How Many Years Do Words Live For?

Understanding Shakespeare involves serious decoding. To "get" the true meaning of one of Shakespeare's sonnets doesn't take just a quick read through. Shakespeare alludes to deep concepts like the meaning of life and the purpose of love in short fourteen line poems. You have to read tirelessly just to grasp those concepts, however. It is almost like Shakespeare wants us to be confused. Maybe it's all just part of his major plan to make us feel less intelligent. I really enjoy translating his sonnets, though. Sonnet # 18 gives life, beauty and love to a woman who lives through the poem. Words will survive through earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, and other disasters unlike other monuments. Shakespeare discovered this, and his words will live on longer than the Parthenon and Pyramids of Giza.

The Wonderful World of Fluent Writing

In my case, the most difficult thing about writing essays is using a gradual flow with rhetorics to go from general ideas to specific details that support my thesis. Connecting sentences that "flow" and gradually ease the reader into the next topic is a huge part of this process. When I finally synthesize my ideas coherently, I am still not finished. There is always something that can be changed or fixed to make a paper more understandable, or coherent. The process of writing can be categorized in steps. First, the topic of the paper must be questioned, then the main idea of your paper must take a stand on the issue discussed and eventually incorpororate criticisms. The rest of the process revolves around proofreading and revising. There are guidelines and unspoken laws about writing, but in the style a person breaks these laws in order to prove their points or evoke intrests in others defines a paper.

Ineffective Moral Leader?

What is more effective, a moral leader that doesn't have the concept of leadership or a authoritarian, immoral leader that takes advantage of their subjects? How can one be sure which type of leader is a better choice? A moral leader will base their decisions on what will benefit their people, but what if this decision leads to a failure in governance? A immoral leader may oppress his/her subjects, but at least this leader will be more successful in controlling affairs in their government. It is easier for a ruler to ignore morality when making decisions because it makes the process a lot easier to complete. Worrying about a small, starving peasent family will be the last thought on a ruler's mind when determining if there should be a retaliation to an antagonizing force. The overall best ruler will have a mixture of both authoritarian and moral traits. Observing a ruler integrating morality into their decisions will enhance the public sentiment of their subjects, and characteristics of slight domination in a leader will make the subjects look up to their ruler. Believing in the validity of the laws that a government enforces also is necessary for the leader to approach their full potential. A leader cannot be just anyone, a leader must have quality traits necessary to successfully govern. A leaders who failed to exhibit a leadership traits is Creon, for example. Creon ignored public sentiment, and all those who opposed him, and ended up alienating and losing all of those close to him. A leader will always experience failure if they thwart the leadership qualities.

Conformity to Laws

Antigone was portrayed as brave, but was she really trying to be valiant when she gave her brother his death rites? Breaking a law is more than just demonstrating against conformity. There has to be a purpose and reason to break a law for the action to be justifiable. A higher cause must be fulfilled, or the disobedience is hollow, and without meaning. The whole point of publically demonstrating a law is to attract people to a cuase, and when there is no cause, people will lose faith in the behavior and the opposition to the specific law. Laws should be broken to prove that the law in question is immoral, or not applicabble to society. Furthermore, breaking a law should benefit the greater good.

What If?

Would you could chose the path of your own destiny? What if you could pick out all the milestones ahead of you in your life and decide what will happen? There would be no stress and anticipation. If doom was destined, you could prepare for it ahead of time. The doom would be inevitable, and it could be a test of your resiliency. If you manage to maintain sanity during the crisis, you pass the test and stay orientated. Fail, and you spiral into the oblivion of disoreintation. Take Oedipus for example. He lost his sanity, gouged out his eyes and doubted his capability of continuing life normally.The question is, however, what aspects of our life do we actually have control over?

When I Think Silently

As the dark cathedral that holds my inner thoughts is fills up with knowledge, the time is speeding past me. I sometimes wonder, "how did it get so late already?" I constantly have to be on my toes in order to accomplish the things I need to do on a daily basis. Even now as I am thinking about time limits, I wonder about "The Voice You Hear When You Read Silently." I never really thought about how different thoughts are from spoken words. Your thoughts are your own, they can mean anything. No one can interrupt you in your sacred hideaway, and your inner voice is different, as Thomas Lux explains. I can't say that the inner voice is rational, but it is definitely what makes us unique. Even when the world is spinning around you, you can rely on that inner voice to speak reason.

I just realized today how quickly the days are going by, and instead of being happy, I am actually worried. All the responsibilities that revolve around college stress me out. I am similar to Lot's wife slightly in how she doesn't want to leave Sodom, because I don't want to step out of my comfort zone. Overcoming that speed bump in my life's highway will change the final destination to my adulthood. It would just be too easy to have my highway laid out for me, but there are so many twists and turns, dead ends, and exits that distract and change me along the way. I don't want to end up like Bartleby, either, with the only way off his highway being the dead end. I will be make sure that my highway has just the right amount of speed bumps and turns.