It is arguable that in Huxley’s novel “Brave New World” there is no freedom in conditioning.  Conditioning is portrayed as a method of brainwashing and suppresses human individuality. In the World State, people are conditioned to be happy about their rank in society but freedom is in turn sacrificed to achieve this. Certain methods of conditioning such as hypnopaedia is a form of brainwashing as it teaches you only the information that you need to know and makes you not interested to learn more. Conditioning is also a form of social predestination and suppresses human individuality. In the DHC, the workers condition the babies right from birth to prepare them for their destined rank in society. This suppresses human individuality as instead of giving the individual a choice in their life, the choice is made for them. In many cases, conditioning suppresses freedom as the methods of conditioning used within the world state brainwashes the individual and suppresses their individuality.

Looking Into

As I look into the distance,

I couldn’t believe what I saw

It’s not a daily sight, nor is it a pleasant surprise

It’s not something that I think will happen, but it has.

It involves someone I know

And someone I don’t

And you would never think that this person you knew, or at least used to know,

would commit such lustful sin.

It’s not easily bearable to mine eyes,

But the truth is held evident

I take back my comments

 the thoughts we were going to share

The books we are going to read

And the flower I was going to give

I have changed my mind on her, and always will, from now on.

This poem reflects a painting of the doctor by Vincent Van Gogh, in this poem, the speaker is the doctor himself, who is sitting at a one end of a café alone and saw his wife flirting with another man at another table far away. He doesn’t quite believe what he saw but tries to convince himself throughout the poem.  The audience of the poem is generally directed to those who know the doctor well and understand what he is going through.

 poem was peer edited by Ali S.

Do Seek Their Meet From God

Panthers, alike many other animals, are often used as the antagonist in stories. This is probably because of their “killing almost everything they see” reputation that we use to build suspense on. I find Roberts involvement of panthers in this story to be quit creative. This appealed to me because most panthers in North America live in southern United States or Mexico, which doesn’t really match the setting of the story.  In fact, from the description given at the beginning I would have never guessed it was a panther. What also caught my interest was in the end when the bear killed the two panther cubs, this is a very interesting twist to the story as the chances of panthers and bears to live in the same region is quite slim.

LOVE

Love is like the sun

It brightens our day and warms our hearts

Love is like a ribbon, tying the world around us together.

Making us appreciate each other

Love is the purest form of expression

To some extent, we all have the hint of love within our souls

Love is like an abstract problem, only some can truly understand it

Love is the meaning of life

Only those who understand it live in brightness

Those who don’t will always be missing something, something that they will never find.

Love is forgiveness

And our willingness to understand others

Love is what our world is made of

Because without it, our world would be in complete darkness.

A Plea for the Physical

Personally, I think that being both physical or sedentary have it’s own benefits and drawbacks. Most of the time, I find myself to be more of a physical person. To me, being physical makes me feel more at home because it gives me a sense of livelihood and can build relationships and memories in life. Sometimes a physical experience makes me feel more alive because I get to interact with the natural world around me. For example, going for a hike in the woods makes me feel more alive as to riding on a subway. I find hiking in the woods to be enjoyable because it gives me a sense of connection with nature. Listening to the birds chirp their songs and pondering at the sky scraping Douglas Firs gives me a livelihood  feeling that I wouldn’t have achieved if I was sitting on a crowded subway .  Other times, I find that a physical experience can be the best way to build relationships and memories.  For example, when I am outside shovelling snow with my family, it makes me feel more connected to my family and builds relationships and memories that I cannot find when I sit  in front of a computer checking email. I also think that shovelling snow gives you more of a satisfaction then checking email because seeing the driveway all cleared of snow and knowing that you did it makes you feel rewarded.  However, there is a good side to being sedentary too.  Sometimes I prefer watching T.V. as to lifting weights. As a person can be both a physical and sedentary at the same time, I find being a physical person to be more intimate and interactive.