Where Do We Go From Here?

In the last two years, I have written 28 blogs. I have thought about justice, truth, and the meaning of life. Those topics were all tricky, but this one's harder than anything else I have ever done. Where do we go from here?

It's difficult for me to remember a time before this class. Quest English has changed the way I think, write, and feel so much. I can't remember, and can't imagine living without these deeper thoughts and ideas Quest has brought me. In these two years, I have discovered the vast number of things that there are to contemplate, and the millions of different ways there are to look at a single idea.

Quest taught me how to write, read, and present better, but more that that, I learned how to think. I somehow know more and less than I ever have before. I have learned so much about life, and human nature, but I have also been introduced to a world of new ideas that I haven't even began to explore. I am suddenly aware of everything I still have to see and think about, it's exciting.

With so many things to look at, they can't all be happy. We were told that smart people can be more easily depressed. Maybe this is because of the tenancy of over thinking, or maybe just that having general knowledge of all the bad things in the world can lead you to dark places.

I guess too much knowledge can be bad, and ignorance could distract you from those bad thoughts. I think that just like hope, ignorance is just a distraction from fear. If you decide not to look at bad things they can't affect you, right?

All of this makes sense. What doesn't though, is that I really don't want to be ignorant. I know that ignorance could make you happier, but there is no part of me that want's to ignore any piece of knowledge I can find. Choosing to ignore the bad is choosing to ignore a piece of the truth. Darkness is real, and that's ok, but by ignoring it, I would be lying to myself.

This year I learned that I love searching for the truth, even if I still don't know what truth means. I have decided that I want to be anything but ignorant. I guess that what I really want, is to be awake.

The millions are awake enough
for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for 
effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred millions to a 
poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet 
met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in 
the face? (Thoreau 9) 

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to
front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn 
what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I 
had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so 
dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite 
necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of 
life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that 
was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into 
a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be 
mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and 
publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it 
by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next 
excursion. (Thoreau 9)

Before I even fully understood what these quotes meant, I liked them. We read Where I Lived and What I Lived For last year, but it really stuck with me. I even unintentionally memorized parts of it. It states what I hope to be more poetically than I ever could. I want to be awake.

Before Quest English, I didn't think about the meaning of life like this. I didn't wonder about true justice in my free time, and I didn't discuss social norms with my friends at the lunch table. I'm happy that I do those things now though, and i'm happy that I know people that don't act like i'm weird, but join me when I want to talk about something philosophical.

So many things about me have changed in just two years. There is a truly incredible amount of difference between my first blog post and my last. I have improved in my writing, and I have become a better reader. Possibly an even bigger difference though, is that I have started to express my ideas.

I am so lucky to be with all of the other Questers. It's indescribable, the way our class chemistry has grown in almost five years. I have been with them for half of my education now, its crazy. The fact that I can share my thoughts and ideas with everyone there, without being scared of being judged, it's huge for me.

I have never fit in with a group of people so well, and I can't imagine ever being able to again. All of us are so different, but we somehow all fit together so perfectly. I can't express how much I love every person in Quest.

There is a certain energy that comes with our little group. I guess we are all a little odd, but it works, and when we all decide we want something to happen, when we work together, we have power. I love it. It always blows me away, how smart everyone is, I just want them to know how perfect they all are. As close as we were in past years, we have become even closer this year.

Apparently this also makes us difficult to teach, but McCallum never seems to really have problems with that. I think that we all respect him so much that we could never give him problems. Thank you so much Mr. McCallum for being the type of teacher that was easy to respect, that encouraged us, challenged us, and let us sing Eye of the Tiger when we needed to.

I can't believe how much I learned these years and I really, really can't believe that it's ending. Thank you so much Questers, for absolutely everything. I can't put into words how much you have changed my life. Four and a half years went faster than I could have imagined. I love you all so much.

Goodbye Quest.

Lord of the 12 Year Old Boys

Boys are odd. I'm aware that this a pretty stereotypical thing for a teenage girl to say, ('Ugh, omg boys are sooo confusing!!' *smacks gum* *reapplies lipgloss* *disrespects authority*) but I'm thinking less along the lines of 'Why won't he text back' and closer to physiological behavior.

William Golding's Lord of the Flies explores what would happen if a group of young boys were left to govern themselves alone. A plane crash strands a group of children on an island. They later realize that the group consists of only boys.

There are a few reasons why the author may have chosen to use only boys. From the writers perspective, it might make the plot and the character's relationships with one another simpler. This allows more room to focus on the main themes instead of the characters relationships. Or, because William Golding is a boy, maybe it was just that he understood the nature of boys better. Whatever the reason, the book is written with boys in mind, and some aspects of the story would change if there were girls on the island instead.

Imagine, you are stranded on a far away island. There are no adults or authority figures. What do you do first? Do you explore the island looking for civilization? Do you look for drinking water and food?

Ralph and Piggy took off their clothes. They stripped down and went swimming. (Golding 12) Priorities. They were startled with the sudden freedom away from adults. So when they realized they could do anything, they didn't even think about survival or rescue, they went to play.

When they realized that there were no adults, they weren't concerned for the adult's safety or their own, they celebrated and cheered. "In the middle of the scar he stood on his head and grinned at the reversed fat boy. 'No grownups!'" (Golding 8).

But would a group of girls really act any differently? I think that they would generally be a little less wild but still want to take advantage of the freedom. I don't think that either group would do better, they would just create different obstacles for themselves. The boys focused too much on hunting, maybe the girls would focus too much on rescue.

After the boys swam, they gathered the entire group together, using a conch shell they found. There were no formal rules about the conch, but the boys continued to listen to it throughout the story. The boys enjoyed the freedom of the island, but they still chose to have structure, and accept some rules.

During meetings, only the person holding the conch shell was allowed to speak. This rule was also followed even when inconvenient for the boys. There was no established consequence for rule breaking, but it still rarely happened. "'The rules!' shouted Ralph. 'You're breaking the rules!' 'Who cares?' Ralph summoned his wits. 'Because the rules are the only thing we've got!'" (Golding 91) This is because the boys still needed some type of structure in their little society.

Having too little or too many rules can pose lots of problems. Books with dystopian societies often have, very simply, too many rules and not enough freedom. In The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, the citizens have little freedom. They are born into very poor towns. Everyone has to put their life in danger once a year and citizens are killed freely. The lack of freedom starts a rebellion. We need rules, but there is an important balance that needs to be found with some rules, but not too many.

One of the rules that the boys accept is that Ralph is their elected leader. I thought it was interesting how they picked the leader. "None of the boys could have found good reason for this (picking Ralph); what intelligence had been shown was traceable to Piggy... but there was a stillness about Ralph as he sat that marked him out." (Golding 22) The boys picked Ralph mostly because he had the conch shell. They acknowledged that Piggy was smarter, but they didn't really even consider anyone but Ralph.

They had pretty much ruled out Piggy even before the vote. "'He's not Fatty,' cried Ralph, 'his real name's Piggy!'... A storm of laughter arose and even the tiniest child joined in. For a moment the children were a closed circuit of sympathy with Piggy outside: he went very pink, bowed his head, and cleaned his glasses again." (Golding 20). Even throughout the book as the boys got more and more conflicted they agreed on one thing. Everyone made fun of Piggy.

They bonded over being mean. The only person that was ever really nice to Piggy was Ralph, but only when the two were alone. Ralph couldn't show this weakness, or be friendly when the group could see. Piggy had most of the good ideas for the group but got credit for none of them.

He was also called by the name he hated. Piggy is not only an insulting name, it also dehumanizes him in a way, this makes it easier for the rest of the group to kick him around.

Moral of the story, twelve year old boys are not to be trusted and boys are odd. Told you.


***There are lots of generalizations in here. It's meant, for simplicity, to represent the genders very stereotypically. It's a bit inaccurate but way simpler. sorry.