Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

6/2- "... a child will pick up everything." (quote from page 92)

When a child is in their premature stages, they don't know what is going on around them. A baby is pretty much a person without a brain until they begin to develop. As children are growing up, they learn more and more about the real world, until eventually they grow old and really take their time to think about their advanced amount of knowledge. From watching your parents and hearing about their past experiences, you develop and take in many things that are around you, and the level of experience that you have is a lot higher. Even as we grow into our senior ages, we will still remain open to learning new things, but then putting them together with our own knowledge and using it for the better.

5/30- "This is the fear." (quote from page 90)

If we let our fears overpower us, what will become of our lives? Fear is a very powerful thing, but being the person that we are, we can overtake that fear and not let it become a huge part of our lives and take over everything. The mindset of a human being is to make what they think are the smartest choices, and some of those choices are made from having the feeling of fear in our minds. I know it may seem hard, and it's hard for me also, but we have to try our hardest to make the best choices, by which are not lead by fear, but by inspiration.

5/26-  Feelings of Something Inanimate

Author's Note-- At the time that I wrote this response, I was about a week and a half behind on responses that I should be, so I kind of just threw this together pretty fast so that way I could get on with the other responses that I have to catch up on, along with the closure for the end of the year piece (the current date is June 1). Since I just threw this together, I'm not particularly happy with it, but in the time that I wrote it, the piece is alright I guess.

Do inanimate things have lives beyond what we see? Take trees for example- all we see of them is giant pieces of wood sticking out of the ground with green leaves swaying in the wind. Maybe trees talk to each other, maybe they don't. Dogs bark, humans talk, so maybe trees have their own language too. Since we only know the languages of our own human races, we have no clue about what other lifeless objects may be feeling or doing.

Imagine yourself as a tree, and a lumberjack was going to come and chop you down. How would you feel about that? I know if I was a tree, I wouldn't like it very much. If that is how we would feel if we were going to be chopped down, what would an actual tree feel like, knowing that they were going to end up like that sometime in their life?

We don't know what other things feel with what is going on in their lives, because we don't know how they act when they have reactions to something. If only we did; that right there would be a worthwhile experience to live.

5/24- Assistance of Others

When we are newborn or going through phases in our life where we need assistance and cannot make it by ourselves, there is always someone that will be there for you to give you that extra push to help you through the difficult times. If a person is successful in life, perhaps a billionaire or such things, there had to have been something that pushed them to become what they are and not just give up. "The damned thing was flowing because it was pushed." (page 70)

The reason that some people might be so successful in life is because they had a good start with someone that inspired them. Some people only get through life with the help of others and cannot stand to get through something independently. Those kind of people, if they had to be alone, then they would be nowhere compared to where they would be if they had help from others.

5/19- The Real Behind the Masks

Author's Note-- I don't really know if this response really makes any sense, but in my mind and train of thought it made sense to me, but I don't think that I wrote it well enough to truly describe how I felt about it. But I tried to say what I wanted to get out.

How do we really know if someone is being real with you if you don't know the person, or if they aren't truly a real person? We all hide ourselves from the world around behind fake masks and faces and nobody is every truly theirselves when with someone else. Think to yourself- who do you lie to the most, and why? Is the reason that you lie because its something little and doesn't matter if you lie, or is it something big that you shouldn't have said or just come clean about?

"So shadows define the real." (page 63) Seeing your shadow is kind of almost like the same metaphor as looking into the mirror and seeing your soul. We only truly see ourselves when we can really see. When we're in front of other people, we aren't being ourselves. There is always someone that you need to impress, or some friends that you are afraid of thinking that you're too weird. If these people were really needed to be impressed or think you're too weird, then they really shouldn't mean too much to you considering that you have to change for them.

When I look in the mirror, I don’t really know how people can consider seeing that your soul. The only thing that I see is a bunch of imperfections. This whole soul seeing thing, I don't really understand that, but I wish that it could just happen. I wish that the mirror could just talk to me and tell me that I have a dark soul, or whatever kind of soul I manage to have.

Same kind of thing happens if I were to see my shadow. I don't have anything to see, except an area on the ground that is not covered by sun because I'm blocking it. All I notice about a shadow is the dark area mimicking every move that I make. But I have thought about shadows sometimes - because the color of shadows are dark, maybe they are like that because the person is dark inside.

Because of that thought, would that mean that we are all dark inside? Well, we all do hide ourselves; there is no denying it because every single person around you is doing the same exact thing. Perhaps we all are somewhat dark people, with some people that really stand out as being the dark soul.

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5/17-   "Under the ice the bluegills and carp are still alive; this far south the ice never stays on the water long enough that fish metabolize all the oxygen and die." (page 48)

Author's Note-- I know that in my last couple of recent responses to this book I've been writing somewhat about middle school life. I don't really know why this is happening so often, but in almost every sentence of this book, I can find something that relates to my life and that I find easy to write about, so that's why I choose to write about what I respond to because I can relate to the topic. Sorry that this is another post about that kind of topic, but it really stood out to me and I started writing immediately after reading it.

Popularity. The whole objective of being in a school with many people surrounding you. The reason that we do the things that we do is purely for popularity. The way we act, talk, dress - all of those things that we may change about ourselves are to be noticed and gain popularity. Just because we may not be the most popular person in the school, doesn't mean that we need to change ourselves to reach that standard. Most of the time, the popular people are the ones that have some major problems with their life, but they are too shallow and swallowed up inside of themselves to come out to anybody because they are afraid that those people that they can reach out to will think of them differently if they know that they are struggling with something. This is just normal life.

In the beginning of this quote, it says that 'under the ice the bluegills and carp are still alive'. Out of this, I got a metaphor meaning something kind of like 'underneath all of the popularity striving, the people of lower class are still there, being themselves'. Even if someone may be different than us, we can't make fun of them for it. Some people don't have the benefits that we have, and because of that, we think of them as somewhat different, when really, they are just the same people that we are.

The second part of this quote makes a lot of sense if you hook it up to my metaphor from before. If I were to add a second part to my metaphor to go along with the quote from the book, it would turn out something like 'the one at the top never remains there for too long; their fame eventually dies out and somebody new becomes the number one'. The times of our middle school and high school experiences are the ones that we will most likely get the most life lessons out of and will remember most. Because of what I've learned from my parents and other mentors by their stories, and my own personal experiences, I've realized that popularity isn't everything that you need to be satisfied with my life. I've also figured out that if I don't have to deal with all of those popularity issues, I can have a whole load off of my shoulders that I don't need to deal with any longer.

5/12-     Our Culture

"Why, why in the blue-green world write this sort of thing? Funny written culture, I guess; we pass things on." (page 51) When I read this quote, the first thing that came to my mind is about how rumors are passed on from people to people, and each time the rumor spreads, the story changes. Just like in the telephone game; rarely ever does the original thing stay the same all the way to the end. This happens all the time in our culture - its not uncommon if something like this were to occur. As a middle school student, this is basically my life. Everybody is the same way, so I know that its not just me and I can't change who I am.

Each day I come to school, and I hear something new about the current drama that is going on in the grade. Who's dating who, who said this, etc etc. Then later on in the day, there's always something different than in the beginning. "Oh my gosh! I can't believe she spread that rumor about me!" The same exact thing happens every day. If these kind of things didn't happen, then there would be no drama. But what is middle school life without drama? When you ask yourself that question, there really is no way knowing that answer, because its almost impossible to have a middle school life without any type of drama.  Or any type of life for that matter.

The rumors grow every single day. You'll hear something one day, and then the story will be changed the next and you will just be left in your own dust cloud of confusion. The way that our world was made by having things be written and played out like they are is such a weird placement. All it does is simply leave people in bewilderment. One of the main purposes of starting and spreading these rumors are to turn 'friends' against us. There is also a process of making up and not being mad at each other, but if this always happen, then what is the true point of starting and spreading these rumors?

Any of the questions that I have asked in this response, I really do not know the real answers to them. Nobody does. Not one single person can just make up the whole formation of human culture, and there's no way to change it either. Its just the way that we were made as people and we created ourselves into being.

5/10-    Facts? What?

"How can the old world be so innocent?" (page 43) There are so many things that we as people in the present don't know about what all went on in the past. The only things that we really know are things from personal experience, and things from the history books that were written down and put in front of us as 'knowledge' to look upon. As we look back from what we know of what actually happened, how do we know that the stuff that we've seen as personal experiences are real? And how do we know that the things written down in history books are actually what happened in the current time of the event?

As we grow and mature, our level of knowledge only grows stronger and more collect from times that we've experienced ourselves. In the beginning of our lifetimes as a child, we know almost nothing about the real world. We can't really see what is happening around us until we have our own experiences and figure it out ourselves. Because of how every single person around you can see differently, everybody has a different outlook on the world and what is happening while you yourself may have very different thoughts comparing to that person's. But while we progress throughout our life, we realize different things, and comprehend what is happening in our surroundings more than how we would have at a younger stage.

The things that we know about what happened in history books might only be a lie to make us believe what other people want us to believe. If you weren't really there to experience the event yourself, how do you know if it really even happened and it wasn't all made up to get society to believe something that didn't occur in the first place? For example- it was supposedly a fact that nobody knew who had the first shot in the Boston Massacre. In the history books of the French people, it said that the Americans shot first, but in the American history books, it says that the French shot first because both of the sides wanted to make it seem like the other side was worse and started the whole thing. Because of these types of things and all of those dishonest people out there in the world, there really is no way to fully grasp onto everything that is happening in your surroundings.

5/5-    Determination

"I cannot cause light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam." (page 35) I know that this seems like your typical type of sentence that says that you need to capture light. I don't know how everybody else would take this when they read this book, but the way that I took it was in a way that says something along the lines of 'I cannot cause success; the most I can do is try my hardest to achieve it.'

If you want to get something out of life, you actually need to try really hard to get a grip on what you want, because nothing that a person wants is just handed to them. My friend wants to make varsity as a freshmen for basketball, and she has to work really hard if she wants to get that. I want to run varsity cross country as a freshmen, but I know that its going to take a lot of work. It’s the same way with standing out; the shine isn't just going to be handed to you, you have to work for it yourself.

To have a great amount of determination is one amazing life skill to have. Not many people have that much determination because of how lazy we are being Americans, so if one person has a bunch of determination, they will really stand out in a crowd.

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5/3- Born This Way

The section of this novel that I just read inspired me so much. It was talking about how you really don't want to change that much of how you were made or how you turned out from things that happened. The example that the author had used and observed was an experiment of how if blind people were given a set of eyes, after a week of using them if they would keep them or go back to being blind. One of the kids, he came back to the scientists after being used to them, and says "I can't stand it anymore; I want to be sent back to the asylum again. If things aren't altered, I'll tear my eyes out." (page 30) By living one way and getting so accustomed to it, you almost don't want to change the way that you were.

When I read this part, it reminded me of the song Born This Way by Lady Gaga. In the song, she talks about how you shouldn't change the way that you were made, because you were made this way for a reason. If you were made this way, what would be the point of changing it? You wouldn't be yourself anymore, because there would have been alterations made. That's why I think that the little boy said that he would risk tearing out his eyes because of it because he didn't want to change how he was, and he was so used to having to feel his way around everything and such things like that. When people change themselves for the 'better', is it really better?

People change themselves because they think that it will make them better. Personally, all I feel is that it makes you fake. It makes you feel different about yourself, and it makes your appearance different also. We need to be happy about ourselves, and not feel insecure and then go through with actions to change how we are. Everybody deserves to be happy, and one of the most common ways to become depressed or have something serious happen to ourselves is being self-conscious. I know that every single person has their own personal insecurities, but if we let those insecurities overtake us, then change is pretty much what we force ourselves into, and then we are no longer truly ourselves.

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4/28-   Oceans: Beautiful, or Powerful?

"The sight held awesome wonders: power and beauty, grace tangled in a rapture with violence."  If I was just out sitting somewhere in the middle of beautiful nature, I would not have the same outlook on it as this author does.  She sees it so perfectly, and somehow, it always compares to something in her life that has either previously happened or is currently going on.  When I first read this quote, I knew that this was exactly what I was going to be writing about for my response.  There could be so many meanings to it, and it just left me thinking after reading for a while about the endless possibilities that it could be meaning.

The author wrote this part while she was out watching the waves come up and crash on the side of the shore.  With the waves being so strong, that could be the very powerful part, and when it says 'grace tangled in a rapture with violence', it was so flowy for me to read.  When a wave crashes upon sand on a shore, it always looks so pretty and what you think about is just how you love the feeling of the water coming in between each of your little toes, but what the author thinks of is different.  She sees how aggressive the waves look, just coming up and conquering more land than it had before.  I can't wait to keep reading more of this book and see how much more of her writing style I can take in.

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4/27-    The Writing Style Developed by Nature

The way that the author writes this novel flows together really well. She, Annie Dillard, has a way of writing that makes the reader want to keep reading because it seems very poetic, yet the content and the way that she writes is somewhat difficult to understand. She uses a writing style that includes a lot of different writing devices, such as metaphors that we have already experienced reading in this novel within the first few pages. I very much so look forward to reading more of this novel.

The last two sentences that I read in the section that I did said, "The creeks are the world with all its stimulus and beauty; I live there. But the mountains are home." Earlier on about the fourth or fifth page, she stated that she lived by a creek - Tinker Creek - and she described her attachment to it by saying that it was like an anchor-hold. Just imagine living by a creek and seeing everything that would be surrounding you - all of the nature, and all of the beautiful things that you could see. In this novel, the way that she writes is about describing what she sees in nature by comparing it to things that we see every day in life as average people.