1984 - George Orwell - Part 2

1984 - George Orwell

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 8

 January 8, 2017 

Book 2 - Nineteen Eighty Four (1984)
by George Orwell (1948)

 Part 2 - Pages 82-151

Reading Time -60 minutes

I feel for poor Winston. He seems to be the only thinking person in a see of automatons. Sometimes he wonders if he's a lunatic - the only person who thinks the way he does. After all, even if he's right, if he's the only one who thinks that... would that not make him a lunatic?

He is, however, breaking out - doing rebellious things. Skipping Communal Gatherings in his apartment building, wandering the streets where the Proles (Proletariat) live, even talking to an +80 year old Prole and asking him about the past. He's starting to skirt very close to the edge is our Winston.

Even more crazy... a woman at his office surreptitiously gave him a little piece of paper on which was written "I love you". Winston had thought she was a spy, one of the bad ones, but now his world is turned upside down. He's excited, terrified, anxious and ready to do anything to meet with her.

All of a sudden, Winston has gone from surviving live to having a purpose, a focus, something to live for. Suddenly there is hope for him, hope of love, of finding someone like him, who understands him. And he's ready to do pretty much anything to get it.

George Orwell - The Heresy of Heresies was Common Sense.

At one point, Winston notes that the "heresy of heresies is common sense". Today, we would say that "common sense is not all that common". Another thought that comes to mind is that 95% of the thoughts we think in a day, we thought yesterday and the day before. In Winston's world, it's probably more like 100%. Which makes we wonder... how different are we from Winston's world? 5% isn't that big a difference, is it?

If thought leads to action and if we think the same thoughts day after day... then it follows that our actions are the same day after day as well. But our thoughts really are the gateway to a new world. In Winston's world, any deviation from routine makes one suspect by the ThoughtPolice... for obvious reasons. Why has Winston not come to the Communal Gatherings? Why has he taken a different route home? Actions reflect thoughts.

So ultimately, if we want to act differently, we need to alter our thoughts. I was reading a blog the other day which suggested that about 10,000 of our thoughts are involved with the daily activity of living - getting up, planning our day, etc. If we think about 60,000 thoughts in a day and 95% are the same, then that leaves 47,000 thoughts up for grabs. The blogger suggested that most of those 47,000 thoughts are concerned with worry, fixating on the past, future planning, negative self talk, etc. We can take some of those thoughts and turn them around. Rather than fixating on how something isn't working - "I'll never get my book published"... we can start thinking "What can I do to get my book published". We take it out of the realm of worry and into the realm of possibilities of concrete action.

Orwell's book is making me aware of the power of our thoughts and how wasteful we can be with them. At one point, Winston notes how the never-ending chatter of the telescreen makes it hard to think. That is probably not an accident. But we too sit in front of the TV in a mindless stupor, surrendering our thoughts to something called "entertainment". Where do we get the time to just think? Driving in the car... going for a walk... sitting by the ocean. Putting down the phone, turning off the TV. And just being still and seeing what surfaces as our minds settle.

1984 - George Orwell - Part 1

1984 - George Orwell

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 7

 January 7, 2017 

Book 2 - Nineteen Eighty Four (1984)
by George Orwell (1948)

 Part 1 - Pages 1-81

Reading Time -70 minutes

Wow. Well, this is quite a change from the Freedom Writers Diary. George Orwell wrote this book in 1948, shortly after the Second World War. He envisions a socialist society, a dictatorship run by the Party, which venerates Big Brother. Our hero is Winston Smith, a minor cog in Ministry of Truth.

In the first few pages, Winston takes out a creamy-paged diary that he found in a second-hand shop, and begins to write in it. An act, that while not illegal, would likely be punished either by death or by 25 years imprisonment. Big Brother is the only one who does any writing, rewriting the history books, the newspapers, the magazines. Truth is a figment of one's imagination, changing moment by moment. The past is always being altered to better fit the present.

In Winston's world, orthodoxy means not needing to think. Those who think, those who remember the events of yesterday, or last week or last year are dangerous, liable to being erased by the Thought Police.

1984 Quote
Who controls the past, controls the future,
who controls the present, controls the past.

A terrifying vision of the future and yet... we have the telescreens in our homes today - Smart TVs and webcams that can record our lives, with our knowledge at this point but... in the future, without our knowledge. Winston is in his late 30s it seems and can't really remember what life was like before the Party took power. He has a vague sense of dissatisfaction that life should not be the way that it is but... he can't really say what it should be like.

So much of our society is built upon the foundation of the past. There's a saying that those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. Our collective memory resides in books, manuscripts, museums, archives and, more tenuously, in our memories. I saw a movie a few months back called Embers in which a virus had affected humanity's ability to remember as well as to form new memories. In a world with no memory, civilization falls apart. In a world with no memory, relationships fall apart. We become individuals who have no connection with each other. If we have no memory, there is no need to think.

Orwell's book is definitely a gripping read and I am glad that I chose it as one of my early reads. I have vague glimpses of familiarity with some scenes, but on the whole it is a new read for me. Clearly, it did not make much of an impression on me in high school, and wasn't retained all that well in my memory! Luckily... it exists in book format.

Freedom Writers Diary - Erin Gruwell - Part 6

Freedom Writers Diary
Erin Gruwell

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 6

 January 6, 2017 

Book 1 - Freedom Writers Diary

 Part 6 - Pages 272-314

Reading Time - 50 minutes

This edition of the book has an Afterword with diary entries from some of the students 10 years after the original publication date. The students have struggled and matured. It hasn't all been sunshine and roses, but there greatest lesson is this:

Everyone has a story and that story needs to be shared.

They hope that in reading their stories, we will be inspired to pick up the pen and be a catalyst for change. It is a direct call to action for they believe that the pen can be a means of revolution.

I was reminded of a science fiction book I read as a teenager, Fahrenheit 951 by Ray Bradbury. In the not so distant future, books are banned and outlawed. No one reads books. No one writes books. People see everything that they need to see on the flickering wall screens. The hear everything that they need to hear through the audio devices in their ears. Except for a few guardians of the written word, outcasts from society, who have memorized entire books. There is a reason why dictatorships engage in censorship and book burning. The written word has a power that few things can match. It can spread farther than the spoken word. It can spread deeper. It can be read over and over again.

We all have a story to share, a story that connects us with others. Our thoughts, our beliefs are just as valid as the next person's and need to be expressed. So, in the words of the Freedom Writers - Be Real.

On to the next book, a vision of a dystopian future that I also read in high school - 1984 by George Orwell. I remember little of it and it will be interesting to see how it speaks to me today.

Freedom Writers Diary - Erin Gruwell - Part 5

Freedom Writers Diary
Erin Gruwell

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 5

 January 5, 2017 

Book 1 - Freedom Writers Diary

 Part 5 - Pages 221-271

Reading Time - 1 hour

A lot of these kids are going to college! Some have athletic scholarships. Some are going to Harvard and Stanford and UCLA. Some have family issues that alter their plans. These were the kids that no one thought would amount to anything. They were the bottom of the barrel. No one expected them to graduate from high school, let alone go to college. What altered? One teacher's belief in them. Even though most of the teachers didn't think much of these students, it was enough that one person did... and that made all the difference.

That is a theme throughout this book... that one person can make a difference. Wherever they might be in their lives. "Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire". The students repeatedly state that they are going to break the cycle of violence, abuse and intolerance that has coloured their lives. They are going to be different. They will make a difference.

One student quotes Churchill - "To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often". It's a reminder that we are never there. If we think we've finally arrived and can stop striving and changing... well, then we've lost it. We've given in to stagnation. There is no "perfect" place we are trying to reach. There is only change and transformation as a continuous path in front of us. Changes that either take us further along the path of improvement or down the path of deterioration. Cause it works both ways. I guess the question is how we know the difference. What direction are we headed? What is our goal? What sort of person do we want to become? Who do we want to be... not in the eyes of society but in our own eyes? The truth is that we have that choice to make every day - in so many different situations.

Freedom Writers Diary - Erin Gruwell - Part 4

Freedom Writers Diary
Erin Gruwell

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 4

 January 4, 2017 

Book 1 - Freedom Writers Diary

 Part 4 - Pages 166-220

Reading Time - 1 hour

The Freedom Writers took their manuscript/book to Washington DC and gave it to the Secretary of Education. They made it into the big leagues and started to get noticed by the media. At the same time, a student at their school was charged with the rape and murder of an 8 year old. Naturally, the media chose to focus on the negative story rather than on the accomplishments of the Freedom Writers. Despite this, the kids are pumped about making a difference in the world.

One student shared a poem in which a common refrain was "Keep it Real" and "Be Real". That line summarizes the experience of the students. They are beginning to understand that all they really need to do is be themselves. It doesn't matter what clothes they wear, or what part of town they live in. It's all about them being true to themselves and speaking their truth.

Deep down, we all have a fundamental need to be accepted as part of the pack, as part of the tribe. We don't want to be the ones cast outside the boundaries, an outcast. It was dangerous for our cave person ancestors to be on their own. Strength and safety lay in numbers. Even though our world has changed a lot in 100,000 years, we are still afraid to be on our own. Afraid to be cast out of the clique or the club or the team or family or church. So much of our identity is tied up in belonging to something larger than ourselves. Who will we be if we are not part of a group? How will we survive? We can get so desperate to belong that we will twist ourselves into some conformist pose in order to belong to a group. Even if those people aren't our people.

The Freedom Writers are all about tolerance... and yet so many of our political parties, churches and social groups are about intolerance. Perhaps not overtly... but it is there. We don't need to try and fit-in with a particular group. All we need to do is keep looking until we find our own people, our own tribe. And if we don't... perhaps it is to form our own tribe. Cause, sure-as-shootin', there are people out there who want to Be Real and are just like us.

Freedom Writers Diary - Erin Gruwell - Part 3

Freedom Writers Diary
Erin Gruwell

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 3

 January 3, 2017 

Book 1 - Freedom Writers Diary

 Part 3 - Pages 108-165

Reading Time - 1 hour

The students and their teacher have decided to edit their diary entries and gather them into a booklet or book format. By mutual consent they have agreed to make the entries anonymous. As they read each other's entries, they realize that they are not the only ones who have been abused or raped. They are not alone. They also begin to recognize the danger of silence, of not speaking up. I can sense that they are moving out of their guilt and shame into a place of self-reliance. Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of their authors for the semester and he speaks passionately about self-reliance.

I am rather ashamed to admit that, aside from a few poems, I haven't read Emerson at all. Nor Thoreau. Nor Salinger. On the other hand, in reading the Freedom Writers, I do want to read Emerson! He's got some great quotes and I want to read them in context. One of the quotes that the students grasp is "to be great is to be misunderstood". These are students who have been misunderstood most of their lives. They are labeled as stupid and dumb when they are anything but that. Emerson's quote makes them believe in themselves. As one of the students notes, "no one comes from a perfect home". That is absolute truth. No matter how good someone's life seems, if you were to dig  a little deeper, peek behind the curtains, you would see dysfunction.

In reading their stories, I am appalled at the violence in their lives which seems so different and so removed from my life. I easily slide into "they have an extraordinary life - they have something to write about". I also recognize though... that in some circles, my life might seem extraordinary. And that some might read the story of my life and find things that resonate for them because they have experienced similar things.

Emerson's take on self-reliance seems to be "trust yourself". He laments the fact that we don't trust our own thoughts, our own sentiments. And then we hear it from someone else and realize that we had been thinking the same thoughts, or had the same idea weeks or months ago, and yet ours was never spoken.

"To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius."

That's the kicker for me though... to believe that the things that I think might have universal applicability... to believe that what I have to say has value, not just to me but to others. Those Freedom Writers students struggled with the same ideas but quickly realized that they could connect to the writings of Anne Frank and Zlata Filipovic. The trick would be to recognize that their own writings speak to others. Looks like they are getting there... question is... am I?

Freedom Writers Diary - Erin Gruwell - Part 2

Freedom Writers Diary
Erin Gruwell

2017 Reading Challenge - Day 2

 January 2, 2017 

Book 1 - Freedom Writers Diary

 Part 2 - Pages 47-107

Reading Time - 1 hour (in fragments)

In this section, Erin has her students do a Read-a-Thon and includes Anne Frank's diary and a modern-day war diary by Zlata Filipovic, a Bosnia girl. Throughout the course of their reading, the students deepen their experience of the books by discussion, field trips and meeting people - Zlata, Miep Gies (she hid Anne Frank's family) as well as Holocaust survivors.

The students are struggling in their own lives, that much is clear. But in seeing how people can transform, in reading about others who have experienced the terror of war and violence, the students begin to transform. They begin to feel like real people, not labels. That is an overarching theme throughout their writings - the damage and violence that stem from intolerance. People are so quick to assign labels to others, labels that make the Other different - race, gender, skin colour, sexual orientation. At one point, an audience member (from the former Yugoslavia) asked Zlata Filipovic if she was Bosnian, Muslim or Serbian. She looked around the room and said "I am a human being".

The students begin to recognize that they don't have to accept society's labels, that they have a choice to make. Zlata encourages them that they have strength and the power with themselves. They get to choose where to direct that power. For many of the students, this is an incredibly freeing concept, one that allows them to begin to see a way out of the cage in which they live.

I recognize myself that I've picked up a lot of societal beliefs about how things are, about who different people are. I don't have to continue to live by those, however. There is incredible power in recognizing that one has the ability to choose the framework of one's life. Another book that I read recently (The Art of Possibility by Roz & Ben Zander) started off by saying that it's All Invented. The labels that we use are all invented. The stories we have about Life, about Others, about Ourselves are all invented by Us! Possibility lies on the other side of inventing something different. We get to choose what we believe.