The Things They Carried

There are things a person carry, whether tangible or intangible, that shape who they are as a person. In Tim O' Brien's novel "The Things They Carry" , the soldiers in a platoon carry five things , a physical item, dreams/goals, relationships, personality, and their memories. The things they carry explain there motives, there identity, there struggle, the things that help you really define that person. We all carry these things as well and the weight varies from person to person. Here are a few things I carry.

My brain, it may seem obvious to say but I carry  my brain everywhere I go. If I'm not having interpersonal communication, I just think. I let all thoughts in my head flow whether with memories or my current surrounds. The glory in this is, as long as I'm alive I have a brain, as long as I have a brain I can think, as long as I can think, I can enjoy myself. The only down is I require silence. If I'm doing critical thinking or deep thinking, I'm most likely not speaking to anyone or paying attention to what others have to say.

I carry my dreams and goals, and they shape how work and what I work on. I love drawing and becoming great and known for what artwork is a dream that I dearly would love to reach. I currently explore different mediums and ways of drawing to expand my knowledge. I draw everywhere because I have a talent that I don't want to neglect and o to waist. My goals are to be successful in what whatever I plan to do in life. Because of that I don't settle for less , I try to reach for big things. Since I have artistic ability, I have art goals. Since I have business ability, I have corporate goals. Since these are two pretty different goal paths, its a heavy load I mentally carry and cant put down just yet. Because I carry my brain I'll think of how I would look like achieving my long and short term goals, and that's what motivates me to keep trying and see out goals still waiting to be reached.

We all carry our personalities in which I define mine as blue. It wasn't until I got an assignment from a new teacher I realized that my personality is blue. A paper with adjectives and traits we had to circle, describing who we are as a person for the teacher to know who we are as a person told me I was blue. I wouldn't have believed it but the personality description depicted me so well. Being blue you are conservative, reliable and trustworthy - you are quite trusting of others although you are very wary in the beginning until you are sure of the other person. At the same time, you also have a deep need to be trusted.You are not impulsive or spontaneous - you always think before you speak and act and do everything at your own pace in your own time. You take time to process and share your feelings.You are genuine and sincere, and you take your responsibilities seriously. Having a personality color blue means you have a deep need for peace and harmony in your everyday life - you don't like having your feathers ruffled.You appear to be confident and self-controlled, but may be hiding your vulnerable side. You need to have direction & order in your living and work spaces - untidiness and unpredictability overwhelm you. You don't like to draw attention to yourself - you prefer to be in the background.While you don't like to have discord or conflict in your life, you are often the cause of conflict with others; you can be quite manipulative but in a very subtle way.You compare the present to the past, looking to authority figures, parents, bosses or other leaders, to support your beliefs about the world. You have a thirst for knowledge in order to gain wisdom and appear knowledgeable in whatever area interests you. I want to link this to memories as well because once I realized my personality was blue from the paper I noticed myself doing blue traits in my everyday life present and past. It embraced my blue personality and live my life accordingly. This is a also a great load I carry because this is what really defines me and shapes who I am. I am blue.

Being different

When people see ones child, they see their parents represented through them. Parents want their kids to act in a manner that doesn't make them look bad, so they install how they were raised as well as cultural history to keep the family flame burning. But what if the child wants to new set flames making them unique. With most children, the dilemma is how can you be excepted by your parents, make them proud but also be unique at the same time?

Although many have heard this almost everywhere, to just be yourself but don't forget  where you came from. Its good to have roots and historical culture passed by our parents, but embrace you own way of living it. Its good to explore the outer limits of your family ways/ culture because it opens your mind and makes you aware that their are more ways to live other than the ways installed by parents or grand parents. I'm Panamanian , those are my roots but my family is unique. Unlike some my family pushes for uniqueness but like for everyone in the family to well educated about our Panamanian culture. Having visited panama many times I it sinks the family flame deeper and deeper into heart and soul making it instilled in my self being. I walk around knowing about my family, my country, and the culture set by my parents that's not going away.

However, I find many other ways of living intriguing and step outside my North American and Central American shoes into the ones of asian descents. The Japanese way of life has always been a culture that's caught my eye and it doesn't really look like the one my family and I have known for a long long time. It causes challenge because it makes my family step out of their comfort zone but is good because they learn out to except another why of life making them more diverse and aware of other cultures. Ive been to Japan and my family were excited for me to see how other people live their life in another county.

It takes time for your own style of culture to settle in with your parents. Sexual orientation, education desitions, and other factors can cause hysteria with in your family culture. But as long as you know where you came from , it opens the door to that third option. At the end of the day you're happy your living your own unique life and your parents are glad knowing that the family flame keeps burning.

Edgar Allan Poed

Gothic was a literary form in the late eighteenth century. As a literary 

term, gothic can be defined as the subgenre of the novel with eerie, supernatural 

or horrifying events. Gothic fiction is an European Romantic, portrayed fantastic tales dealing 

with the terrifying, archaic settings, which usually gives shape to concepts of exploration and exploitation of the supernatural and dark, emotional plots that investigate closely to the unconscious human mind.

Not the first but defiantly influential on Gothic literacy would be the well known Edgar Allen Poe.

Famous for many of his works, including Fall of the House of Ushers he uses mystery, madness of the main character, symbolism, dreary landscape, and fatal attractions. 

 

Mystery is very  key technique when it comes to haunted stories cause it give your work structure. Basing your story around a mystery not only makes the audience try to puzzle together sequence, but also question the outcomes. As an artist I've been told by a former art teacher that you work is successful when people question it. 

Madness of the character, or simply the unreliably of the character kind of ties onto the mystery. If the reader finds out that the main character isn't sure, then the audiences final conclusions may vary, its like if a group of people walked in a dark wooded area with one main light. If the light goes out then the group loses course and may cause separation.We are alone with the narrator in this haunted space, and not we nor the narrator know why. Although he is Roderick’s most intimate boyhood friend, the narrator apparently does not know much about him—like the basic fact that Roderick has a twin sister. Poe asks us to question the reasons both for Roderick’s decision to contact the narrator in this time of need and the bizarre tenacity of narrator’s response.

Most of the symbolism in "The Fall of the House of Usher" is internal. The main example of symbolism is the physical house itself. The structural "house of Usher" symbolizes the family line or "House of Usher, because family lines of the nobility in England are referred to as "Houses." The family line of the several kings and nobility of England were referred to as the "House of York" or the "House of Lancaster", etc. And adding symbolism is more of the creative aspect that does along with your story, creating a deep understanding, and reading between the lines that the audience will then again have to puzzle together while analyzing the tale.

The Imagery describing the location of the house  was very dark and gloomy, and it set a tone for the rest of the story so dreary landscape would intensify the means of being a horror. That's why all the traditional scary movies, event few current movies take place in the woods or somewhere old and dying, because it intensifies the dark mood.

Lastly fatal attractions, because the narrator was so close to Roderick, when he read "Mad Trist" all heel broke loose. He started to realize the situation he was in and barley escaped the collapsing house.

The use of fatal attractions it like keeping the meat on marinate. The author can linger with story keeping the character attracted to something that will cause a spooky conflict, and have the reader attracted to the anticipation of the characters discovery. Their are many other techniques Poe as well as other gothic romanticists use, but generally These things are what I think come together to create an engaging haunted story. And I bet the next time you watch a movie you will identify these components as well as more and you will see it for more than just the scary movie that scared you and your friends. I did this with Insidious 2 and  The Conjuring, before this blog discussion , before knowing about Poe and now I see where these movies based their story line structure from a lot better.

 

Occult ?

This next post topic is on American occult and the fascination behind hidden secrets of our nation. I like to identify and follow patterns. If you are like me as well then you my friend are or could be a possible fan of many occults. Due to the fact that having theory of hidden secrets you would need a little logical instinct to lead to uncovering the true, when its not clearly evident. Just knowing what's not to be known is all the glory in it self. And it may leave you winding up missing trying to find out the truth.

I wanted to speak a bit on a huge occult that's not necessarily American decent but is so influential and dominate in our culture that its earned its right. They are international. That's right, the Illuminati. a secret group of individuals who a group that practices a form of faith known as "enlightenment". It is Luciferian, and they teach their followers that their roots go back to the ancient mystery religions of Babylon, Egypt, and Celtic druidism. They have taken what they consider the "best" of each, the foundational practices, and joined them together into a strongly occult discipline. This definition of who the group is came from a interview with a former member who found her way out and wants to exploit the group for awareness for other, especially the children. Ill put the link below.

The thing that makes this occult yet to be proven is their concept of brainwashing, and getting their message sent through subliminal messaging. Go search Google, go search YouTube , its all their, and subliminal messages are present in our current age, but is it the Mason trying to brainwash us? I can understand the logic behind the control of the young, because the younger the learn the harder it is to teach them otherwise. If the Illuminati exist I would believe that Disney is working with them. Because these people are well paid so the don't look like robbed lunatics chanting from a spell book in the woods to do their work. They just is back and let cartoons do their dirty work.

With all the things in the media their are lost of questionable tales and events that make you rethink your position on the illuminati's validity. But is that what they want you to do? Wonder and wonder keeping the nation on its heels? Its questions like those that keep the fascination alive, that thought of some crazy information you found out you put together that just blew your mind!
There is a possibility the illuminati exist and if you find their secrecy intriguing , its defiantly worth looking into. Knowledge is power , can you handle the truth?


The interview(Check it out) - http://educate-yourself.org/mc/mcsvaliinterviewpt1.shtml
                                               ***KNOWLEADE IS POWER***

Anti- Heros

       Ichabod Crane,the character and the protagonist in short story, "The Leagend of Sleepy Hollow" is one of America's first and finest anti-heroes. On one hand Crane is a school teacher - a noble profession no doubt as said by my english teacher, who is initially beloved by his community.  On the other hand he is wolfish, manipulative, greedy, and deceptive but brave an courageous. In comparison to one of my personal favorite anti heros Dexter Morgan, from the Showtime series Dexter , they share similar traits within their differences personalities.

Ichabod Crane and Dexter Morgan are both men of code. Although cranes code follows strict morals in the schoolroom, including the saying "Spare the rod and spoil the child", And Dex's "code" was a strict principle created by his adopted father Harry Morgan to help Dexter use his "dark passenger" in conventional means. By day mild mannered Dexter is a blood splatter analyst for the Miami police. But at night, he is a serial killer who only targets other murderers.

They both show few standard morals or ethics, I find this the very reason these guys are role models. Not for your ordinary goody two shoes but for someone who wants something done. They are men of action. Crane uses his students to get food and he finesses  the daughter and only child of a wealthy farmer named Baltus Van Tassel for his inherit wealth; He's your common gold digger. And Dexter on the other had uses a sly skill set to find/ plant evidence to aid his kills or save his tail !

Lastly, one to leave you thinking about is that they both have their own "headless horseman". When I say this I mean that imaginary entity ,product of our inner feelings, desires, and memories. Kind of like your conscious. Ironically Ichabod's was literally a headless horse man, where left without a specific ending to the story some think he follows this horseman being consumed by his darkness. Dexter's horseman was a shadow of his father. His father died long before be became a adult, but whenever Dexter kills or needs assistance/ guidance, his father is there to help him. Even though he's not literally there. Like Simba in the Lion King, when he died his spirit lived on long forever. But the horseman we all have in a way keeps us humane, sometimes it can lead to dark corners and some long guide one to a righteous path. But my question to you is does your horseman tell you to protect the innocent, protect yourself, or blossom your imagination toward dark twisted activities? Like Dexter says , "There's a monster in all of us."