NPO #10: By the Waters Of Babylon
How about a little reading, you Ticketholders and click-bait enthusiasts?
A little late on the release, but as promised, here's another Piece of my mind FROM Period 3, October 8, 1999. It's slightly lax on structure (only two supporting paragraphs, but with the correct amount of concrete detail and commentary for a high school freshman-level English class), and I don't recall the prompt behind it, other than "analyze the short story 'By the Waters of Babylon' in an essay format." As usual, prepare for an elongated post with interjected self-analysis of the work in question. I mean both that I will be analyzing my own work, and that I, myself, am a work in need of analysis with regard to how well--or poorly--I live by the words I have written down here.
Sean Wilkinson
10/8/99
Mrs. Whitaker
Period 3
"Finding the Middle"
If you listen to people at the movies, you might hear some of them saying, "If the actors didn't do anything, there wouldn't be a movie." That is why there will always be things we do not understand. In Steven Vincent Benet's short story "By the Waters of Babylon," a future priest named John finds out that there are things we don't yet understand, and other things we just shouldn't know.
Essaymaster's Note: The story is kind of a post-apocalyptic, M.Night Shyamalan's The Village yarn, wherein said priest from said village ventures out into a world ravaged by nuclear war, on a spiritual journey to New York City, which he believes is the Mount Olympus of his people's religion, a "Place of the Gods."
In retrospect, the opening paragraph doesn't seem to flow very well, idea-wise. What I think I was going for with the "actors" line is that sometimes, logic and knowledge holes are inserted into the plot, either through negligence or with carefully thought-out purpose, as a means of forwarding the plot so that the actors have something to react to. In life, it is kind of the same. With ignorance comes an inherent desire to either learn what we do not know or accept our own ignorance; either way, our response to that ignorance is some kind of action that has consequences for us and those around us.
When John wakes up in New York in the future, he finds primitive technology that he has never seen before. For example, we now know that lamps run on electricity. However, to John, they are "things that look like lamps, but have neither oil nor wick." Questions like "what is the meaning of life?" are questions we sometimes think about, but can never understand. All we can do is live life to our fullest, and address the impossible when we come to it. John also finds out that "things labeled 'hot' and 'cold' are not hot or cold to the touch." Life is an experiment that requires you to use all of your senses if you want to learn about something. Keep in mind that success means you'll never know anything if you don't go for the experience. Common sense is no good if many people talk about it, but only a few people have it.
Essaymaster's Note: This paragraph analyzes some of John's encounters with technology that, to us, work on concepts that are common knowledge, if not common sense, but have been lost by John's time for their obsolescence following the collapse of 1930's society. I now analogue this to what I have been complaining about for the past five or more issues: the fact that our modern society has all but lost the ability and desire to read anything longer than a Tweet, and have parlayed that short-mindedness into communicating almost solely with emojis, such that the average person won't put forth the effort to teach themselves how to pronounce "chipotle" properly. I actually had a customer ask me for "chaloopy" sauce on his sandwich yesterday. Aside from the "ch," the L, and the P, how the fuck do you get "chaloopy" from a word that, if you actually read it from left to right, is clearly pronounced "chip-oat-lay?" I mean, it's the name of a popular fucking chain of fucking restaurants with fucking commercials on the fucking TV, for Christ's sake! Oh, right. People don't watch commercials anymore, either. We suck. Next paragraph, please.
John learns throughout the story that too much of the past or future isn't healthy for anyone. When he enters the "Dead Place," John sees evidence of the nuclear war and talks about how he can feel that "the magic was still in the air, but had gone out of the objects." Some objects don't really have "magic" to begin with, and technology advances don't allow you to see much of the big picture. Walking is often a better choice than trying to keep ahead of everyone else in a fast, power-everything sports car. At the end of the story, John has a vision about the "War of the Gods" that caused the nuclear disaster, but decides not to tell his father about it. Trying to get as futuristic as possible isn't good, but neither is dwelling too much on the past. Regretting your past leads to future failures and further regrets. "Eating knowledge too fast" can give you indigestion.
Essaymaster's Note: This paragraph dealt with the second half of my thesis statement (that there are things we just shouldn't know). The first sentence makes more sense as a lead-in to this analysis if you take into account that what is the past to John is, for us, a layman's commentary on one possible future for the human race. His assumption that everything in New York had "magic," whether that be common electricity, residual fallout energy from the nuclear conflict (the "War of the Gods," a.k.a "The Great Burning"), or the less obvious but more ponderous mental and emotional energy of collected histories that would linger in a city that size, is not so far from the truth of the 21st century. We now have the ability--if not always the financial means--to make our houses talk to us and perform tasks for us on voice command. In the sixty years since Steven Vincent Benet wrote "By the Waters of Babylon" (and even decades before that), we have learned to harness, if not master, every kind of perceivable energy, every "magic," from radio waves to cellular signals and solar radiation, and are currently exploring the possibilities of nuclear fusion, dark matter, and constructing faster computers out of DNA itself. The only things that are really keeping the Koreas from nuking each other are an invisible land border and a few hundred pieces of paper that say weaponizing nuclear material is basically an act of treason against the world. Our country is in the hands of an entitled misogynist with bad hair, an itchy trigger finger, and no social filter who, at various points in his career, was a figurative god of real estate, reality television, and his own mind (he once claimed that he could shoot a random person in public--smite them, if you will--and suffer no political repercussions). So much knowledge, of vastly differing degrees of quality and veracity, is available in today's world that those who provide it are (counterintuitively, I think) elevated to pantheon status in the eyes of those who merely consume said information. So, are we that far off from our own Great Burning? I hope not, but this is a case where a certain level of ignorance, and acceptance of that ignorance, would have put the world as a whole in much better shape by this time. I don't suggest ignoring the world's problems here, only being more selective about the information we react to, and not seeking out ways to quickly and easily receive as much information as possible. As I said at the end of the paragraph, that way lies indigestion of the brain.
Life has highs, lows, and middles, It's boring if you know and have everything, but annoying if you don't. The Great Burning happened because no one could find a balance that suited them, and everyone was rallying for the top position in the nuclear weapons business. Instead of agreeing on a hierarchy, they all fell at once because there was no foundation. Falling behind and getting too far ahead are easy. Finding a middle, if one exists, is extremely difficult.
Essaymaster's Note: I re-ordered my closing paragraph here based on the suggestion of my freshman English 3C teacher, Susan Whitaker. She praised my writing style, especially the poetic descriptions, metaphors, and word play, but thought my original ending sentence (the "no foundation" sentence) was not as strong as it could have been, suggesting that I move the "Finding the middle" sentence and its lead-in to the end to bring my essay full-circle to the title. At the time, I wanted to do that, but struggled with a way to make the re-structured paragraph coherent while keeping all that I wanted to say. I like the irony of this essay's structure; how I have, in past New Piece Offerings, advocated finding a middle ground between the two extremes of a writing prompt, but here, have submitted an essay titled, "Finding the Middle," in which there is no such paragraph.
Grade: A (97/100)
Also, a parting rant-tangent inspired by the phrase "could have." It pisses me off--as much as people mispronouncing "chipotle," if not more so--to constantly see modern Americans write or text the phrase, "could of."
First of all, structurally, it makes no sense. I mean, there are instances in the English language where you can follow a verb ("could" is a past tense of the verb, "can") with a preposition ("of" is a preposition). For instance, "shut up," "make off," and "go away" are examples where this works. But "can" isn't that kind of verb. It's what I think is called a "helper verb," meaning that it is structurally required to be followed by another verb, unless otherwise indicated by intervening punctuation. Examples from this post include "could have" and "can follow," because "have" and "follow" are both verbs. This language construct even exists in Latin-based languages like Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese. Look it up.
Secondly, it's just lazy and ignorant. Not that I don't understand where the confusion comes from--I do. Apparently, in a world where most communication is done through texts, tweets, and memes, people are now talking more for some reason (probably as a consequence of reading less?). I think that, upon hearing someone speak the contraction, "could've"--the abbreviated form of the aforementioned "could have"--they get it in their heads to later write it down as they heard it, as the cringe-inducing "could of." But how stupid has our society gotten that we're phonetically spelling seven letter contractions? I'll admit to mispronouncing words like "conscience" (as the individual words, "con" and "science") when I was a kid. But that I even knew what the word meant at the age I did, compared to what my peers' vocabulary skills were back then, was amazing. And the mispronunciation was a result of reading aloud a word that I had never heard spoken before. So, before you annoy me any further, America, before you find yourselves making the "could of" mistake again, go read something that was written by an actual writer who actually knows how your country's official language works. Chances are high that "could've" or "could have" are in there somewhere.
That is how learning to communicate effectively and intelligently works, and that is how you find the middle.
Here is Chipotle's new, (un)official logo for people who can't pronounce stuff and only speak emoji:
If you've been reading this, feel free to communicate to your hearts' content in the comments, and I will attempt to squeeze another Grimm Fairy Tales Retrospective series in among this week's busy work schedule.
Stay Tuned,
Read More, and
Essaymaster,
Out.
Essaymaster's Note: The story is kind of a post-apocalyptic, M.Night Shyamalan's The Village yarn, wherein said priest from said village ventures out into a world ravaged by nuclear war, on a spiritual journey to New York City, which he believes is the Mount Olympus of his people's religion, a "Place of the Gods."
In retrospect, the opening paragraph doesn't seem to flow very well, idea-wise. What I think I was going for with the "actors" line is that sometimes, logic and knowledge holes are inserted into the plot, either through negligence or with carefully thought-out purpose, as a means of forwarding the plot so that the actors have something to react to. In life, it is kind of the same. With ignorance comes an inherent desire to either learn what we do not know or accept our own ignorance; either way, our response to that ignorance is some kind of action that has consequences for us and those around us.
When John wakes up in New York in the future, he finds primitive technology that he has never seen before. For example, we now know that lamps run on electricity. However, to John, they are "things that look like lamps, but have neither oil nor wick." Questions like "what is the meaning of life?" are questions we sometimes think about, but can never understand. All we can do is live life to our fullest, and address the impossible when we come to it. John also finds out that "things labeled 'hot' and 'cold' are not hot or cold to the touch." Life is an experiment that requires you to use all of your senses if you want to learn about something. Keep in mind that success means you'll never know anything if you don't go for the experience. Common sense is no good if many people talk about it, but only a few people have it.
Essaymaster's Note: This paragraph analyzes some of John's encounters with technology that, to us, work on concepts that are common knowledge, if not common sense, but have been lost by John's time for their obsolescence following the collapse of 1930's society. I now analogue this to what I have been complaining about for the past five or more issues: the fact that our modern society has all but lost the ability and desire to read anything longer than a Tweet, and have parlayed that short-mindedness into communicating almost solely with emojis, such that the average person won't put forth the effort to teach themselves how to pronounce "chipotle" properly. I actually had a customer ask me for "chaloopy" sauce on his sandwich yesterday. Aside from the "ch," the L, and the P, how the fuck do you get "chaloopy" from a word that, if you actually read it from left to right, is clearly pronounced "chip-oat-lay?" I mean, it's the name of a popular fucking chain of fucking restaurants with fucking commercials on the fucking TV, for Christ's sake! Oh, right. People don't watch commercials anymore, either. We suck. Next paragraph, please.
John learns throughout the story that too much of the past or future isn't healthy for anyone. When he enters the "Dead Place," John sees evidence of the nuclear war and talks about how he can feel that "the magic was still in the air, but had gone out of the objects." Some objects don't really have "magic" to begin with, and technology advances don't allow you to see much of the big picture. Walking is often a better choice than trying to keep ahead of everyone else in a fast, power-everything sports car. At the end of the story, John has a vision about the "War of the Gods" that caused the nuclear disaster, but decides not to tell his father about it. Trying to get as futuristic as possible isn't good, but neither is dwelling too much on the past. Regretting your past leads to future failures and further regrets. "Eating knowledge too fast" can give you indigestion.
Essaymaster's Note: This paragraph dealt with the second half of my thesis statement (that there are things we just shouldn't know). The first sentence makes more sense as a lead-in to this analysis if you take into account that what is the past to John is, for us, a layman's commentary on one possible future for the human race. His assumption that everything in New York had "magic," whether that be common electricity, residual fallout energy from the nuclear conflict (the "War of the Gods," a.k.a "The Great Burning"), or the less obvious but more ponderous mental and emotional energy of collected histories that would linger in a city that size, is not so far from the truth of the 21st century. We now have the ability--if not always the financial means--to make our houses talk to us and perform tasks for us on voice command. In the sixty years since Steven Vincent Benet wrote "By the Waters of Babylon" (and even decades before that), we have learned to harness, if not master, every kind of perceivable energy, every "magic," from radio waves to cellular signals and solar radiation, and are currently exploring the possibilities of nuclear fusion, dark matter, and constructing faster computers out of DNA itself. The only things that are really keeping the Koreas from nuking each other are an invisible land border and a few hundred pieces of paper that say weaponizing nuclear material is basically an act of treason against the world. Our country is in the hands of an entitled misogynist with bad hair, an itchy trigger finger, and no social filter who, at various points in his career, was a figurative god of real estate, reality television, and his own mind (he once claimed that he could shoot a random person in public--smite them, if you will--and suffer no political repercussions). So much knowledge, of vastly differing degrees of quality and veracity, is available in today's world that those who provide it are (counterintuitively, I think) elevated to pantheon status in the eyes of those who merely consume said information. So, are we that far off from our own Great Burning? I hope not, but this is a case where a certain level of ignorance, and acceptance of that ignorance, would have put the world as a whole in much better shape by this time. I don't suggest ignoring the world's problems here, only being more selective about the information we react to, and not seeking out ways to quickly and easily receive as much information as possible. As I said at the end of the paragraph, that way lies indigestion of the brain.
Life has highs, lows, and middles, It's boring if you know and have everything, but annoying if you don't. The Great Burning happened because no one could find a balance that suited them, and everyone was rallying for the top position in the nuclear weapons business. Instead of agreeing on a hierarchy, they all fell at once because there was no foundation. Falling behind and getting too far ahead are easy. Finding a middle, if one exists, is extremely difficult.
Essaymaster's Note: I re-ordered my closing paragraph here based on the suggestion of my freshman English 3C teacher, Susan Whitaker. She praised my writing style, especially the poetic descriptions, metaphors, and word play, but thought my original ending sentence (the "no foundation" sentence) was not as strong as it could have been, suggesting that I move the "Finding the middle" sentence and its lead-in to the end to bring my essay full-circle to the title. At the time, I wanted to do that, but struggled with a way to make the re-structured paragraph coherent while keeping all that I wanted to say. I like the irony of this essay's structure; how I have, in past New Piece Offerings, advocated finding a middle ground between the two extremes of a writing prompt, but here, have submitted an essay titled, "Finding the Middle," in which there is no such paragraph.
Grade: A (97/100)
Also, a parting rant-tangent inspired by the phrase "could have." It pisses me off--as much as people mispronouncing "chipotle," if not more so--to constantly see modern Americans write or text the phrase, "could of."
First of all, structurally, it makes no sense. I mean, there are instances in the English language where you can follow a verb ("could" is a past tense of the verb, "can") with a preposition ("of" is a preposition). For instance, "shut up," "make off," and "go away" are examples where this works. But "can" isn't that kind of verb. It's what I think is called a "helper verb," meaning that it is structurally required to be followed by another verb, unless otherwise indicated by intervening punctuation. Examples from this post include "could have" and "can follow," because "have" and "follow" are both verbs. This language construct even exists in Latin-based languages like Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese. Look it up.
Secondly, it's just lazy and ignorant. Not that I don't understand where the confusion comes from--I do. Apparently, in a world where most communication is done through texts, tweets, and memes, people are now talking more for some reason (probably as a consequence of reading less?). I think that, upon hearing someone speak the contraction, "could've"--the abbreviated form of the aforementioned "could have"--they get it in their heads to later write it down as they heard it, as the cringe-inducing "could of." But how stupid has our society gotten that we're phonetically spelling seven letter contractions? I'll admit to mispronouncing words like "conscience" (as the individual words, "con" and "science") when I was a kid. But that I even knew what the word meant at the age I did, compared to what my peers' vocabulary skills were back then, was amazing. And the mispronunciation was a result of reading aloud a word that I had never heard spoken before. So, before you annoy me any further, America, before you find yourselves making the "could of" mistake again, go read something that was written by an actual writer who actually knows how your country's official language works. Chances are high that "could've" or "could have" are in there somewhere.
That is how learning to communicate effectively and intelligently works, and that is how you find the middle.
Here is Chipotle's new, (un)official logo for people who can't pronounce stuff and only speak emoji:
Stay Tuned,
Read More, and
Essaymaster,
Out.
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