Bewilderment

In the essay written by Fanny Howe, she introduces the word bewilderment and how such a simple word can have a complex meaning. In the story the concept of bewilderment shown is that we are never in the "known" in our dreams. She also explains how bewilderment is important in poetry today by providing several problems with some works of poetry and how bewilderment can answer these aspects to those problems. I like this essay because it can be interpreted in many different ways because of how each person can individually perceive this story. When she says "The dreamer is aware that only everything else but this tiny dream exists and in this way the dream itself is free to act without restraint." I think this means that we know consciously that we are dreaming which allows us are dreams to be very random. Dreams are very confusing, but it's still apart of a daily cycle we as humans go through. Which by dreams being random and confusing is basically the working definition of Bewilderment. With this uncertainty, bewilderment plays a huge role in poems because you may have thought you understood and interpreted the poem, but in fact the author had a very different meaning to what it actually meant. This kind of parallel thinking inspires us and is a huge part in the way people think because it helps us try and understand other questions in life like the meaning of life, or how the universe came to existence. Without bewilderment the world we live in would be a loss of uncertainty and progression. Just like she says in the essay the "the point of art-like war- is to show people that life is worth living by showing that it isn't."

Bewilderment

According to the dictionary, “to bewilder is ‘to cause to lose one's sense of where one is.’”. Fanny Howe explains to the reader how bewilderment is important in poetry. She provides several problems with poetry and how bewilderment is the answer to understand them. She explains how bewilderment is formed when trying to express the simultaneousness of a situation. Bewilderment is “more than an attitude--but an actual approach, a way--to resolve the unresolvable”. After reading “Bewilderment” by Fanny Howe, I have concurred my own understanding of the meaning of bewilderment. As far as poetry, I believe that it means to accept more than one understanding of the poem; to not bind yourself to one view of what the author of the poem is trying to say. In my opinion, bewilderment is an internal struggle you have with yourself while trying to understand a poem.

Fanny Howe finds beauty in the uncertainty of poems. Along with bewilderment, uncertainty is an important part of reading poetry. Even though you think you may have understood a poem, the author could have had a completely different meaning. Like poems, bewilderment and uncertainty are necessary for life. We try to find a meaning for life the same way we try to find a meaning for a poem. According to Fanny Howe, “The actual theological meaning of the word ‘salvation’ is meaning. To seek salvation is to seek a sense of meaning to the world, one's life”. If we didn’t use bewilderment and uncertainty as a means of finding our salvation for life, we would end up feeling great amounts of pain.

Bewilderment by Fanny Howe

In this essay Fanny Howe introduces us to the word be wilderment. She describes how bewilderment works in our lives specially within our dreams. Bewilderment can be seen as something that has no beginning or end. Sometimes it is hard for us to express our bewilderment because it can cause confusion to the person who we are trying to explain it to. It is important for our lives to have a bit of bewilderment because it allows us as people to find out where they stand in the midst of confusion. For example being somewhere between believing in God or not believing in Him at all. Bewilderment also allows s to see things in different perspectives not just one. Certainty in the other hand is not being lost in ones own confusion but rather knowing what is going on and what will happen. Certainty is something that is important in our lives because it helps us prevent mistakes that are avoidable. If a person pays attention to the clues around him or her that something is not good for them, then they will be certain about it. Certainty can really help us long term wise but at the same time life would be a quite dull if we were always certain about things because we wouldn't feel the thrill that comes with taking risks.

Bewilderment

In the passage, Fanny Howe conveys how this simple term has much an elaborate meaning, “In the dictionary, to bewilder is “to cause to lose one’s sense of where one is”’ this isn’t something that can be easily understood nor should it be, because the whole concept portrayed in the passage is that we are never fully in the “know” that there are many incenses in our lives that we don’t understand what they mean or why they even appear in our lives.  Dreams and poetry are shown in the passage to be things they we don’t comprehend the meaning of them.  As for dreams, they may happen every night, but they aren’t always in a way that we understand, they can be weird and too complex for us to every figure out.  Poems are kind of the same, because you could have a room filled with people and have them all read the same poem, but get different meanings, “Each poem is a different take on an idea, an experience, each poem is another day, another mood, another revelation, another conversion” bewilderment “needs to unravel in order for it to be interpreted.”

                Also in the passage arises the idea of bewilderment in politics and poems.  This correlation explains how we in both aspects want it to be defined and have a straight forward answer or meaning, but often politics and poems happen to be the things in our lives that are the hardest to find a direct meaning to,  because we are all individuals that think and interrupt things in unique ways. That is what creates evolution and progress and inventions in life.  If we were always in a state that we definitely knew what the answer was and there was no room for individual interpretation, all the uniqueness and the beauty of difference wouldn’t exist in today’s world.  What would exist in a world without bewilderment, would be a loss of uncertainty and progression, this term  “will never lead you back to common sense, but will offer you a walk into a further wild place” , that place is our lives, it’s the where our minds find have the freedom to run wild and be uncertain.

Bewilderment & Logic

    The reading required plenty of abstract thinking to understand. The basis of the reading was how bewilderment can be poetic or politics. He tells us the importance of bewilderment but also of logic. He recites many poems and shows how bewilderment is a part of each poem. I like poetry like this because it can be interpreted many different ways depending on the person perspective. He talks about dreams and he says “The dreamer is aware that only everything else but this tiny dream exists and in this way the dream itself is free to act without restraint.” To me this means that because we know were dreaming, that consciousness allows are dreams to be very random. I think dreams is a prime example of how important bewilderment is. Dreams are confusing and in no way shape or form have to make sense or have valuable meaning but still it is a part of humans sleep cycle. If there was no purpose of dreams we wouldn't have them but we do showing that bewilderment is necessary. “He says that the politics of bewilderment goes to those who have little or no access to an audience or a government.” I thought this meant that people are often confused by politics because there is no clear cut answer to many of the thing that’s go on in our government. Everyone does not feel informed and that where the confusion derives from. This is where bewilderment serves as a negative because people would like solid answers solid and direct answers. This shows the importance of certainty in the world. We need a balance of certainty and bewilderment in the world to much of either is not ideal. My favorite part of the reading is the last sentence where he says “After all the point of art- like war- is show that life is worth living by showing that it isn't.” I metaphor use in this sentence is what makes it so amazing, by art and war both show how precious life is but the killing in war shows how valuable life is by showing how invaluable it is. 

Bewilderment

In the reading there were many weird examples of how bewilderment could be poetic or politics. There were many instances where he showed how humans get bewildered in their own thoughts and feelings toward certain situations. He also explains how religion and history and how many times we have been bewildered throughout it in politics. He gave us a series of poems to describe how bewilderment is poetic, allowing us to see with confusing ways poems come together is creativity and great work is formed through bewilderment. In my own words, the word bewilderment is defined as the state of being confused to a point where things you were certain about before was looked at differently and is now uncertain of. Bewilderment can mean different things to different people but the actual definition of bewilderment is, according to dictionary.com "a confusing maze or tangle, as of objects or conditions..." Showing it could be a wide range of things to be bewildered by, like objects and conditions, for example physical and mental ways of viewing bewilderment. As we have previously discussed in class certainty is more important to our lives because it brings about a sort of peace of mind and organization.  It allows us to look at things and have a game plan for what will come next without the hassle of surprise. Certainty also can be a bad thing because if there were no uncertainty there would be nothing invented. Creative people take chances, maybe everything is not perfect at first when inventing things but they are tested multiple times until they are perfect. Bewilderment can be also known as uncertainty on a much larger scale. Bewilderment has many different levels and although you can be in that state momentarily or for the rest of your life it comes a time where it does come in handy to help discover the new and improved things that come about. The balance of the two determined the world around us, too much of one without the other could be chaotic to everyone surrounding because you are born with bewilderness or without it but however you are is essential to the world.

Determinism

You can see parallels almost immediately between " Is Everything Determined?" and the "Parable of the Kingdom: The Ten Virgins". Stephen Hawking wrote " the grand unified theory that determines everything in the universe raises man difficulties." this is similar to when God turned away the foolish virgins for being presumptuous that they knew when to meet the bridegroom. It is similar in the fact that Stephen Hawking and the parable seem to agree that everything being determined is unbelievable. Hawking even questions it so far as saying " can one really believe God chose all the trivial details like who should be on the cover of Cosmopolitan". I personally think that we all choose our own path, I also believe that God takes the choices we made and uses them to determine whether or not we are worthy to enter heaven. If everything was pre- determined there would be no point in heaven or hell, all of our lives would be essentially obsolete. I feel as if Hawking also believes this, he mentions that if everything is determined then how can we punish people for doing bad things? I agree with this determinism seems like a flawed idea to me, I also believe that science and religion both disprove it.

Parables/ Determinism

Both the “Parables of the Kingdom” written by Jesus and “Is Everything Determined?” written by Stephen Hawking deal with trying how humans try to make sense of the universe we live in and make sense of God. Both of these readings were challenging for me, and I found it quite difficult to find parallels between the two of them. In Stephen Hawking’s “Is Everything Determined?” Hawking lengthily explains all the different ways we could explain predestination, he touches on quantum mechanics and mentions a lot of different theories and even acknowledges God and his place in the scientific world of these theories. He goes farther into his discussion by brining in the concept of free will and what it means in a world where people believe determinism; Hawking says, “if everything is determined by the laws of science, then free will must be an illusion and if we don’t have free will, what is the basis for our responsibility of our actions? We don’t punish people for crimes if they are insane, because we have decided that they can’t help it. But if we are all determined by a grand unified theory, none of us can help what we do, so why should anyone be held responsible for what they do?” This lengthy quote explains the flaw in our thinking when it comes to determinism, how can we hold anyone accountable for their actions if they are programmed to commit the act? This brings us to where Jesus’s “Parables of the Kingdom” intersects with “Is Everything Determined?” At the end of Hawking’s essay he writes “In summary the title of this essay was a question: Is everything determined? The answer is yes, it is. But it might as well not be, because we can never know what is determined.” This is similar to “The Ten Virgins” because the last line of the parable says “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh” meaning that we will never truly know what is going to happen in the future, we can only prepare for the present which is the same as what Stephen Hawking says in “Is Everything Determined?”

"Is Everything Determined?" and "Parables of the Kingdom"

I think that the views expressed in “Is Everything Determined” and “The Ten Virgins” are similar because they both touch on the subject of uncertainty.  Stephen Hawking believes “the uncertainty principle of quantum physics means that there is not just a single history for the universe but a whole family of possible histories.” These different multiple histories lead to the randomness in our lives.  “The Ten Virgins” parable teaches us that we must be prepared for uncertainty. When the foolish virgins asked God to open the door, He said, “Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.” This means that the time of Jesus’ return is uncertain. The foolish virgins did not bring any oil to light their lamps; therefore, they were not prepared for his return. The way the views are expressed in these readings are very different. Hawking’s ideas on determinism are written out like a persuasive essay.  He presents us with an argument, makes claims, explains why his claims are true, and then he summarizes his argument in a conclusion. He also takes a scientific approach when explaining whether or not everything is determined. For instance, he uses evolution and the development of DNA as examples to help him explain whether or not anything we say is determined by theory. The parables are much more spiritual and religious.  They place a lot of emphasis on God and how He can determine different outcomes throughout our lives.

Determinism

I first read the parables of the kingdom, and during the whole time I read it was that there is something or someone who has in a way predetermined the way we think and the decisions we make.  I grew up in a family that was heavily involved in the church and attended regularly, so I have heard these parables all before.  Once I read the Stephen Hawkins paper “Is everything determined” I immediately made a connection.  He starts out by saying, “The argument for preordination used to be that god was omnipotent and outside time, so god would know what was going to happen.”  By saying this I feel like Stephen is making a direct reference to the Parables of the Kingdom I first read, and is trying to say that up until just a short time that most people believed that god, or a ultimate being controlled and determined everything we did, and nobody really thought to much about it and lived there life.  Stephen never really comes out and eliminates the possibility at their being an all-powerful that makes our decisions for us, but does hint he feels there are much more mathematically sound possibilities.  In the first reading of the parables they are taken from the bible, so everything about them supports the claim that there is an all-powerful god that created us and is controlling everything we do.  Stephen Hawking’s being the genius he is and believing in the laws of science over everything else offers a different theory of his own understanding of determinism; so that is a pretty evident difference in the two.  Stephen also gives a lot of textual support and good examples for us as the reader to use to better grasp what he is saying, but I also like how he never really says that the idea of a god is not true, and keeps that door open.  Its as if he is saying that is a possibility but there is also another possibility in this other way in which he believes more strongly.  That to me is almost a perfect example of people unsure if they actually have free will and if the decision they make is the right decision, and if that decision was ultimately decided that they would choose it before they even came to it.

During my reading of both of the stories I noticed a similar theme throughout, and that is the choices we make. In Steven Hawking's writing he ask the question, "are we really masters of our fate? Or is everything we do determined or preordained?". He later then answers the question that everything is predetermined but in the end it doesn't matter because in the end we do not know what was determined. He also asked the question about whether people are to be held responsible for their actions/crimes? In the determinist view of things people shouldn't be held responsible because their decisions weren't made by themselves. I don't agree with this point of view to be correct. If this were the case then people shouldn't be rewarded for performing righteous actions either. While reading the "The Ten Virgins" the ten virgins were divided into two groups of 5. One group took spare oil with their lamps and the other did not. When the second group left to buy they missed out on what the wise group got to attend. "The Ten Talents" had a very similar meaning. The one person that did nothing with his given talent was made to suffer instead of prosper as did the people who used their talents to produce more. This is the same as in the real world. If someone doesn't use what they are given or work for their future they will in turn suffer for their actions or their lack of. I don't think the world we live in is predetermined. I believe we make our own path. Therefore I also believe we will reap the benefits or the consequences of the actions we act on. In this sense the readings are different in that the second the people are held accountable for their actions and the second describes how people shouldn't be.

These two readings discuss free will in a sense and us as humans trying to understand the divine. in the Parables of the kingdom each story has to do with a decision to doing something in one a son leaves his father and the other staying after being gone for a while the son that leaves comes back with everything gone, the father welcomes him with open arms and gives him everything while the son that stayed got nothing the father then replied that he should be happy that his brother is back that he was dead but now alive, lost but now found. In Is Everything Determined? the author talks about the choices we make and whether or not its right or wrong he even goes to talk about natural selection the darwinism theory and that we developed our choices into what they are today. The authors talk about our decisions we make and that they are up to our will depending on how you look at it just we ae are either responsible according to one or not from one it is our responsibility to chose what we feel is right and whether or not its the right path we can never figure out our actions because when it comes to figuring out our behavioral actions we conniver get past just a few factors beyond a couple it becomes harder and harder to figure out it ends up becoming assumptions. we can look at it however we want but there is no determined outcome.

Similarities and Dissimilarities

The views expressed in the Zen Parables and those expressed in Existentialism by Jean-Paul Sartre are similar in that they show that the world can be viewed in a completely different way. They both give examples and different situations where someone is actually thinking about the world around them or doing something that gets them to come to a realization that the world is that as was presumed. In The Zen Parables, there is a story where a man is running away from a tiger in a field. This man tries to escape the tiger by grabbing a hold of a root hanging from a ledge. Unfortunately there is another tiger waiting for him at the bottom. This man knows he’s in between a rock and a hard place, but he notices a strawberry on one of the vines. He eats that strawberry and says, “How sweet it tasted”. This man realized he was in a really bad situation but decided to think about the good things in life and not worry over past or future. Similarly in Existentialism, Sartre talks about anguish and how you must accept the consequences even though it might have negative effects towards others. In this case the man accepted that he was going to be eaten and instead decided to enjoy what little bit of life that he had.

            The Zen Parables are different from Existentialism by using parables to describe how the world can be seen differently. In the first parable, Muddy Road, the writer uses the story to show how things can be seen differently if we put our minds to it. Ekido was so attached to the idea that monks are not supposed to go near females, that he forgot that monks are also supposed to help people in need. In the Existentialism reading, Sartre uses his own philosophical ideas of anguish and freedom, and the idea that existence precedes essence to try to make sense of the universe in which we live.

Comparison

In the first reading from the book ( the three short stories) the moral of the first short story is when someone holds on to an idea of how the world should be it gets in the way of how the world really is. The second man didn't even know that the first man put down the woman because he was so worried about him breaking the rules. In the second short story the moral is to live in the moment and to not worry what is in front or behind you, life is best when you just live in the moment. And in the last short story the moral is not to worry about other people messing up because by worrying about them it causes you to mess up. The second story in the Norton Reader is about "existence precedes essence" meaning basically, we exist first and then we do things that define ourselves and live our lives in whatever way we choose, and this determines our essence, and what it means to be a human being. These two stores are similar in the fact that they both bring to point that our decisions are affecting the world and everything we do people will react and so our actions are what affect the worlds actions.

Compare and Contrast

The three parables by Zen and The Existentialism are very similar. The moral of the first parable Muddy Road was that when we hold on to the past or always worrying about the future we will get caught up and won't take action on the present which is what we should be focusing on. The monk decided that he needed to what was best even though monks weren't suppose to go near females. Once he got the woman across the muddy water he never thought of it again but the monk that was with him kept questioning him and kept bringing it back up when the first monk had already moved on from that point. The second parable was also about how we need to focus on the present and not worry about what has not happened yet. The third parable was mainly about impatience, ignorance and ego. Once one man made a mistake they all made a mistake because they wanted to point out the others mistakes and not their own. The Existentialism was all about how existence precedes essence meaning that what we do in our life is what defines who we are. We have the choice to pick how we are going to live and what we are going to do which ends up determining who we are as a whole. The four readings are all about how our decisions and actions that we choose to do for ourself also affect everybody else around us even though we sometimes do not notice it. The four readings do not have any differences that I can point out except for that The Existentialism was mostly about what we do in our lives is defining who we are while the other three short stories were more about how we need to focus on the present and not look back.

Similarities and Differences

     There are many similarities between the three parables which we're included in "Zen Parables" and "Existentialism" by Jean-Paul Sartre on how they see the world views. One similarity that i noticed both had was how in both they look at human behavior as a universal picture, not individually. For example our decisions also affect people around us, not just us; making us responsible for mankind. I think this way because Sartre says thing like, "Thus, our responsibility is much greater than we might have supposed, because it involves all mankind" and saying that every man should ask him self, "What would happen if everybody looked at things this way" meaning that we might think we don't affect mankind but we really are at the end; like asking yourself if it is okay for other people to do it even though your doing it yourself. I also saw this in "Learning To Be Silent" the boys promised each other that they will be silent for a whole week. When the first boy talked by accident all of them talked after him because they pointing out to him that he had talked. If the first boy wouldn't had talked then he wouldn't had gotten corrected; at the end they all talked and broke a promise showing how the first boy affected the three other boys making him responsible for them breaking there promises.
     I couldn't really find any differences they both had the same idea saying how humans decisions/actions affects others also. The only difference i could say i found was very obvious the "Zen Parables" were composed of three separate mini stories which we're, "Muddy Road, A Parable, and Learning To Be Silent." They all informed us with different lessons such as living in the present, and just forgetting of what you believed in the past like Ediko believing that, "Monks don't go near females" saying that it is "dangerous"; looking at the bright side in the darkest situations like in "A Parable", and how everything we do there will be consequences like in "Learning To be Silent". "Existentialism" had all these ideas but in the format kind of like an informative article or of an essay because at the end it seems as a conclusion; he restates what he believed.