This week I finished up reading Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged which was definitely a huge read, but was very rewarding and worth it. Rand's extreme view on capitalism and socialism made for an interesting story line in a projection of America as it falls to socialism. Whether you agree or disagree with Rand's philosophy, you cant help but enjoy the way she so elegantly portrays it through a complex storyline, and beautiful descriptons.

After reading the book, I had to write an essay answering whether or not i believed selfishness to be virtuous in both a practical and moral sense. I chose to argue that it was for two main reasons. First, selfishness implies all men living for themselves, which inherently implies all men's freedom from having to live for eachother. 2) Selfishness and freedom from living for others allows uninhibited rationality (no emotional restraints), to breed optimal success.

Overall I found both the book and the topic to be very thought-provoking.

Selfishness as a Virtue

This week we have been focusing a lot on analyzing the poems we chose for honors, as well as finding articles that relate to our essential questions. My groups essential questions is: "Is selfishness a virtue?"

This question was inspired by the book we are reading for class, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. The novel is essentially a 1200 page explanation of Rand's philosophy, which is that of an extremist capitalist. The novel constantly delineates through the story how those who are selfishly independent in their business and affairs are the ones who succeed and manage to stay afloat in a sinking economy that is turning more and more socialist.

This capitalist mentality is shared in Badger Clark's poem, The Westerner. His poem also greatly pushes the importance of independence and making one's own success rather than sailing along on the success and accomplishments of others. Throughout the poem it becomes apparent that Clark would also agree that selfishness is a virtue, due to the very strict version of independence pushed which I elaborate on in my essay delineating the relation of the poem to my essential question.

So far after reading the majority of Atlas Shrugged and Clark's The Westerner I would definitely have to say that in a business and career related sense, that I agree selfishness is a virtue.

Applications!

It's hard to believe that several of my applications are nearing completion. It's crazy to essentially see the the fruition of all your work for 12 years just off ahead. I feel like I've almost got my supplements for the UC's done (so thats 4 out of sixteen schools down), and I've also finished the "Find X" supplement for U of Chicago. I've gotta say, thought that essay was gonna be an abysmal struggle, but it ended up being an excellent opportunity for me to give a little insight to who I am. Hopefully I'll be able to keep that theme constant throughout the rest of my essay prompts, supplements or short answer. My next step I suppose would be to finalize my UC Apps before the system crashes, and submit those essays for one of the scholarships Tenesha informed me of, interestingly enough, the prompts are exactly the same, word for word. Beyond that I've just got to keep working on supplements and fill out the few individual seperate applications that are independent of the Common App. All in all its a crazy process, I can't wait to see how it all turns out, so I guess I'm gonna buckle down over break and really put some quality into these essays.

Tragedy Creation

As the date grows nearer where our tragedy piece is due, I'm leaning more away from making my musical representation of tragedy as a guitar piece, towards making an electronic, progressive house or trance track. I feel like certain progressive house riffs and and most trance riffs carry lots of emotion, especially comparison to guitar riffs. I'm not saying I don't believe one can create tragic music with a guitar, I just believe the certain styles of electronic music can carry more poignant sounds. A progressive house artist whose style I will be attempting to emulate to some extent is 'Deadmau5'.

This is a track by deadmau5 that is a good representation of what I am attempting to create: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrZX8Y49xMY

I hope to be able to create a piece that fluidly integrates both major and minor riffs, and some that hover somewhere inbetween. Through the fluctuation in major and minor sounds I hope to create music that aptly represents and can be interpreted as tragic. I believe progressive house more than trance carries the minor emotions associated with tragedy, as trance tends to be more uplifting or energetic, although both are usually emotionally powerful.

Tragedy Essay

Below is an excerpt from my essay on tragedy delineating what I believe to be the perfect tragedy. Any feedback (whether it be on the writing itself, or my ideas) is more than welcome, and greatly appreciated.

"I believe the perfect tragedy is one that particularly resonates with the audience, because when a member of the audience can directly relate the tragedy to an event or pattern in their own life, it will resonate with them on a much deeper level. I believe a tragic hero that is of great importance and great fame isn’t a very relatable character to most people, considering most people aren’t famous, for if they were, fame would mean nothing and cease to exist. It is here that I take issue with Socrates’ and Aristotle’s approach to the perfect tragedy. I believe that the perfect tragedy is one centered around the common man; in this sense, I side with Arthur Miller. This is because, clearly, the character relatable to the vast majority of people, is the ‘common man’. I also agree with Miller that the tragic hero (the common man) should be eventually forced into a situation where he must choose between himself and his principles/morals, that results in him sacrificing himself for what he believes in. I say this because it a tragedy where this occurs teaches morality and loyalty to oneself through the tragedy. This facet of what I believe to make up the perfect tragedy is also in alignment with most of ancient Greek tragedy (and what Socrates and Aristotle believed to be the perfect tragedy) in the sense that the audience learns a valuable lesson they without having to go through a detrimental experience themselves. Finally, I believe that tragedy is greatly enhanced when a layer of irony is added. This is where I believe that Ibsen touched on a key facet of creating the perfect tragedy. Ibsen stated that tragedy should be about those who were doomed from the start; born into a world they had no control over, and were judged negatively for not being able to take control. This is a very extreme version of irony, but the fact that the tragic hero never had any actually chance at success, no matter how hard they struggle, makes the story all the more tragic and poignant."

I attempted to thoroughly relate my ideas to the opinions of great authors and my those connections eminent. I also tried to make the ideas flow in a logical and easy to process way. So if anyone should like to give me feedback on those things specifically, I would be very grateful.

Creating a Tragedy

For the upcoming tragedy project, wherein we must create a piece of media that we believe embodies tragedy, I chose to create a song. I chose music because I believe the progression of sound through major and minor is a great and beautiful representation of tragedy. As a song moves from calm to sad and minor, creating a sound of dissonance, then moves into a happy major lift inspiring catharsis, and then slowly moves back into mellow and slightly minor, it creates a story of emotion following that of tragedy. I believe music is a great medium to represent tragedy, especially when instrumental. This is because it sets the stage with the emotional rollercoaster, and allows the person listening to connect to it personally, letting whatever tragic experience(s) they've had be projected onto the emotional flow of the music. It is this connection makes music so deep and impacting, which is why I believe it is the perfect medium, whereas others may tell a great tragic story, but if a person is unable to relate to it, it will not be as profoundly appreciated. So, I am choosing to write instrumental song on the guitar that follows the 'rollercoaster' pattern I described earlier, to depict tragedy as best I can.

Tragedy & Empathy

Just the other day we finished Oedipus Rex, which is praised as the perfect tragedy. It's interesting to me how the perfect tragedy thousands of years ago was presented in such an elegant form of media (a play), and today we consume and crave tragic stories portrayed in so many other forms of media. We watch and enjoy empathetically struggling with characters from the most poignant of stories, whether we see the stories played out in movies, books, plays, TV, or anything else. We as people can connect to emotionally moving stories no matter what the context. When I see people tearing up over tragic stories portrayed in such simple forms of media such as TV shows, it makes me wonder why they still carry such weight, no matter what the medium. If I had to make a guess, I would say it is because the brain functions off of recognition of various patterns, which is what defines our ability to be intelligent and think. Because of this, it seems to me that no matter what the artistic medium used to portray tragedy, be it photography, literature, cinematography, or any other, people will react very strongly on an emotional level if they are able to relate the to the tragedy in the story.

Atlas Shrugged Motif & Commentary on Greek (Theatrical) Tragedy

As I've continued reading Ayn Rand's novel 'Atlas Shrugged', her motif has become increasingly apparent, that being that capitalism is the best way to structure an economy and that socialism comes absolutely nowhere near. It is represented blatantly, almost agressively through the continued socialist style laws being passed by the 'looters' and by all the successful businessmen and entrepreneurs leaving the country mysteriously save for a few. She makes good arguments through her representations of the decline of businesses and the economy at the hands of the socialist laws being passed rapidly.

After beginning to study Greek Tragedy I find it interesting how far our perfomering arts stories of tragedy are in purpose and design from that of which they used to be in ancient Greece. By this I mean that stories of tragedy used to be designed so as to teach the audience something through the folley of the main character, this way, they learned about life and morality without having to actually make the error (experienced by the protagonist) themselves. In the modern day, stories of tragedy and suffering often teach nothing to the viewer, rather they are in place to take the viewer on an emotional rollercoaster. Often times it is a rollercoaster the average viewer would never normally experience, or one that the average viewer can relate to.

Entry 1: Thoughts on the tone and characters of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged"

So far in the novel there's been this strange stone of inescapable apathy. It seems to be directed towards the society and the lives the characters read, but as of yet I am without a clear understanding as to why. Also, whenever the mindset of the characters seems to accelerate, the thought proccess is played out, and it usually ends in confusion and asking "Who is John Galt?" Then the tone fades back to apathy.  I found this interesting and am excited to see how the tone and characters continue to develop.