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skhemka's picture

Living with Whitman...

There are two questions that I want to answer to in this blog which were asked in Thursday's class with Prof. Grobstein. First was whether you would want to live with Walt Whitman? I would like to say "no". Living with Walt Whitman would have been like a night mare. It is because while reading Leaves of Grass (all 12 of them) I realized that although he sounds like he is embracing everything and everyone in this world and celebrating them, I think he is just outright declaring his indifference. He tries to give everything the same value and put it on the same level, but to me it feels like he just doesn't "give a damn"! Everything is the same to him, whether he lives or dies, whether earth revolves, whether good prevails or evil, it’s all the same to him. He sounds extremely indifferent and passionless. He seems to be hide that under his words which make people think he is filled with some innate optimism not natural to the rest of us. Therefore, I think I would never want to live with him.

 

Second, would be the question of meaning which is - are humans capable of ascribing meaning to things? My answer to this would be a definite yes. Humans, more specifically, their minds are capable of ascribing meaning to things. (Meaning not only in the sense interpretation or goal.) I mean that only human impressions or ideas through perceiving attach meaning to anything in this world. Everything that we as humans know, know because of our minds and everything that is related to the mind has meaning. So, even abstract art which man thinks has no meaning, has a meaning attached to it just by being a product of the mind. I am sure there are so many things out there but since human minds haven't reached them yet they do not have any meaning.

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