The Loves of My Life: Chopin, AP Chem, and Nature

            It’s been a rough week. Sprucing up my comp book entries at 1:00 a.m. because about half of them weren’t finished and/or good until the night before they were due. Doing chem problems until 2:00. Spazzing about whether to be a pirate or Trinity from The Matrix for Halloween (which I still haven’t decided, by the way). I’m sixteen, but I feel like I’m sixty. I wake up like a zombie every morning, and I can tell that my mother is deeply concerned about my sleep schedule.

What has the swirling tempest of pressures this week taught me? Not to procrastinate? Unfortunately, no. It’s taught me that the great American Romantics of the 19^th century were probably right.

I’ve always loved the music of the Romantic period. The lilting arpeggios of Chopin’s nocturnes have always had a way of tearing at my heartstrings and making me cry that love is both the pinnacle and the bane of our existence, that it is all that is beautiful and painful.

 But maybe it’s just ’cause I’m Polish. I don’t know.

Anyway, my love for the music of time gave me a dim hope that the literature we’d study in English this unit might actually be interesting. And if not interesting, boy was it logical.

The appreciation of the individual made so much sense. The only reason I subject myself to the horrors of AP classes I don’t really like and membership in several clubs is to look good in the eyes of my peers and—let’s be honest—colleges. If I were to do only classes and activities that interested me (AP Chem <3), I would truly be a happier person, more of the person God intended me to be.

Romanticism’s emphasis on nature as a panacea and thing of beauty couldn’t be truer. When I hiked the trails of the Sleeping Bear Dunes this summer, liberated from my summer reading and people constantly talking at me on the Internet, the sun and shade casting a wondrous checkerboard on my face, I felt so at peace, like I was walking in the ridges of God’s fingerprints.

If we could all just get away from the stresses of our everyday, pursue our own areas of interest, plop down in a meadow, and listen to a Chopin CD, I think the world would be a much happier, more inviting place.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGRO05WcNDk

Goodbye, Declaration?

             As far as opinions go, I don’t know where to turn.

 The overbearingly liberal beliefs that the media “secretly” grinds into its “unbiased” coverage of the news? My parents’ conservative views rooted deeply in tradition? It’s too hard to pick a side.

So, I usually take easy way out with a wishy-washy moderate view that I hope both sides can agree with. Don’t want to offend anyone. Don’t want anyone to hate me. But there’s one thing I won’t be a weak, sniveling coward about: the rights guaranteed by The Declaration of Independence.

            With that one, horribly over-quoted assertion, Thomas Jefferson forever changed the world’s view on government. “We hold these truths to be self-evident:-- That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

            Rights that God gives you, that come from no government, that everyone is entitled to just for being human aren’t too much to ask for, right? Especially for a group of men living under some of the most corrupt tax laws in history, who hadn’t seen their wives in months (#1776)…. Right?

            Wrong, apparently…

So many little conventions of law today quietly aim to prevent us from exercising the rights defined by the Declaration. Laws to protect the lives of the most vulnerable in society—children especially—are not being made. “Free-speech zones” on college campuses aim to restrict students’ liberty of free speech to certain areas. Zoning ordinances, the illegalization of marijuana, and that law that forces the Church to pay for birth control for its nun employees throw pursuit of happiness out the window. Though we don’t infringe on anyone else’s rights by growing our grass three feet tall, smoking pot, or staying true to our religious doctrines, apparently it’s against the law for us Americans.

Life. Liberty. The pursuit of happiness. All are subtly sucked away from us by the black hole of legal technicalities. What will it suck away next?

Hitler, Witches, and Obamacare-- Oh My!

 I’ve always strayed away from writing about power for English class.  The fear that I’d spout out ten bajillion clichés that the teacher has already heard about Hitler’s bloodthirsty conquest for control of Europe was just too great. Let’s hope this connection between Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and the present day can contain a little more original thought.

            In The Crucible, Abigail Williams and her posse of young girls wrongly condemn several townspeople to death by crying witchcraft. Why? Because it’s the only way 17- and 18-year-old girls can have power over anything in a patriarchal, theocratic Puritan society. Abigail yearns for the hanging of Elizabeth Proctor because she wants John Proctor for her own husband, since—other than calling people witches—having her dream husband is the only way a woman in Salem can hold power.

            And what is the only way a political party can hold power? Well, the American people—though they don’t exactly take advantage of it—have total power over which party is elected to rule. So, a party’s only weapon is pushing its agenda through Congress. And with the conflict over Obamacare, this weapon has been fired far too many times. The stubbornness of Democrats—because they somehow think that passing a 1,000-page bill no one had the time to read was okay the first time—and Republicans—because they can’t handle a loss—has led to a government shutdown. Because our representatives in Washington—whom we elected out of faith that they would make America stronger—can’t put their big-boy pants on and work together, countless government workers have been furloughed and wonderful programs like those of NASA have been forced to a standstill. It seems to me that where there is a power struggle, someone always gets hanged.

Society's Emphasis on Morality Has Led to Immorality

Excuses, excuses, that’s all we seem to hear today. Excuses for not doing our homework, excuses for not honoring our commitments, excuses to get sympathy, excuses to exact our revenge.  The point is that there is not one person today who hasn’t come up with an excuse for their own personal gain that preyed upon the vulnerable aspects of human nature or the need to adhere to social conventions.

            In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, Mr. Walcott shouts with conviction that Martha Corey used witchcraft to murder all of his cows because of a bit of petty resentment that the one she sold him died soon after. Abigail Williams screams hysterically that Elizabeth Proctor used dark magic to stab her, when in reality Elizabeth did nothing; Abigail was just jealous of her husband. These characters are willing to use ridiculous accusations of witchcraft, manipulating the townspeople’s desire to fit in and follow their church and their need to succumb to the id and be part of an animalistic mob, as an excuse to get their revenge—for something stupid and unimportant, mind you.

            I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of people manipulating one another with silly excuses. I’m sick of people trying to gain sympathy with fake sob stories as to why they did not honor their commitments. I’m sick of people preying on others’ need to be nice. I’m sick of girls complaining about their girth for the soul purpose of having someone tell them they’re skinny. I’m sick of this, but most of all, I’m sick of people using excuses to beat up on others to build themselves up. When the media needs a scapegoat to blame all the evil in the world on, they portray something like the Catholic Church—the largest charitable organization in the world—as this reactionary hate group like the Westboro Baptist Church. Though Catholicism prohibits gay marriage—and it’s not the only religion that does—Catholics have never led any actual attacks on gays. The media preys on people’s need to be viewed as accepting as an excuse to push its own ideology. People use each others’ desire to be kind to gain sympathy and exempt themselves from hard work. It seems society’s emphasis on people being viewed as kind and moral has pushed some to be manipulative and cruelly take advantage of others.