Zen Career Guide

"People who view the current game as placing human survival in jeopardy are attempting to rewrite the game rules. They see the current consumption and hoarding model as a dead end, leading to the end of all play on earth. Increased population and the fact that more and more people from traditional cultures are playing this game every year put tremendous pressure on the earth's life support system(221)."

The figurative language in this book is a bit overcoming, but that is to be expected because the title of the book is Zen and the Art of Making a Living. The entire 573 page books is all about how to make a career off of being a creative human being. Essentially the book contains tricks to creating a calm successful career in various areas of art. And since I would like to become a photographer this book is coming in pretty handy. A lot of people assume that majoring in art or attending an art college or university contains aspects of egotism, but after sifting through this book, which seems to resemble an encyclopedia, egotism isn't the first thing that comes to mind when considering art. This book talks about how people view the working world. How the average Joe would think purely about money, but in actuality (according to the Zen guide) money is the last thing people should think about when considering a job. As the good Zen book says, money will follow joy must come first. Most people try to "rewrite the game rules" but if we just follow them and pay our dues, giving and taking when necessary people will put less pressure on the worlds support system. Instead of earning as much as we can as fast as we can people should focus of joy and center towards happiness. By doing this not only will everyone be happy but the world will fall into a more balanced equilibrium.

Recap of Atonement

I've just recently finished reading Atonement and cannot get over how much I love it. Yes, it does fall under the classic love novel category but it's so much more then a love story. The whole while I was reading it I couldn't help but feel the deep regret and remorse Briony felt her entire latter half life. The fact that her sisters life and the one man she ever truly loved was ruined because of her overpowers the reader and captivates them into a series of emotions. The ability Ian McEwen, the author, has to characterize each character in the story, the reader feels as if they are more than characters, but living breathing people. Even from the first sentence, "The play for which Briony had designed the posters, programs and tickets, constructed sales booth out of a folding screen tipped on its side, and lined the collected box in red crepe paper(1)..." Without even allowing Briony lines the audience can already tell what kind of people she is going to be. An overly tedious child who must have great talent because, at only age 11, she has written a play, made the tickets posters, and even a sales booth. It's novels like Atonement that really inspire me to try to write, or even try my hardest at anything. The fact that one person's mind has the ability to create not only a story but the characters inside of it with ridiculous believability just amazes me, and makes me hope that some day I could put this much effort into whatever career I have when I'm older.

Three Cups of Tea

"I was born between trying quickly to learn how to pray like a Shia and making the most of my opportunity to study the ancient Buddhist woodcarvings on the walls," Mortenson says. If the Balti respected Buddhism swastikas and wheels of life, Mortenson decided, as his eye lingered on the carvings, they were probably tolerant enough to endure an infidel praying as a tailor had taught him(142)."


This book, Three Cups of Tea, by co-authors (I think...) Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, is essentially about a man, Mortenson, who sort of accidentally came across an unlucky and unfortunate Pakistan village in Karaokam mountains. Mortenson tried to climb Mt. Everest but failed and after staying in this village is compelled to help out the inhabitants. Mortenson tells the villiagers that he will return someday and do whatever he can to help, and in his case he helps by building a school. Starting with just one and than moving onward to build up to fifty-five schools. A majority of the schools are for women, which amazingly touches the readers. The conditions for women in Pakistan along with other middle eastern countries are utterly horrible. Although they are slowly growing better the way that women are treated is both shocking and horribly depressing. This book reminds me of a little of the Kite Runner, but has tremendous resemblance with A Thousand Splendid Suns. Having already read both of those books I consider myself at least slightly educated about the conditions of life over seas, and too read another book about the trials these people deal with it really makes me think about what I have and how lucky I really am. I mean, I can leave my house alone and return whenever I want, I have independence that other women in other countries just don't have and it really makes me sad to think that.

Mr. Dust

"Five...Four... For a full second his mind is frozen. Three... And it's then that Giovanni lets out a squeal of laughter, kicks himself upright, and throws himself toward the crowd. Two... Ann reaches out to catch him, presses him back into Cosmo's chest, and the two of them watch as the baby raises his hand in a gesture of benediction, forefinger to thumb, blessing the carnival before him-the grimacing faces, the misshapen, the empy, the parodic, the profane, as if he can see through it all to the sacrd life beneath. One... Behind him there reads a field of blue enamel, golden stars (270)."

This book is called The Madonna of Las Vegas and is written by the author Gregory Blake Smith. The book is a story about a mans life and his realization of his shortcomings as the new millennium approaches. The main character Cosmo Dust (yes that's his name) hates that the ages are changing and catches himself lost in the casino life, especially one that is trying to recreate the Sistine Chapel in their ceiling. Cosmo is a painter, and he is good. But recreating a world renown timeless classic? A work of art that is so amazing people travel from all over the world to just crank their necks and absorb the aged talents of Michelangelo? Oh dear. Cosmo is about to quit his job and just move into something that actually means something to him, rather than art that is a copy. But unfortunately he becomes a suspect for a murder. Cosmo goes on somewhat of an adventure mixing ties with the local Vegas mod scene and all hell seems to break loose. All in all Cosmo makes is to the countdown and eludes himself from a very messy crime investigation. I really enjoyed reading this book and I really enjoys the ending, which is the passage I choose. Whilst reading the book the reader sort of feels like everything is a fast pasted rat race, if you will. But the end ties to an calm realizational moment. It's the beginning of a new year, filled with new year resolutions and promises of a better year. Cosmo Dust starts a new year, a new adventure while also saying goodbye to the last.

Buccaneers and Privateers

"From the decline of the Roman Empire until 1500, Europe was burdened by the termoil of endless and pointless wars in which rival noble factions fought one another to exhustion in a cimpetition to expand their personal power. Imperial rulers enlarged their domains primarily by pushing their borders outward throug the military conquest of contiguous territories. The vaguished people and thier lands were brought under the central military and administrative control of the city in which the ruling king or emperor resided (58)."

You always talk to us about how we need to sound knowledgable and aware of all apsect of the subjects we talk about, and as I read through this book it became very clear how helpful it is to sound like you know what you're talking about. This passage is, again, from the book Agenda for a New Economy and as you can see this passage doesn't really have much to do with today's American economy. But that's the novel of it all. The author is giving his audience a sort of background foundation for everything he talks about so that his audience not only trusts what the author tells them, but also has the ability to follow along to all of the reverences. This whole chapter talks about ancient economies and how they grew and didn't grow. All of this comes in really handy knowing that I need to sound this knowledgable in my research paper, and seeing all of this in practice the task itself doesn't feel as daunting. If this author can write an entire "reseach" book than I can certainly write a six page research paper.

Atonement

"But hidden drawers, lockable diaries, and cryptographic systems could not conceal from Briony the simple truth: She had no secrets. Her wish for a harmonious, organized world denied her the reckless possibilities of wrongdoing. Mayhem and destruction were too chaotic for her tastes, and she did not have it in her to be cruel. ... Nothing in her life was sufficiently interesting or shameful to merit hiding; no one knew about the squirrel's skull beneath her bed, but no one wanted to know(5)."

I feel like everyone wants there life to have some aspect of drama, and mystery. This character Briony, her entire life is orderly and in place, she knows where everything is, behaves well, and has an encredible brain. But sometimes that's not enough, in many cases I would say that's not enough. But this passage doesn't only chacaterize, this passage forshadows much of the plot of the book. "Her wish for a harmonious, organized world denied her the reckless possibilities of wrongdoing." Except, everything that happens in this story is because of Briony's wrongdoing. Even her organization couldn't keep her away from making this mistake. Her love for writing and fictionizing blinds her from the reality of something she "think" she see's. "Nothing in her life was sufficiantly interesting or shameful to marit hiding..." Practically every word in the quote foreshadows. It's sort of amazing how some authors have that much control over their writing. I remember reading Toni Morrison both freshman year and last year and being awed by her power over her writing. It just amazes me bacuase when you read something you don't really think about how much work it is to write successfully, meaning that a lot of people don't realize what writing is and perhaps that's because it's in some ways an intangeable thing.

Agenda for a New Economy

"If we look upstream for the ultimate cause of the economic crisis that is tearing so many lives apart, we find an illusion: the belied that money-a mere number created with a simple accounting entry that has no reality outside the human mind- is wealth. Because money represents a claim on so many things essential to our survival and well-being, we easily slip into evaluating economic performance in terms of the rate of financial return to money, essentially the rate at which money is growing, rather than by the economy's contribution to the long-term well-being of people and nature(1)."

As it were, one of my moms friends is out of town fo thanksgiving and she's having me take care of her house and her dogs. And as I was feeding the dogs I noticed a book she had about the economy. And since I really know nothing about the economy and our economic crisis I descided to pick it up and give a quick look over. So, I had just finished woking on my reasearch paper and was having a little bit of trouble thinking up an intoduction, then I took a short break and picked up this book. I probably wouldn't have ever expected the intoduction to have this sort of Dr. Phil sounding tone to it. And in some ways it didn't really relate to the rest of the chapter. Of course, there were the obvious key points made; this illusion that we create about money amounting to our wealth, I get that part, but then when they talk about how this illusion effects the well-being of not only people but of nature as well... I didn't really see were that part was coming from. But this sort of got me think, an introduction doesn't only talk about the key points of the rest of the paper or book, it also has to draw in an adience, convince said person to keep reading rather than put the book down. It didn't bother me that David C. Korten (the author) was talking about nature and it didn't even really bother me that he sounded like Dr. Phil.