Njal's Saga 174 - 184

I wasn't aware that we only had to read ten pages per day and now that I know, that's what I'll do. This few pages that I read today talk about the transformation of Island into christianism and how it affected everything around it. Basically, many were glad about this new religion including Njal but others felt disgust at it.

From what I read, people converted quite easily and at a fast rate. This makes me think that people were very unstable in respects of faith. For example, Njal, a character who was known to be wise and confident. Shouldnt he have kept his religion? Although he didnt involve his religious views with his teachings and visions, a wise man shouldnt be changing his religion so fastly. It's okay to accept a new religion but its a process that takes time.

If a new religion came in these days, just a few would join it for it wouldn't be as trustable as other religions that have been around for centuries.

Njal's Saga 132 - 173

This talks about Njial's sons and their trips and their relations with others. I read that these two brothers had no competition after Gunnar died and this made me think about something. It relates with time. You know how when you are upset or mad at some people that you expect others to wait on you to solve the problem or to feel better before they continue with their lives? (at least this have happened to me as for when I get into a fight with my parents etc.) Not so long ago I finally realizided that as much as you want that to happen, life goes on and it wont wait for you to feel better.

It may appear stupid for some but I know of many people who end up in the same situation whether they accept it or not. You cannot really wait on your parents for instance to say they are sorry if it was your fault. Thats why I learned that you have to move on with things and be the person with the inniciative. The outcome is not really important but the time you waste by being on hold really matters. Why should you be "suffering" for a problem while you can simply accept the fact that you have to move on? Life is great and is for everyone to enjoy, you decide whether you want to or not and nothing is there to keep you from doing it.

Something I want to add off-topic from what I was talking about is that I got really confused with the matters of the two Hoskulds. One Hoskuld appeared all of a sudden while the other was killed or something like that. I didnt really understand that and thats because everyone has the same names because its a Saga based on real facts (thats what I understood) and its common for people to have the same names around family trees.

Njal's Saga 100-131

This segment talks about Gunnar and how he finnaly dies. I came to like much more Gunnar than Njal and this is probably for their attitude towards things. It's obvious that Njial is the wisest of them all and is honest and loyal but in the other side, Gunnar is more of a warrior who fights for what he stands for and does what his heart tells him, even if it'll cause death.

Gunnar fights for his rights and that is why I enjoy this character so much. He is a hero and I could relate to him in the fact that I'm the kind of person that acts when sees the chance rather than evaluates the outcomes as Njal. As Gunnar, this actions might sometimes lead me into problems but by only doing it, I feel satisfied.

Although I came to see Gunnar as my favorite character in the saga, I feel dissapointed to see that he preffered to die than to followe Njal's last advice and leave as the terms agreed. This is the time when A person feels better than anything else in the world and it's never good. You'll always have friends and always have enemies and therefore you shouldnt be risking to play against the odds of being immortal (this applies for Gunnar and for everyone in every situation). There is always going to be a point in which you'll cease to grow and it may mean death. I do beleive that anything is possible and therefore you should do everything you want to. But you have to be aware that nobody except God is God to decide what will happen next.

Njals Saga 60-98

Most of this segment talks about the continuos killing between Gunnar and Njial's slaves. I thought it would all end more dramatically but it was set into an agreement. I can see that the most valuable action from anyone in the story is to win the battles without actually fighting since the slayings always end in revenges and payments.

Gunnar is the most respected and followed man that I've learned from in the saga and I guess he'll face numerous battles to Mord something... I can't recall his name but from what he's appeared, he is really wise and for what it's been told he is evil and powerful.

Now, returning to what's valorized amongst the people in the saga, when Gunnar killed all of these people, he got into serious trouble involving him to pay serious fines (Ignoring the fact that Njal helped on the trial). If it where to be another story, A man who killed 6 men by himself would be a true hero but the difference (i beleive) is that in the saga, the story is not about Gunnar and his people so it remains fairly even (although it does talk more about Gunnar). Gunnar is definitevely a real hero right now because he is the strongest in the moment, as well as one of the most honoured, befriended and respected and I dont know but for now, I beleive that the saga should be called Gunnar's Saga.

Njal's Saga 39-59

This story revolves around the same characters over and over again. I almotst forgot that Thjosolft was dead and hoped for another confrontation but then I remembered. This story is better every time but I'd really wished that they didnt went by introducing so many characters that arent even mentioned (or at least for now).

Reading this segment made me think about the 6 degrees of separation theory. It is said (although i think its less now) that all the people in the world are connected by 6 people they know. This means that the friend of the friend of the friend etc. could now Angelina jolie. In this story everyone seems to relate with each other and who would've thought, that Hallgerd was yet to appear again and is going to cause an immenent damage once again. I'd like to read this story from the beggining to see even yet more bonds.

Njal's Saga 30-39

This Saga is amazing. I am enjoying this story and it gets better everytime. From what I understood, what I read yestorday was pure background story to introduce Njal who must definitevely be the main character (I mean, the Saga is name after him).

The whole idea that Njal is able to know exactly part by part, what should Gunnar do to make his plan work, is just incredible. It reminds me to the movie "Next", with Nicolas Cage. The only difference between the movie and the Saga is that in Next, Nicolas Cage is the one that knows the future and is the one that acts it while Njal (aside from being capable to predict all the future) predicts it for others. Now a days, he'd make millions reading the future.

Speaking of reading the future, my sister told me earlier about a supposed medium that has predicted some of her friend's future with "100% preccision". I off course dont beleive it but must accept that I feel intrigued and would like to have my future read (not all of it, I dont want to know when I'll die). Reading the future would be such a powerful tool for the governments and the military that it would even be dangerous I'd say. I do beleive in all those strange things in life that are left to be discovered and as for Njal's Saga, I would like to know what will happen next.

Njal’s Saga 19-29

I am thankful that finally we are reading something closer to prose. Personally, I found it very difficult to read the bible and didnt enjoy a bit of it (it doesnt have to do with my religious views since I am a christian). I enjoyed what we've read so far and actually went ahead. The story seems great and its a typical story of a hero.

Something that I dont understand is the various characters that keep appearing in the story. Each of these characters makes you think he is the main one but from what I've read, the only character who's appeared since the beggining is Hallgerd and yet, she hasnt been emphasized much. Maybe this saga contains various main characters that are joined together into the story or maybe all sagas are like this (I haven't read any other sagas).

At first I thought that Thorvald was the main character and all of a sudden, Bang, he is killed. My hypothesis is that the whole story is going to revolve around Thjostolf and his jelousy towards Hallgerd's husbands. Its really a great book and cant wait to see what happens next.

Mark 1-10

Jesus vs. God?

"And he took the damsel by the hand, and said unto her, Talitha Cumi; which is, being interpreted, Damsel, I say unto thee, arise. And straightway the damsel arose, and walked; for she was of the age of twelve years. And they were astonished with a great astonishment." (5:41-42)

This is the part in which Jesus revived a young girl and I think of it as one of his greatest accomplishments. I mean, who has ever revived someone? Not even God revives people and if they are revived, they are meant to be revived so how is it so accepted that Jesus, the son of God can go walking around reviving and healing people from left to right? I know he is the son of God but playing with life is supposed to be a sin and not accepted by christians.

I wonder, if Jesus could walk around reviving people, whats the big problem with the scientists creating artificial life? Whats the deal with abortion? It seems to me as if anyone with the power to revive someone could do it. I'm not saying that I would like to have my own personal clown that cleaned my clothes, that would be akward but my point is compleately different. Where is supossed to be the limit or the line that divides what is right and what is accepted by our religion?

I knew about this revival since I was a kid and i never thought about it. No one has the right to alter others life so drastically. Yet, another thing is that the story has changed and the girl was only sick and Jesus cured her. In this case that is great, a doctor cured an ill patient. But, brining the dead back to life? In modern days this girl couldve been a lab-rat with a nickname as Frankenstain!

I do beleive that laws are for everyone equally and no one should have the right to avoid them for his or her rank.

Matthew 23-28

Honestly, I would've preffered to read something else in vacations because of the complexity of the bible in terms of grammar. The words used in it distract me from the main point of the stories and I cant seem to get strong connections with my life relating this issues.

Once again, Jesus implores complete obedience rather than "social" obedience. It seems as if Jesus prefered those who didnt follow the rules at all than those who followed them at halves. One of the parables told in these chapters talked about 10 virgins and it grabbed my attention. According to this parable, 5 virgins were wise and 5 were foolish and the wise ones were the ones that ended up with the lord. Untill this point I had a complete understanding. You have to be prepared for everythig because you don't know what is coming and you must be obedient at all times because If you follow God laws when you want (just like the 5 foolish virgins), you wont be granted acces to the heavens. Then, it mentioned that the master of the 5 wise virgins provided them with all that they needed for their journey and that is the part that confused me. According to that phrase, not everyone can be with the lord, only those who are choosen get a chance. This isnt fair at all.

Lets say that you are not choosen and yet, you want to be with God and do everything as you are supposed to. Is this supposed to mean that you cant be with him no matter what? Does this mean that you wont be able to do whats nessesary to be with God even if you truly want to? That parable was very confusing indeed.

Matthew 13- 22

The beggining of these books made me think that we are misinterpreting everything in the new testament. Jesus says that he speaks in parable because you can see and not see and you can hear and not hear. What you have to do to understand anything is to think about it and interpret it. I beleive this is true since you choose what to see. When you don't see you can't choose what to see. You have to think about it and thats when you'll trully learn. Maybe everything mentioned in the bible about Jesus is written in a parabolical sense and we should not take for granted that Jesus walked on water but we should be thinking of the meaning of walking on water. A wild guess about what the walking on water means is that water symbolizes the stablished ideas by society and when Jesus walks on water, he overcame these barries and therefore was free from any "laws" as the law of walking on water would be.

Jesus life presents dozens of ideas that we should think about. I can't say that something is real because i didnt live with them to take it for granted. I mean, how do we know that Homer "epics" weren't real? there is nothing that says that they are real as nothing says that they arent. As I see it, the same applies for Jesus since we cant relly on a text. As Jesus could be symbolical or if he existed, his death for humanity maybe was more than dying to forgive our sins. Maybe the death and his attitude toward it also tried to teach us that there is no reason to fear death. After all, us christians beleive we'll go to heaven and I dont see the downside of it.

I know I am taking all this too far but it could be real. Maybe there is more of his teachings than the superficial ideas that are mentioned on the book. If he teaches in parables, why shouldnt we learn in parables too?

Matthew 1-12

Something in these books that Jesus stresses the most is that you shouldn't do things for God so that others can see. He calls these people hypocrites since they do it for recognition amongst others. Jesus says that the most important thing is to do it because you are willing to do it since God knows that you are doing it.

I liked something mentioned in chapter six. "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full od darkness. I therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!"
6: 22, 23

What I understand from this is that your life depends on what you want to see. If you beleive you are sorrounded by goodness and that everything is positive. You'll consequentially be positive since there is no reason to be negative. On the other side, if you see everything as dark, bad and evil. You won't see a reason to support being good to others and therefore you'll be evil. I guess that the eye symbolizes the mind and therefore, its not what you see that causes this. It is what you think.

Tao Te Ching 44 to 66

I found these chapters as the most interesting I've read but i think that the next ones will be even better and so on and so forth. These chapters mostly express the same 3 ideas.

The first one. You have to be a simple person and detach yourself from everything that you don't need. I am sure that this has a great, positive effect in your life but I dont consider myself ready to do such a difficult change in my life. This implies release yourself from every relationship, every material thing that is "useless" and every situation that is not nessesary.

The second one is that you can do more by doing less (which we already discussed in class). A quote I found that really made me think is "The farther you go, the less you know." chapter 47.
This is real because as you see more and more things, you have less time to really get to know these things or places and therefore end up with useless vague ideas that end up being a waste of time. Instead, when you take your time to get to know everything around you, that's when you really get to understand and truly learn. This means that you should take your time since you shouldnt have any hurries.

The last one says that you should take everything piece by piece and then you will accomplish even the greatest things. "See simplicity in the complicated" 63 "In the universe, the difficult things are done as if they are easy". 63 I will definitevly apply it to every situation I face from now one. First, I'll make the problem as simple as possible. This will save me more time and I will just focus on doing the important. Then, I will split what i have to do in little pieces to make it much easier.

I am sure that by combining all these 3 ideas your life will be really easy and serene. I guess that one thing that you can learn is that if you can accomplish simething by doing less and letting things solve themselves, why should you bother on worring about it and make a whole big deal about it. I strongly beleive that life is what you make out of it and if you can make your life easier and better, why shouldnt you at least try?

Tao Te Ching 29-43

Now I'm starting to feel the Ying-Yang that we talked about in class. For almost everything in this book is based on something and its opposite. I dont think that the Ying-Yang ever referst to good and wrong but always refers to A and B. This book shows us the balance of being and Wu and of acting and Wu-Wei. I am not an expert at that subject but I do beleive that Ying-Yang shows us that both sides taken too far are really bad so you have to mantain yourself at the middle, being able to adapt to certain situations and their opposites. As already mentioned in the book, extremes are bad and that is why you shouldn't be trying to look for more than what you need.

I came to understand at this moment a phrase I mentioned in one of my previous blogs that said that it was better to stop short than fill to the brim. I guess that it has to do with what you can do to fix it since to a glass short of water, you can add more water while to a glass with more water than needed, there is nothing that you can do (obviously you can pour some out but it will not be the right way since it'd be to missuse the water. The other idea about this quote is that when you stop short, you can make ammends and align yourself while if you do more, you've become eager and that has a price.

Returning to the balance thing, the Tao tries to tell us to go on, in the path without taking any deviations and this relates to the following quote.

"The universe is sacred.
You cannot improve it.
If you try to change it, you will ruin it.
If you try to hold it, you will loose it." chapter 29

Aside from explaining that the universe is greater than ourselves and we are not in control of it. I understand it as to stay in line and face any difficulties. As to myself, I dont beleive in that since I beleive that you can indeed reshape the universe as you want.

I accept the mayority of these ideas but I still have my own grounds, this is the best of the books we've read in class this year along with ishmael and I beleive that it is because of the radical ideas that each of these books present with respect to our lives.

Tao Te Ching 13-28

Alter I read these chapters I have to say that I feel much more intrigued towards this ideas. One thing that I admire is that there is no God, which means those who follow these ideas can fill it out, or that they simply believe that there is the only the way (Tao) and a source, The Source.

Clearly, they all believe in evolution and in life after death and I think it’s great. For many of us, death is one of our greatest fears simply because we don’t know what is expecting us or even if there is something expecting us but to them, they don’t have to worry about it since they know that they can’t do anything to change their future and that they’re lives will continue for eternity.

In chapter 23, it says that rains don’t last forever and winds don’t last all morning. If heaven and earth cant make things last forever, how could it be possible for men. I found this very wise and relates to the afterlife, or to our perspective of it. I keep seeing that being able to yield is mentioned often in this chapter and it relates to Wu-Wei because sometimes, to win you have to yield which means that they believe that a balance in our spiritual lives is very important.

Tao Te Ching 1-12

I think that the first part of this book is based on the idea of being selfless and only doing what you have to do. I understood this as going with the flow in other words.

“Better stop short than fill to the brim” chapter 9

This phrase caught my attention because its similar to a typical phrase in our community. What I understand from it is that its better to do what you have to do, or try to do what you have to do, than to do more since it will result negatively and will probably affect others or even yourself.

I believe that these teachings come with the idea that life is set up to you and that you have a predestinated destiny, which I found ridiculous, yet all these principles are full of wisdom and should be taken into acquaintance.

I believe that the Tao Te Ching and Confucius are strongly related although they refer to different aspects of life. I don’t know yet but I have a feeling that this book is going to be much more spiritual than any of the ones we’ve read before and that’s great because I consider myself as a person of a open mind, waiting to learn knew ideas and perspectives.

GO

What i found out about Go after I read all the tutorials is that Go relates to Confucius in a way because both are calm and patient. They are able to think further away from their next step in order to win or in confucius case, to have the smartest answers. Serenity is the key to win in Go and that is why Confucius would've been a world champion at this game, he thinks before acting and he doesnt nessesarily attack since you can attack by deffending yourself.

That is another characteristic i liked about the game, that if you maintain yourself attacking your opponent, you dont have time to defend yourself and therefore you'll loose. I kept seeing in the page that it mentioned that Go is a sharing game and you have to learn to yield and make sacrifices in order to win, in fact I'll post these very own words from the webpage down below.

"Keep in mind that Go is a sharing game - you can't get everything. You have to yield, you have to sacrifice, you have to apologize if you were too greedy. If you were too aggressive, you will lose everything, literally!"

Night, Second part, Analysis

Something that really made me think about this book was its ending. The book ended with obscurely and confusing. Personally, I wanted to hear how he returned to his hometown and moved on and how everything in the holocaust affected him although we see previous of his life when he talks about the future, for example when the Parisan woman gives coins to the starving kids.

Eliezer went through a lot of changes as the book progressed. He gradually lost his faith on God after he abandoned them and left them to die. I don't blame him because I am sure that many did the same. Even myself, when something goes wrong question where is God. If with mere problems I wonder that, imagine the fury and rage that they most have gone through after they were left to die with no reason at all. The other notable change that he undergoes relates to his father. Clearly, his relation with him gets weaker and weaker and as he sees children who beat their parents to death, he questions himself about his father and if he is an important person or someone who absorbs his energy and eats food that could be his. This idea sounds crazy, to kill your own father and it is not backed up, not even under this sircumstances but the line between what is right and what is wrong had already been crossed and what was sane and insane was no longer something different.

Definitively the book is great and the title fits perfecly, specially because there is no day after the book, its simply night and sorrow. The last sentence of the book. when he glances at a mirror and a corspe stares right back at him symbolizes all the pain that they went through and also means that death was pretty much what they went through. It is one of book that makes you question yourself many things and makes even a slight difference in your life. I had already read a book about the holocaust in 7th grade but i dont remember the name. The diffrence was that that book was based on the adventure on how the escaped and etc. This book is more of a memoair with fiction. I am looking forward to read similar books.

Night, Caged Animals

From what I've read, I cant stop thinking on how innocent these people are. Is the fact that they dont know what is awaiting them and the false hopes that they have that it'll all get better what makes them so animal-liked. I beleive that that is how Germans saw Jews with their twisted thinking and that's why they had to go through similar processess.

For instance, think about a pig that lives with his family on a farm and one day, he is taken away, probably suspecting that there is something wrong since that had never happened to him, yet thinking that there is a small chance that the outcome is satisfying. As time passes, he gets closer to the butcher and thats where he sees other pigs like him, being slaughtered and teared into pieces by the butcher. Thats when he definitively knows that he is going for the worst. He thinks about all the moments in which he was warned by his companions, those who knew what was going to happen yet, didnt beleive them because had a false hope and those ideas seemed bizarre at the moment.

Probably he thinks about the moment in which he could've run and tried to escape,obviously with a risk of death but having an option to survive is bigger than having to die at all costs. This reminds me to a part of the story, about in page 16, 17 in which he says that nor the Jews or the Germans were running the Ghetto, it was false hope. It really puts you through a lot of thinking, how someone was able to manipulate a whole country to follow his wicked ideas of freedom or purity which affected consequencially the rights of Jews who didnt do anything to deserve. I beleive that the author's purpose at the beggining of the book was to show their fear and the stress they followed with a hope of something that never came. That makes me thing, how do all these animals feel when they go through this same process? How did all these people felt after they lost everything without any reason. It really makes me thing, were does Karma fits in all this?

Analects 19 & 20

I am really confused about these two last books. The first one is the knowledge of his disciples that is similar to his but nothing as remarkable as what I read in the past books. The one quote I liked in book 19 was the last one. The second book is another of Confucius relations of balance, which I mentioned on my previous post.

19.21 Zigong said, “A gentleman’s errors are like an eclipse of the sun or the moon: when he errs, everyone notices it, but when he makes amends, everyone looks up to him”.

This quote is great but what I liked wasn’t the meaning but what it said. It used a comparison between something that was mysterious back then as an eclipse to the path of a gentleman which I believe is really important in the book because from what I read, a gentleman is that who follows the path to goodness. I’ve liked this book so far for its richness in comparison because after all, no one is able to understand every single quote, mainly because it applied to a whole different system of ideals that the one on which we live.

analects 15 17 18

From book fifteen you can deduce that he was very independent in a way. Confucius didn’t let anyone or anything to change his ideals. I admire that because not many of us can say that they are influenced by what happens around them. Yet, I’m not saying that we should ignore other ideas or points of view but that we shall not take them for granted. For instance, if everyone likes blue and I like red, I should continue liking red instead of blue unless I my self think about it and end up liking blue.

Something that I see often in his passages is that he always questions everything. For example, he might say that gentleman aren’t trustworthy just because they are honest or if someone is smart doesn’t mean he is a good speaker or vice versa. I believe that those are the questions you have to ask if you want to keep your own ideals because if you say that everything that shines is gold, then you’d be following incorrect, misleading ideas or propositions.

I really liked a passage in book 17. The passage is 17.23 and talks about balance. He says that courage without righteousness would end up in being a criminal while righteousness without courage would end up in a political disorder. This makes me think that about all of what he has said on his past books and now I think that the most important thing for Confucius is balance because without balance you have nothing. I believe that he is very wise because I cant think about a philosopher or a successful person that carried an unbalanced life.