Connection: Heart of Darkness and Society

Two days ago, I was rereading Heart of Darkness and I simply could not understand the dephth of it, its meaning or the story itself. I walked into class the next day, frustrated because I was not sure if I could seem competent while in a discussion. Fortunately for me, a classmate told me that he had begun reading the story for the story, and not to find deep meaning. I began to understand the story easier and more of the complexity.
In life, people spend so much time analyizing everything; trying to expose every detail in order to explain something. Rather, if we just sat back and enjoyed and accepted life for what it is, I think we would actually understand and appreciate it better because we can live our lives without interrupting them with all of this analyzing. This doesn't just apply to living life, it applies to observing it too. For example, in the news, especially in sports, people are trying to combine and clash every angle of perspecetive. All they do is make a bigger deal out of events. Also, in terms of work, people go to such lengths to impress others, when really the most impressive thing is the ability to get the job done. People try to make stories so complex when they can just be enjoyed, much like life.

Connection - Postmodernism and the Olympics

Since the 12th of February, the Olympics have been in full tilt. Here, I would like to talk about postmodernism and how it connects to the Olympics. Postmodern individuals are members of a system; they all come together to be a part of a greater whole. In the Olympics, athletes come from every corner of the globe to get something meaningful out of an experience that they share with every other athlete that they compete with. An American does not know what it's like to be here as a Chinese person; they each only have their own perspectives, but they do not usually see the other sides unless they inform each other of their own viewpoints. So, sports aside, the Olympics is one big melting pot where people from all around the world strut their stuff and paint a beautiful rainbow of cultures at the same time.

But even if we step outside of Vancouver and into households, we can see the part non Olympians play this. Every second we can't watch Apolo Ohno skate or Lindsey Jacobellis snowboard, some company is trying to sell us a product. It is the American way to craft humorous commercials that serve the purpose of tricking the masses into believing that some product is the best. People are trying to milk money out of spare time.

The Olympics really represent a postmodern world in this regard and that is why this blog is so relevant; in fact, the Olympics may not be in existance if our world wasn't postmodern.