an interesting article about the creative person and isolation

I found this article on Yahoo! today and thought it might help out with the final.  I am not requiring that you use information from this article, but rather, I thought it might just help you brainstorm some more ideas.  However, if you do choose to use this article, make sure you cite information (and quotes!) like we have been working on.  

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20081205/sc_livescience/iseinsteinthelastgreatgenius

The last post

Part One:  Why does Buck seem to leave a loving home (notice the qualifier "seem")?  

Part Two:  What is calling you?  In other words what is your "wild"?

This is our last question for TCOTW.  This post is due on Tuesday 12/02 and comments are due on 12/04.  It is my hope that these questions along with all the comments you have written and read will help influence your thoughts not only for the final essay but also in how you see the everyday world around you.  

I also hope you discovered something unique about yourself as we spent so much time examining the human condition (through Buck).  I know I have gained a few new perspectives by reading everyone's blog each week!

Question #4 will refer not only to chapters 4 and 5 specifically, but also allow you to draw from the information you have gathered so far from the TCOTW.

Do we need to form connections with others?  Back up your claim not with personal anecdotes, but rather with stuff from Buck's life as written in the book.  

Response 3, question and my actual response

Respond to this by Nov. 18 at 5:00 pm. 

London writes, in chapter three, that, "But Buck possessed a quality that made for greatness--imagination" (London 50).  Discuss the power of imagination and how it makes Buck great.  Think also of how imagination can make humans great.  

Imagination is that thing we are encouraged to have throughout childhood, but then it becomes that thing that can get us into trouble as we get older and start going to school.  We become suddenly encouraged not to follow the beat of our own drummer, rather we are persuaded to follow others and conform.  In those rare instances when we are placed in stressful situations though, our imagination can come in and save the day.  In a sense, I think that is part of what London is referring to when he writes, "But Buck possessed a quality that made for greatness--imagination" (50).

We hear inspirational stories of businessmen who really made it big because they possessed the imaginative capacity to think outside of the box.  Part of thinking outside of the box and being imaginative is also being brave enough to take a risk.  Possibly, having a strong sense of imagination allows us to be braver--we can imagine the outcome and we are not as afraid of it because we are imaginative enough to look past it and begin to understand that which we don't fully understand (if that makes any sense).  

However, I wonder to if imagination can actually lead to downfall.  Imagine, if you will, Buck fighting Spitz, and using his imagination to think of all the terrible outcomes that could come from this fight.  Would he have the courage still to keep fighting?  Would he have even started fighting?  

Looking back to that scene in The Call of the Wild, we learn that Buck fights both by instinct as well as by imagination.  I wonder if that instinct part is what gives him the courage to enter this fight.  The pure instinct allows Buck to block out all the imagination and be able to focus just on those ideas that will allow him to succeed, and thus achieve his greatness.  

My Response to 2

What does it mean that our life is merely a small piece of something bigger?  You ask what is bigger than life?  I think London's making the point that it isn't life in general, but the individual lives we have each constructed for ourselves that should be serving this bigger picture.  Those lives--the going to school and work, hanging out with friends, caring about who said what to whom and who wore what to where--that is the life that we need to reject.  Buck does, or at least he begins to reject this life in Chapter 2

If Buck let himself be distracted as we are by our personal lives, he would be distracted from survival.  He would be spending too much time worrying about how to get back and Manuel for kidnapping him or the man in the red sweater for beating him and not enough time concentrating on the truly important--staying alive in the harsh world.  In a sense, if Buck were to succumb to the personal life, he would get eat alive by the actual world.  We too need to give into the bigger idea of life, not as in our own personal ones, but in the whole idea of life as it extends to all humanity.  

For Buck, as the, "ancient song surged through him and he came into his own again," he let go of all that baggage from his personal life (London 30).  Now, we readers will see the True Buck emerge, the one who is not bound by personal issues, but by a strong desire to live a life of a free-willed dog.  We can hope to do the same--tap into the ancient song and find our true calling--our True Self.  

London's use of Buck as the main character...

Jack London's The Call of the Wild has often been used to study human nature even though its main character is a dog--Buck.  While I don't think what I am doing is anything new, I do think that this small text is used so much to study humanity is because it allows a non-threatening gateway into the ideas of human nature.  In fact, I think the biggest part of the novel that allows for readers to get this glimpse into their own human nature is London's reliance upon Buck as the main protagonist.

Buck is a dog, and while that may seem like a fairly obvious statement, this was surely a conscious decision on London's part.  He picked a character close to human (man's best friend, many would say), and yet not quite human.  Buck has some human qualities.  He has fear and trust issues.  He thinks, acts and reacts to situations like being dognapped and taken to a strange new land of cold and snow.  Even with all of this connection to Buck, we can begin to separate ourselves from him and remain distant because, ultimately, he is a dog.  Once we separate ourselves from the main character, we can begin to open our minds to how this all affects our own opinions about the complexities of human nature.  

And it is vitally important to explore our own opinions about the complexities of human nature.  If we do not take careful, considerate examinations of humanity, how will we be able to realize where we stand as a species?  As a society?  We must study our humanity just as we study history or philosophy, to learn from the past and to mark our progress along the way.  

The basic set up and routine for the project

Each week we will follow the same routine. This week will be slightly different because you have some set up and that human nature revision to add.

This week's steps:
1. Revise your Human Nature in-class writing. Make this the first post on your blog.
2. Email me a note with the URL for your blog copy/pasted into the body of the email by Sunday Nov. 2 at 3:00.
3. Read chapter 1.
4. Response for Chapter 1 is due posted on your blog by 5:00 Nov. 4th.
5. Comments on 2 other blogs due by 5:00 Nov. 6th.

Weekly:
1. Thursday, you'll get the week's question to respond to, but you'll also have to comment on the previous week's blogs
2. Tuesday, you will post your response by 5:00.

10/30, Chapter 1 Response

After reading Chapter 1, write up a 250 word (at least) response to the question:

Does London's use of Buck help us challenge the ideas of human nature?  Does it even matter if we challenge human nature?  Explain by going into detail.  While you must respond to both points, you may focus in on one over the other.  

This post is due by 5:00 Tuesday, Nov. 4th.  

What is HumaNature?

In Tuesday's class, I asked you all to write about what you thought the key component of human nature might be.  I think this is a good place for us to start our exploration of all things human naturey.  Make it your first post BEFORE you even get to the response for Chapter 1 of The Call of the Wild (COTW from here on out).  

For added fun, here's my take on that most basic of basics...

The Most Essential

Many of you wrote in your responses that the one thing that makes humans different from animals is the ability to reason or think, the ability to use logic in other words.  But I see things in a little different light.  When I was younger, I used to spend my mornings watching old Disney cartoons while I got ready for school.  One cartoon, in particular, has always stuck with me.  It featured Jiminy Cricket explaining (in cutesy song and animated dance) that we are "the human animal who can think, who can reason, who can read."  That idea has always stuck with me, but more recently I have seen how having the ability isn't always enough.

Ultimately, we humans have all the ability in the world, but until we do something with that ability, does it even count?  It's like that classic question, if a tree falls in the woods, but no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?  If a person has the ability to think for him/herself, but does not, is that living up to the ideas of human, or is that living the mindless life of any old animal?  Maybe this active thinking means so much to me because I am a teacher, but more likely than not, I am a teacher because this idea means so much to me.  I am a firm believer in the idea that with a little knowledge in hand, anyone can take the ideas and run and do something.  For example, we can learn all we want about logos, ethos and pathos, but until we implement what we learn, it is useless.  We must share our ideas.  We must learn from others and apply lessons to our own lives.  

To go back to that Jiminy Cricket song, yes, we are the human animal.  We can think, reason and read, but I think that by acting on what it is that we think about, reason out, and read we show a extra depth to all that is laid out in front of us.  We interact with the ideas and open up dialogues to further our own thoughts and help others to formulate their own thoughts.  In that way, we show how human we are by showing that we are not mindless beings, but beings who can see the complexities in life, and yet, we are not daunted by these complexities.  We welcome them, we encourage them and find some source of personal growth and development in them.  That is what makes us different.  That is what makes us human.  

This message is approved by Lynn Ankney-Roessner :)  

(It helps to read this while listening to that great, inspirational music that plays in the background of positive political ads, especially the 30 min. Obama special)