Tao Te Ching

              Knowing

Without taking a step outdoors
You know the whole world;
Without taking a peep out the window
You know the colour of the sky.

The more you experience,
The less you know.
The sage wanders without knowing,
Sees without looking,
Accomplishes without acting.

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The first thing about this poem that I noticed is that in many of the lines it gives two different extremes; for example the first two lines of the first stanza talks about not stepping outdoors, but knowing the whole world. To me having two extremes like this is contradictory because there is no way you can stay inside some where and know the whole world. 

The line that says: The more you experience, The less you know, I feel goes against "The Way" because Taoism says that the way is endless, which would make the experience and a person's knowledge never ending. With this they seem to contradict themselves again. The last few lines that talk about the sage, I feel it is saying that because he/she is such a wise person they don't need to do much because people assume that they know it all already and there is no need for them to show what they know. Going back to "The Way", Taoists sat that it is like a river and it flows in all directions and never ends, so if you put that in terms of a person's knowledge there would be no amount of knowledge a person could have, if they want to live "The Way".

Super Powers; Are they a good or bad thing!

When I was little I thought it would always be fun to be invincible and be able to play tricks on people and not get caught. Looking back I feel that after sometime it would get old and no longer be the fun it use to be. Which to me would be a little better fate that what happened to Dutilleulin in the story "The Man who walked Through walls, or The Life of an Unremarkable Person" by Marcel Aym`e.

This story is all about Dutilleulin power he has to be able to walk through walls. He first starts out just using his powers to get in and out of his apartment  but then he feels that he can not be caught and begins to commit crimes using his power. This leads me to the question in my head which is would all people be interested to see what they could get away with if they had a special power? I feel that people would use their power it the means to do good but then get carried away and then begin to commit crimes, such as what Dutilleulin did in the story.

The first part of the story that really got my attention and made me think, "that is something i may do if I had this power. The part of the story that I focused on for my close reading is the part where Dutilleulin uses his power to taunt his boss, by putting his head through the wall and talking to his boss like he was a trophy on the wall. After this part of the story is where Dutilleulin figures out that he could do a whole lot of things and he felt that he couldn't get caught.

The second part of the story that caught my attention was the end of the story where he becomes trapped in the wall of lovers house. This part of the story really stumped me because there are many things I feel that don't add up. The first thing is even if you have a headache, what makes a person think it is a good idea to take unlabeled pills that you find in the bottom of your drawer.The other part that stumps me is why would anyone feel like they will never get caught for the bad things that they did.

To me this story is used to try and teach people about the moral of Karma "what goes around comes around", because after all the bad things that Dutilleudin did it all caught up with him in the end of the story when he got stuck in the wall after his pills began to take affect. So to me when I look at the overall moral of this story, it is telling the readers to be aware of the things that they do and that if the things they are doing are bad enough they should be aware that what they did could come back and harm them. So a question for you would it be worth having a super power, knowing that it could come back as Karma to get you.

The People and the Wine

After reading the chapter titled The Wine shop in the book Tale of Two Cities, I found myself coming back to just one specific part of the chapter. The part of the chapter that I went back to was at the beginning of the chapter where it talked about how a cask of wine was dropped in the street and there was a flood of people drinking it right off the ground.

I found myself engulfed in this section because Dickens uses such descriptive wording that makes it possible for me to see in my mind what this scene looks like. For an example in one section Dickens describes all the business being put on hold for the people to go and drink from the road where the wind had been spilled Dickens also used descriptive wording to describe how the wine flowed through the cracks of the street, that made the wine look like pools of blood. When it comes to this part of the chapter I was able to visualize what this scene would look like and to me it reminded me of a heard of animals all trying to drink out of the same watering hole.

When it came to how the people in this scene were described all drinking the wine it seemed chaotic, people leaning over each other just for the smallest taste of wine. The towns people were all using different things to drink the wine and some even resorted to sucking or chewing on the wood of the wine cask. Some used their fingers, others used mugs while the woman used handkerchiefs to drip the wine into their mouths as well as into the mouths of their children. When I read this I was surprised, what mother would let their child drink wine in any amount. This to me just shows how different life was back then, then how it is now. Because now it is not the smartest thing to do (ie give your child wine).

Overall this scene just shows the extremes some people will go to to get something they may enjoy. Back then it was for a small sip of wine, when today it maybe a homeless person just looking for some where to sleep out of the rain. I feel that scenes like this get over looked because people who have what they need to live don't always take the time to look at others and what they might do to get anything just to make it through their lives.