Simple Sounds Sweet

Although it really doesn't mention this much in the Books 7-8+11, people are always trying to go through the shorter route or the one that takes the least energy in life. Nowadays people often look at the way their doing in life by the size of their wallet and I find that absolutely absurd. So does it mean if your not wealthy and drive around in a Mercedes- Benz that your not happy in life, absolutely not.
I think that nowadays people are inventing technological objects that make life "easier" for themselves, but I say that those people are just lazy. The Master said, "If wealth were something worth pursuing, then I would pursue it, even if that meant serving as an officer holding a whip at the entrance to a marketplace. Since it is not worth pursuing, however. I prefer to follow that which I love." (7.12) When I read this quote I felt it was entirely essential to my blog. The master enjoyed the humble and modest rather than the wealth and power.
This reminded me of a story that my religion teacher once told me of the importance of the meaning of gifts not the amount. "He sat down opposite the treasury and observed how the crowd put money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow put in two small coins worth a few cents. Calling his disciples to himself, he said to them, "Amen, I say to you, this poor widow put in more then all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood." This story will stick with me where ever life will take me, because it has a deep moral to it, and that is that people in life will never care about the amount of money you put into something; just the amount of love or energy you put. This example works as well for home works, teachers don't care about amount, but of the quality.

Who is Perfect? Confucius.

Confucius had a very unique philosophy of a "gentleman." He uses teaching to convey what he thinks a gentleman should be with examples of ancient Japanese men. His main idea is to describe to us what is Good. What we should and should not do to achieve Goodness, I thought the way he displayed it was a little bit confusing. In Book Four he explains what we should do to be a gentleman and what are the consequences if we don't. In Book Five, as I stated before, he uses some examples of ancient men to show to us what is accepted as Good. What I didn't understand was that whenever he was asked if this person was Good he never knew, " The Master said, "In a state of one thousand chariots, Zilu could be employed to organize the collection of military taxes, but I do not know whether or not he is Good." In Book Six he judges others his "pedagogical goal is to install virtuous dispositions rather than impart abstract principles" it reminds me some what of Ishmael because the point of the book was to teach the man how to become a better "person".
What I didn't agree with Confucius is the way he put his rules he was very blunt, there was no other option. I believe that a role model should always have another alternative to his way of teaching. Is Confucius really the BEST role model?

How does Elie relate to our class?

Elie Wiesel's trilling and jaw-dropping novel is a fascinating story between a jewish father and son's fight for survival. Seperated from their family at the beginning of the Holocaust and sent to different concentration camps, each time showing how much each one cares for the other, if it's giving up your portion of bread for the day becuase your father is sick and in need of it well so be it, or if its caring your son through the snow because his feet are hurting a little less than yours are well so be it. The novel is centered around a jewish boys fight in the inevitable genocide also known as the Holocaust. Who is faced to overcome many body bruising tasks. The character is confronted with many obstacles and through out the story has to find something or someone to believe in, and that was his fuel; his energy; his inspiration to perservere inspite the harsh conditions. It also may relate because each protagonist begins to question the existance God in some point of the story, each one questions their faith. For example in Night when Elie begins to ponder if there is in fact a God who cares and whatches over his so called "sons", because he can't comprehend that if there was a true and good God that he would allow the Nazi to do such cruel things.
We are presented the same situation in Job when Satan is granted permission to test Jobs "faith", after Satan inflicts Job with the horrible skin sore, Job curses God comparing his life with light and dark.
The way Elie expressed himself, was a very important factor to the novel, he made me feel at least, that I was a jew, and made me feel hate towards the Nazi. Even though I learned that many of the SS soldiers that were part of the massacre, weren't vicious creatures, they had a family and felt compassion for the jews. What they lacked in was the strenght to go against Hitler's word and his followers, they were afraid to say "No!" I will not be part of this horrible expirnment. I remember while I was reading I couldn't keep my eyes from the pages, I remember vividly that I would go to sleep angry, thinking about how much the jews were tortured, how much they suffered, for the religion they followed, and many were born into that religion and didn't practice it at all.
It reminded me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the way he expresses his thoughts on paper, almost like the real thing. Gabo has a way with words that makes you feel like your present in the moment, that you can feel the emotions running in you, thats how I felt as I was sailing across the adventure that Elie Wiesel exposes with his award winning Night.