Man's Search For a Good Book

For this quarter I bounced between several books, but found myself most interested in Victor Frankl’s book, MANS SEARCH FOR MEANING. He writes about his own experience in the holocaust and documents what he observes and how me ties it into his break down of the human mind. Frankl wrote one of the most logical explanations to how the human brain should look at life by telling stories of people he observed in the concentration camps in the 1940’s and how he helped them over come death by using his logic of Logotherapy. 

In the book, Frankl was interested in watching people suffering around him and by deciphering their thoughts he would work on fixing how they reacted.  He came to the conclusion that those who survived the Holocaust were not physically strong, but those who were aware of their environment and discover a meaning to life would survive.  One of the terms Frankl coined was "Sunday neurosis," This was when the end of the working week came upon a person and made them realize how empty and meaningless their life is.  He thought this caused men and women to stress out and caused them to involve in unhealthy behavior  like bingeing on the wrong foods and drinking too much just to compensate for the state of melancholy they would have to over come at the beginning of another week.

Frankl’s theory of Logotherapy is the study of mental health tension between what one “is” and what one would “become”.  He argues that the modern person has way too much freedom in his or her life to deal with in a positive manner. This means that we don’t live through instinct and rarely rely on tradition. Logotherapy is different from Psychology because logotherapy looks mainly into the future and how what we do in the present changes the outcome of fait. For example,if you watched your father hit your mother and kick the family dog, you would inevitably do the same. This theory gets rid of the wife beater excuse and forces a person to create their own fait. 

I didn’t enjoy this book for the Holocaust aspect of it, but more or less the break down of how Logotherapy works. I found Mans Search For Meaning in a storage box filled with other heavy topic thinking and it was fait that I read this one. The voice he uses in this book not only tells you stories, but teaches you like a well written text book in how to wrap your lead around his theories. This book changes the way I will look at everything that comes into my life and I would recommend it to anyone who loves a good read that makes you re think the meaning of your entire life. 

FIND YOUR FAVORITE BLANKET!

The day of we have all been waiting for is finally here, but don't start packing the canned food and loading up on the guns quite yet! Lock the doors, take a seat in your favorite chair, find a rather large blanket and submerge yourself under it until this whole thing is over. It will be, im sure of it. 

However. If not...I will find myself at my towns local aquatic center. (Water is the only element I can rely on)  Inside, I have loaded a locker with enough Twinkies and cocaine to last me a solid 6 months. I wish you all the best of luck under your blankets. (:

See you Spring Break 2013!!!!!!!

Anyone But Him

    In Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign he emphasizes on his business knowledge and leadership experience as a job creator which he pledges to use for the benefit of American jobs, and American’s small businesses. He also says he will call China out for its unfair currency valuation practices. This is where we start with the number of problems with his track record. Most of them regarding his personal investment in Chinese manufacturer organized companies, used to be an outsource supplier to US brands. Also, his mysterious record of trying to completely avoid any taxes payed to his order. You name it, he;s done it; anything from offshore accounts, to manipulating preferential tax rates. Only with his pure talent of lobbying congressmen. Mitt Romney's blatant hypocrisy is nothing that we should be voting for when we have a President that has already proven to us his loyalty and patriotism to his country; ie: President Obama.

     Romney was a business man; he started up a business that bought out small companies to create a massive ones, claiming it would encourage local spending. Even with what he considers to be an American success story in buying and selling big businesses and creating American jobs, the thousands of low paying jobs he claims to have created came directly at the expense of the small businesses that could not compete with what he was putting on the market. Yes, he can use the evidence that he was creating several dozen minimum wage jobs, but he was putting local Mom and Pop stores out of business just from sheer competition.  This resulted in the only other form of competition being Office Max to prove the point. However, it is wrong for Mitt Romney to claim credit for being a job creator when the result was at best merely shuffling deck chairs and more likely a trading down in full-time work and benefits based on an obvious high employee turnover. He uses this business carrier background as a advantage over Obama, claiming he is more qualified to be president with the poor economical state the US is in. Not only are we loosing more jobs in this situation, we are out sourcing everything we’ve got. Take a walk in any isles in a Staples. Other than paper, it is difficult to find products made anywhere but Asia. Romney says he will end the currency manipulation that gives China and other large countries with growing power the unfair advantage over US manufacturers. But Mitt’s companies feed money directly into outsourcing until our supply networks can no longer compete. 

     Mitt Romney's hypocrisy is his absence of leadership.  You would expect a man who wants to be President because of his loyalty to his country and its people, also to be commitment to the little guys trying to run a small business; or an employee who he promises will keep his of her job, or find one for that matter, and help them to earn a living wage! If he claims to be the strong business figure that he is, why hasn't he already done something to provide for our country. He hasn't proven himself to anyone!   Instead we see nothing but his interest in getting the most money for his thriving company. If Romney wants to take an idealized view of business, the least he can do is demonstrate his strong business stance and put it towards his own country.  Add all this to his obvious avoidance of his own taxes using his “smart business tactics” and it is hard see any patriotism in his own professional life. 

     Based only on the limited tax records Romney has released, he has demonstrated no efforts to eliminate tax. Not only that, but has demonstrated no real efforts to save Americas local business owners. As a country we can only hope that President Obama continues to try and save our drowning country.

The Visible Man: Yes, Its That Good

     I had never really been recommended a book. It was always either a book forced upon me for a book club, or a class; or I just didn’t read at all.  

At the start of my junior year my English teacher immediately got into the thing that most students dread; the quarterly reading assignment.  It was a very general assignment, any non-fiction book of your choice.  I was screwed. Not only do I hate reading, I have never had an interest in non-fiction.

Of course the teacher had a list of recommended book for all his students and midway through class he mentioned one of his favorite books with a background in human psychology. This is where he got my attention.  I respect this teacher and trust his opinion so jumped right in, feeling a weird urge to immerse myself in some good reading.  I found myself enjoying one of the best books I have ever read. The Visible Man by Chuck Klosterman was a realistic story about the lives of people while they are alone; their behavior and weird tenancies. It shows who we really are without all the backgrounds they we put ourselves in.

How do you tell a story of a physiological genius and what he sees in his bizarre day-to-day life? What Chuck Klosterman did to effectively hold my attention was to tell the story through a female narrator by the name of Victoria. The main focus of the book ‘Y____” finds himself needing a therapist, but not for ordinary reasons. He instead relays all his interesting discoveries on to his therapist of choice. Victoria, being his therapist, in turn writes about the stories relayed to her by the “Y____.”  She includes notes about her thoughts on her patient and it gives more perspective on how a reader would handle the situation. Vicki expresses her concerns, excitement and her anxiety about her patient who tells so much, but yet stays so mysterious. 

We take our solitary time for granted. If we are lucky we spend most or out time with people we enjoying being around. But this can be both a blessing and a curse.  Time alone is precious.  It tells us about who we really are.  No matter how such we try to deny the fact, we hide under a social blanket when in front of social groups. Because of the way we are raised, and with the help of character, we unintentionally change our behavior in certain situations.  It is peculiar to think about who you really are when you walk around your room quietly having a conversation with yourself. Talking to your own thoughts doesn't make you smarter.  It does however build who you are as a person. This is how Klosterman started to get me thinking about what I did when I am in the company of no one but my self.  Not only does my time alone puzzle me, but what about other people in solitude?  How do they alter themselves when in groups?  Am I worse than they are when it comes to putting on a fake act when interacting with others?  A book that gets a reader thinking, even when they aren’t reading the book is a book worth reading. 

Ultimately, this book includes everything a thirsty reader could want. It holds the characteristics of a suspenseful mystery novel. The author writes in the form of short stories, and makes the reader understand that what you are reading is not in sequence. He even ties in some violence when necessary. Everything he writes he articulates in such close attention to detail. I hate to feel like a book pusher, but you this is a gateway to the other amazing works of Chuck Klosterman.

Marsupial Sue Kangaroo Do

Though it might be hard, remember the days when you didn’t know how to read the pages of a book. Instead you picked out a story for your Mom of Dad to read to you. If you were lucky you might even get your babysitter to read it to you. Eventually they would get sick of the book because its your number one request every night. This is exactly how John Lithgow’s, Marsupial Sue got me. The appeal I had to this book still doesn’t make sense. My parents on the other hand, I know why they still continued to read it to me. Sure the illustrations were wonderful, and the catchy song that Lithgow wrote to go along with the book helped keep my attention. But the whole story taught a great life lesson like all children's books do. Its a beautiful thing when a story can grab the attention of all ages.

Marsupial Sue follows a day in the life of a kangaroo named Sue. Sue is an outsider. She feels like that one white kid in a school in central Detroit. Except, well Sue looks just like everyone else. The whole jumping around and eating grass just isn’t her forte. This is where the story tried to relate to any child that fells put out of place. Sue then takes you on an adventure where she meets new types of people. Sure it was fun, but the story eventually ends right where she started. The moral of this short story is you are happiest with those who love you. How touching.
Books like this are meant to tap into you pathos. As you are reading this to your child, you can only hope they are getting something out of it besides looking at the interesting illustrations page after page. But after all of this, the reason this book has stuck into my childhood memories is because the author, John Lithgow helped you sing along from begging to end. The fact that he could song write and story write makes the story that much more memorable. Going into my sixties I will still remember every lyric to that book, and most defiantly be reading it to my children. Simply because, Marsupial Sue can relate to anyone who reads her story.