by a trash bin in front of the 600 block and saw a faux tree inside of it. At first, me and Mia laughed at the sheer absurdity; it's not every day you see a fake tree in a trash can at Righetti. The more I looked at it, the more I started thinking, and the more upset. I began to realize how that tree in the trash can is a metaphor for humanity's destruction of nature. People walked by it without giving it so much as a glance. That mirrors the sad reality that the vast majority of our society is so apathetic of our devastation of the once pristine, immaculate nature. The more I thought about it, the more upset I got. For the rest of the school day, it bothered me. I went home and decided to read my favorite novel, Alan Moore's Watchmen. While reading it, a quote struck me.

“We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from another's vantage point, as if new, it may still take the breath away.”

I stopped in my tracks and thought back to the tree I saw and had an epiphany. The reason so little people cared was because we're so accustomed to it. We're bored with the Earth, despite it's seemingly endless wonders and awe inspiring beauty. But if we were to see it all from a different perspective, I can assure you more people would be for conserving nature. 

Who would have known that a fake tree would have elicited so much emotion?

BRAIN WITH [x] LEGS

We (Mia, Sam, Kevin, and I) met shortly after class to discuss how we were going to tackle Great Expectations. We soon came to a consensus that we would use a mindmap (which format is still up for debate) and assign certain sections for a set timespan. After we are all done reading said section, we shall convene and discuss what we read as well as any questions any of us might have. After reading Hamlet  and having the opportunity to discuss what we read with class members, we saw this as extremely helpful in developing our knowledge of Hamlet and decided to try it again.

THE BRAIN WITH AN INFINITE AMOUNT OF LEGS

The sites I've found so far are listed below:

• http://www.mindmeister.com/. Very user friendly and simplistic. Also available via mobile platforms. Allows attachments of files, links, and tasks. 
• https://bubbl.us/. A little too simplistic. 
• Free Mind. Does require download. High editable but doesn't support pictures... yet.

We should discuss, as a class, the pros and cons of each of the different resources we have. If none meet our liking, why not make our own? I'm positive that within our three AP class periods (and the resources we and Dr. Preston have) we can muster enough brainpower to create a bitc-super cool format that tends to all our needs and wants and give these pre-established formats a run for their money.

On 

My 6,128 Favorite Books

• kind of ironic and amusing how he treats reading as an addiction that has ruined his life.
• Love his use of humor. "This is quite an accomplishment, because by some accounts Winston Churchill spent all of World War II completely hammered."
• Skimmed it so far. Will report later with a more in-depth analysis.
• Moral of the story: BOOKS R BAD MMMKAY KIDS *Mr. Mackey voice*