True Power's Curse

For years, humans have set out to live as long as possible in hopes to make their lives truly count. In Vonnegut's short story “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” he explores the multitude of down sides that living forever would bring. In Ridland’s poem “Age Looking back on Its Youth” he also speaks to the repercussions of  having something so powerful.The most significant downside that Vonnet explores is over population of people, “... the world wouldn’t be able to support twelve billion people if it wasn't for processed seaweed and saw dust” (Vonnegut 226).

Not only is processed seaweed and saw dust disgusting, but having to eat that would not be the only dilemma that would have to be faced with a constantly growing population. Lack of both space and raw materials would be two other problems that would go hand and hand with people living forever. The two protagonists, Em and Lou, experience such problems, “Hard to believe there used to be all that space between cities”(Vonnegut 225), they are baffled at the idea of there being such a thing as countryside. Another mind boggling concept to them is the abundance of raw materials in the past, “You didn’t have to wait for somebody to die to get a bed or chairs or a stove or anything like that…. Gee whiz, that was nice, before they used up all the raw materials”(Vonnegut 226). Can you imagine how terrible it would be to have to wait for someone to die just to get something as common as a chair???  Em and Lou have very little in terms of amount of space, food or number of possessions; however, they do still possess the power to live forever which is a nontrivial thing.

For years, humans have set out to find ways to remain alive for as long as possible. Both Lou and Em have such a power right at their fingertips, all they must do is drink a substance that has become quite obtainable, “ I wish it was made of something real expensive and hard-to-get instead of mud and dandelions” (Vonnet 224). The first line of Ridland’s poem “Age Looking Back on Its Youth” speaks to exactly this relationship between having a truly powerful gift while at the same time having nothing. “We had so little, yet we had so much:” (Ridlands line 1). This balance of a power mixed with a curse that both writers acknowledge in their works is what brings to two pieces together.

Just Die Already!

Death and ageing are some of the darkest and most important parts of life. “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” by Kurt Vonnegut and “After A Greek Proverb”, a poem by A.E. Stallings, both show a similar theme of death and ageing. Vonnegut’s short story is about a large family who live together in a small apartment in the distant future. This family has more problems than the Kardashians, and a lot of their issues are because of a futuristic anti ageing drug which they all take. Gramps, the oldest member of the family, takes this botox-on-steroids so often that he is over 150 years old! Gramps is the Donald Trump of the incredibly cramped apartment; if anyone in the family ever tries to question his actions, they're fired! Well, they aren’t really fired, they're just eliminated from Grampa's will, which has the potential to change the life of anyone in the family. The behavior of each family member towards Gramps determines what he or she will receive from the will. The climax of the story occurs Gramps removes his straggling family from the apartment through arraigning their arrest. Gramps then is seen preparing to purchase and even more effective form of the anti-ageing stuff, continuing his pursuit of everlasting life. Throughout the story, the author’s thoughts regarding death and ageing are pretty clear. The family depicted in the story are seen as being desperate for Gramps to go. Through this conflict the author is satirizing death itself, which is in reality always tragic for family members who are affected by it. He is also expressing his thoughts regarding the inevitably of ageing, and how he believes it to be a natural part of life. In the society of “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow”, due to the huge amount of old people overpopulation has reached uncontrollable levels, and taxes are at record high levels due to pensions. Additionally many once common resources have completely disappeared. As one of the family members, Em, muses, ““If we just had a car, like the folks used to in the old days, “we could go for a drive, and get away from people for a little while. Gee—if those weren’t the days!” (Vonnegut 224) A.E Stallings has similar views on death and growing old to Vonnegut. In “After a Greek Proverb”, Stallings makes many bold statements  about the fact that life is temporary, encouraging the reader to make more of an effort to live in the moment. She exemplifies this by ending multiple stanzas in her poem with, “Nothing is more permanent than the temporary.” (Stallings 5) Overall, the themes of death and ageing outlined by A.E Stallings in her poem “After a Greek Proverb” do a great job of mirroring those of Kurt Vonnegut in “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow”. Both writers believe that life has an end and is a temporary process that is meant to end with natural occurrence of death.




Vonnegut's overcrowded world may look something like the above concept design.

When a Broken Past Tries to be a Bright Future

When a Broken Past Tries to be a Bright Future

By: Max Patel

Lyrics that appear in “Small Bump” by Ed Sheeran reflect the exact same thoughts that the mother in “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan is depicted feeling. An example of this is the lyric of the repeating pre-chorus: “I'll hold you tightly, I'll give you nothing but truth. If you're not inside me, I'll put my future in you.” This shows how the mother loves Jing-Mei, her daughter, and is only pushing her as hard as she is in hopes of helping her attain a brighter future. She, herself, is the only piece of history that has survived from her broken past, leaving her with nothing to use to raise Jing-Mei with. This is explained with the line, “If you’re not inside me, I’ll put my future in you.” Her daughter is not “inside her” because her daughter is not obedient the way she wants her to be. They do not connect enough to feel like parts of each other has been ingrained within the other. Instead, the mother feels like Jing-Mei is almost foreign. Because the mother both no longer has a future to hold on to, and doesn’t feel the strong bond with Jing-Mei she hoped she would, she desperately throws her love at Jing-Mei in ways that Jing-Mei doesn’t understand or appreciate by giving her all the opportunities she can to succeed. Another way to interpret the lyrics and text is that the mother’s horrible past has left her with a dull future revolving around Jing-mei, so she is in turn putting all of her dreams into her daughter hoping that she will come to be her great accomplishment. Her future.

Why do parents push their kids so hard?

The outside world is brutal. Talent, and most importantly, education is considered the only way out of misery and poverty (https://www.concern.net/about/our-programmes/education/why-education-important) To survive, many people have to get an education and nurture their mental abilities, or to work on talents from childhood. Parents can, therefore, push their young children too hard to success. But is this the only reason some parents over-drive their kids to prosperity? According to Amy Tan’s short story, “Two Kinds,” about a mother pushing her daughter to become a prodigy, the parent’s motivation was her terrible past, and competition with friends. Lots of parents want their kids to succeed and stand out in order to impress others or those who look down upon the family. In the song “Stand Out” from “A Goofy Movie,” the artist sings, “Til mine is the only face you see gonna stand out til you notice me.” He says he wants to be famous so that he can be noticed by his crush, who has most likely being ignoring or underestimating him. Plus, the short story “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, shows the mother bragging to a friend, as mentioned before, “Our problem worse than yours. If we ask Jing-mei wash dish, she hears nothing but music. It’s like you can’t stop this natural talent” (Tan 215). In the end, she sets her daughter up for a talent show that did not go very well. She did this mainly to settle a rivalry. One of the main reasons, hence, that some parents push their children is to excel higher is to settle scores with others.

Finding Motivation for your Resolutions

We’re not even two weeks into the new year and, already, we're losing motivation to carry out our resolutions. We set great intentions, long-term goals, and personal improvements for the new year. What we don't do, however, is outline exactly how we're going to continue to stay motivated.

This article discusses the difference between motivation and intention. Intention is a deliberate, conscious goal, like what we set as resolutions for the new year. Intention requires some sort of motivation to carry out. Motivation is an unconscious force, one that people seek to fulfill in their everyday lives. If we have a set intention, how do we find our motivation?

The author supplies a somewhat unsatisfactory answer. He states that, by following meditative exercises, it is possible to eventually align your motivations and intentions. This is a long-term, unreliable solution. It won't help us gain motivation for a New Year's resolution, much less anything we hope to accomplish within the next few months. It is not an active answer, nor does it provide anything other than increased self-awareness. It is more effective to find an alternative way to consciously motivate yourself, to be self-aware enough to pick out individual motivators. It could be money, fame, sex, praise, service, thrill, justice, or whatever gets you going. When pursuing a specific intention, such as exercising as a New Year's Resolution, add an element of motivation. Perhaps, if a motivator is money, make a bet on who can workout everyday the longest with someone who is pursuing the same intention. If a motivator is belonging, join a group fitness activity, such as crossfit or a running club. If a motivator is accountability and pride, it may be beneficial to tell many people about the set intention, and provide frequent updates.

It is undeniably beneficial to align intention with motivation over time to allow these things to occur organically in the future. However, pertaining to the present, spinning your intention to include an element of motivation may be the most actively effective solution.

The Unfair Media Criticism of Donald Trump

On January 7th, The Atlantic published an article titled, “Trump Is Turning American Companies Into Reality-Show Contestants”. Obviously, all news regarding our President-elect is of the utmost relevance, and this article is not without a title can easily grab the attention of a reader. The focus of the beginning of this article is a tweet from Donald Trump saying that is important that Toyota does not move their factory to Baja, Mexico. This is a poor way of presenting the easy case to make which is that it would be beneficial to keep the company located in the United States. Clearly, the president-elect could absolutely have handled this in a more mature and composed way. However, Donald Trump is attacked unfairly, when more often than not, he does not deserve such treatment from anyone. It is necessary for any society, especially the United States to rally around our leader and stand by his or her actions, because that is a requirement in order for a successful democratic state. The unwarranted and harsh criticism of Donald Trump is way out of line and needs to be controlled immediately.

Suffocating the Public

Pollution has plagued this planet for centuries, but only recently have we taken notice of horrific effects. Pollution is responsible for countless deaths of not only humans, but animals and plants alike. In china, the air pollution levels reached record highs in the last couple years, and the people noticed. If nothing is changed immediately, China will continue to experience the costly repercussions of pollution.

    Due to the Chinese burning coal as their primary source of energy, the air quality has decreased dramatically. Pollution has reached unprecedented levels and china pays the price by losing 1.6 million citizens every year due to air pollution (qz.com). The Chinese need to understand the benefits of environmental regulations, despite taking a loss in economic profits. They will be able to live healthier, longer lives by practicing environmental sustainability. Sustaining profits should not mean jeopardizing your citizens. The world should look towards China as a model of the extreme consequences of letting pollution run rampant. China should be the motivation that countries need to help reason environmental regulations. Ultimately, it is a worldly issue. We all live on the same planet, and we will all face the consequences of knowingly destroying our planet. The world needs to be able to recognize the blatant signs of environmental change and to take measures to avoid environmental disasters, such as China. China’s biggest mistake was not addressing the issues of pollution when they first began to see the effects. To continue to exponentially grow their economy, the Chinese government opted to ignore the glaring signs of environmental deterioration. Now that the citizens are experiencing the ramifications of the pollution, people like Dr. Zhao Xiaogang have started to speak out. Dr. Xiaogang is a lung surgeon, who treats more patients than ever due to the horrific air conditions, wrote a poem about the effects he has personally seen. As enough people voice their concerns, it has begun to force the government to change, but not at a rate fast enough to make serious change any time soon.

You Can't Always Get What You Want

Amy Tan’s short story Two Kinds tells the struggles of a young Chinese American girl who is unable to live up to the the lofty expectations her mother has set for her in an attempt to achieve the American Dream. The narrator’s mother believes her daughter can become the next child prodigy, showcased on screens around the nation due to her extraordinary skills. However, while the narrator realizes that she has the potential to become America’s next child sweetheart, she simply wants to live a normal life. This leads to the narrator and her mother clash constantly over the narrator's lack of motivation. The more the narrator’s mother pushed for perfection and starved for stardom, the farther apart she and her daughter grew. The narrator started to feel that her mother did not see her as a daughter, and simply viewed her as an expensive investment that was not paying dividends. After one especially hard piano practice, the narrator pronounced, “Why don't you like me the way I am? I'm not a genius! I can't play the piano. And even if I could, I wouldn't go on TV if you paid me a million dollars!" (Tan, 213). The pressure had finally gotten to the narrator and from that point on, her relationship with her mother rapidly deteriorated. The narrator continued to half-heartedly practice piano without achieving results, and because of this her mother became increasingly disappointed with her daughter until the final boiling point, a concert at the local community center. The narrator performed in front of the families of her community and proceeded to play her entire song out of time and with the wrong notes, leading to embarrassment for her and her family. This embarrassment was so great that her mother stopped the narrator from the playing the piano and allowed the piano to simply sit in their living room and collect dust. Ultimately, this removal of piano from the narrator’s life allowed her to develop her own interests and go on to live a happy and successful life of her own. As the Rolling Stones sing, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.” (Jagger, You Can’t Always Get What You Want) These words resonate with the narrator's mother because, even though her daughter did not become the child prodigy that she had hoped for, her mother realises that at the end of the day her daughter was happy and that is what matters most.   

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

The short story “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow”, by Kurt Vonnegut connects to the song Forever Young, by Marian Gold, . In the short story, the Schwartz family have been living together for a long time. They have a sort of potion that allows people to stop aging and stay the way that they are for as long as they want. In the song a line goes, “ youth is like diamonds in the sun, and diamonds are forever young.” This relates to the story because this potion is keeping the family young and healthy. Another line from the song that can connect to the story is, “heaven can wait, we're only watching the skies.” Lou and Em Schwartz are “young” compared to a lot of people that are living on Earth. In the beginning of the story they are standing out on a balcony and Em said “Sometimes I wish folks just up and died regular as clockwork, without anything to say about it, instead of deciding themselves how long they’re going to stay around.” She is pretty much saying that once people have the power of living forever they realize that maybe they don’t need it and living knowing that one day they will die is a better way to live.

Smog: A Threat to Human Lungs

If you travel to China or Korea in April, you’d barely see anyone walking outside--and if you do, you’d see something like a tiny face bandaged in an over-sized white mask.

From http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/19/asia/china-smog-red-alert/

Springtime marks the start of the dreadful sandstorm season in Southeast Asia. This, along with the year-round smog, makes it very difficult to breathe without wearing a mask. As kids living in Seoul, we’ve been constantly reminded at home and in school to cover up our faces as much as possible when going outside. Growing up, we’ve become so accustomed to the polluted spring air that a sky without dust and sand and pollutants was bizarre. This is probably why no one in China really understood how detrimental air pollution was to their (his or her) health--not until Dr. Zhao Xiaogang, a Chinese doctor working at Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital, discussed the relationship between smog and lung cancer. According to an article in Quartz Media, Dr. Xiaogang’s eight-line poem, written in the perspective of cancer, effectively addresses all types of factors that can cause lung cancer. His poem drew attention not only to the known carcinogens but also to factors, such as smog, that had once been neglected in the country. Dr. Xiaogang was brave in that he attempted to inform the public of a serious problem, risking the possibility that he might be punished by the Chinese government. (According to the article, the Chinese government tends to stay silent on issues that may target them (it). In the case of smog, if people become increasingly aware of the dangers associated with air pollution, they may blame the government for investing in factories that produce dangerous chemicals and pollutants.)

Whether Dr. Xiaogang’s poem will induce Chinese policy makers to shut down factories still merits more discussion. But because his poem gained so much support in a country where freedom of speech is highly limited, Dr. Xiaogang deserves to be praised.

Click on this link to read Dr. Xiaogang’s poem and/or to read the article about it.

https://qz.com/880752/a-doctors-poem-is-going-viral-in-china-and-raising-awareness-that-smog-surprise-is-a-cause-of-cancer/