A look behind at stranger in a strange land.

one of the main ideas of stranger in a strange land is the concept of "grok". The literal martian definition is "to partake water". One of the beauties of this book is that, while the concpet of groking is never fully explained, by the end of the book you understand groking, but find yourself unable to explain it to others. My view of groking is that it means to understand something. But it is fuller than that. You understand something, you know how it works. you know every little peice of how it works. you know how the peices work. you know why the peices work. You know why it happens, you know what happens when it happens. you understand it so infintismaly that that thing has been absorbed by your pysche, has been spiritually liquified and used to marinate your brain. You may know how an engine works. But if you grokked an engine, you would be a different person. you see, with utter clarity, what this thing affects, and how peoples emotions and reactions changed it. Anything can be grokked. For example, Mike knows that he is required to wear clothes. He does not need to, cold and heat dont affect him. only extreme polar differences can make him take notice. So he understands why people wear clothes, because it is a cultural requirement and a social tradition. He unsderstands clothing, but he cannot grok it. he cannot grok why people feel that they have to clothe themselves, why people cant control their bodies like he can to avoid injury and discomfort. he would have to sit down and think intensely for hours just to grok clothes.

i know that i do not grok this book. i probably grok nothing, except for myself, maybe. such intense soul searching and reasoning would be almost impossible for an untrained person. But i feel that i am on my way to grokking. And i think one key element of groking is fullfilment. fulfilment of the spirit, flesh, and mind.

"we laugh because it hurts not to"

Blog from April 6th on Star Wars

Star Wars
we have been watching star wars in class these past few days as a part of our science fiction unit. One of the ideas in star wars that ties in with our earlier discussions is the concept of faith. This is represented in Star Wars using the Force. Luke cannot fully master the force yet because he doesnt beleive in himself or the force strongly enough. His faith in his ability to levitate objects is weak at first, but grows stronger as his experiences grows. Once he has lifted a rock several times, he knows that he can lift rocks, and he has faith that he can use the force to lift rocks now. In contrast, when he tries to raise up his X-Wing, he cannot, not because he is unable to, but because he doesnt have faith that he can, becuase the X-Wing is so big. What really matters is his faith in his ability to move ANY object, not the size of the object. This is an interesting matter and it happens in our society. People with self-confidence seem more sure of themselves, which makes others more sure of them. People with diseases are given sugar pills and told they are cures, and they heal. Mothers lift up freakin CARS to save their babies because they dont have any time for self-doubt. Doubt is a crippling emotion, and it is one that needs to be eliminated from yourself. The overall moral of the story; If you dream it, you can do it.

Blog on Faith from April 2nd

Faith.
Faith is a loaded word. Faith is a driving force in many peoples lives. People live by faith, make decisions by faith, act on faith, die for faith, kill for faith. A loose definiton of faith is belief in something that cannot be proven. This could range from Faith in God to faith that your husband will pick up the dry-cleaning. Faith can be lost, gained, weakened, strengthened, given, earned, and analyzed. When most people think of faith, they think of religion. at least i do. But faith differs. Faith in god is different from faith in, say, that your bus will be on time. Faith in God is different in that we have no clue at all if god and his related conventions are true. You may have faith in the bus because its been on time every day for the past 5 years. You may have faith that your husband or wife won't cheat on you because you know their character. You may even have faith that Tom Cruise is really a nice guy, because someone has experienced hm and told you this. We cannot have the same faith in God. Our faith in God comes solely from the widespread beliefs of him. We have faith in God because millions of people do. We cannot hear God, see God. We dont have past experience of heaven or hell. We dont even know anybody who does. There is no physical precedent of God's rewards and punishments. Religious faith in the afterlife and of a heavenly but unproven omnicient diety is a communal faith rather than a personal faith. Oh ye of little faith, thine vanity is Logic.

Blog on the star:revisited, from march 29th.

The star : revisited.
today in my english class we discussed some of the deeper themes in The Star. The most interesting of them by far is the conflict between science and faith. In the story, a space pilot discovers the star of bethleham., a star in a distant galaxy which went supernova and guided the three wise men to baby jesus. He found that this supernova had wiped out an entire race. The basic dilemna boils down to this, did god sacrifice those people to send a signal to the wise men? if not, and it was merely coincidence, then does god even exist? This brought up the question of science vs faith, since the narrator happens to be an astrophysicist as well as a jesuit. I beleive that faith and science can coexist without paradox or conflict. Maybe our idea of "faith" must be held loosely for this to happen, but this can and has been done. For example, many biblical events and happenings, such as miracles, cannot be sufficiently explained by science. Many scientific theories and evidence, such as evolutionism or the big bang, can flumux theologists. Science is merely the rules of the game, not the player. Maybe choosing things to happen and allowing them to happen following the rules of our world is what god is really about.

Blog on the star from march 28th

today in class we read a short story called the star.

the story centers on an exploring band of austronaughts that discover a record of a doomed race on a planet whos sun went nova. The people of the planet, knowing of their impending doom, preserved pictures , videos, pamphlets, and records of their language and culture. The acceptance of such a fate tells of a severe maturity and advancement of such a race, whom, instead of panicking, go about to preserve themselves, knowing they woulkdnt be doscovered for millenia. I dont think we of earth could do that. i think murder, rape, and crime in general would drasticly increase and that everyone would just panic. This story says to me that we of earth, while being technilogically advanced, have not advanced culturally as we should.

Freytag's Triangles in a Strange Land.

In stranger in a strange land, Mike valentine smith, aka the man from mars, comes to earth to learn from humans, but ends up teaching us a lot more than we bargained for. Mike's introduction to the story begins in the first chapter, (as most introducti0ns do). Mike is brought to earth from mars in a space shuttle. He is the first human to be raised by martians. The story rises (rising action) as Mike escapes from the hospital they had him enprisoned in, and travels with Jillian (his nurse) to a Dr. Jubal Harshaw, Attorney at Law. They stay with jubal in his mansion and explore mike's budding ... eccentricities, such as the ability to levitate, go into complete cataconic withdrawal, and the ability to make things completely cease to exist by thinking about it. This is Mike's "learning phase", much as luke was trained by yoda. But in this case, Mike teaches the others just as much as they teach him. The climax of the book is acheieved when mike leaves jubals house with jill and, after a bit of adventuring and a brief stay with the circus, he founds his own religion . He has visited a new church based on the idea of heavenly happiness through sex, alchohol, and gambling. His church is based on a loose idea of communal sharing, and contentment acheived through self-reflection and meditation. He tea ches his followers martian, and with it, his abilities. People "think" themselves into better shape by acute muscle control. All of this is coupled with a living atmosphere of nudity and communal sex followed with "water rituals" (water is sacred to martians), and big bowls of cash. The falling action is a fire tht destroys the church and sends mike and his followers into hiding from persecution by other religions. The resolution is when mike is stoned to death in front of his own hotel while he is trying to give his message to the world. Mike takes the blows and rocks with a smile and shouts out his divine purpose all the while, finishing with "thou art God". He then discorporates an go on to bigger and better things in spirit.

Conflict

Conflict

Stranger in a Strange Land has many examples of conflict. One of the most noticeable exapmples is the conflict of Man vs. Society. Mike was raised as a martian and to describe martian society is like asking a blind man to describe the color red. Mik ehas to constantly learn the nuances of our culture and society, and makes mistakes such as not wearing clothes, killing people wantonly, and kissing strangers in public. His culture makes is so very different than ours that he has to learn customs he finds ridiculous and plain destructive. The culture shock is very intense for him adn this is a conflict he fights all his life.