A Single Now A quick inspirational search on Pinterest, Google, or any self-help book will lead you to some quote or image about how the key to life is to “live in the now.” Forget the past, ignore the future, and immerse yourself in the moment you are in completely. It’s a nice sentiment, but the truth is now happens too quickly to grasp onto. By the time you utter the one-syllable word, the now you meant to identify has already occurred and been replaced an infinite amount of times over. As a result, in order for now to exist at a level in which it can serve a purpose, it must be tied to something— a person, an aspiration, or a time. In Christopher Isherwood’s, A Single Man, the protagonist, George, had tied his now to his recently deceased partner, Jim, and struggles to accept what his …show more content…
From the opening lines of the novel: “But now isn’t simply now. Now is also a cold reminder: one whole day later than yesterday, one year later than last year. Every now is labeled with its date, rendering all past nows obsolete, until—later or sooner—perhaps—no, not perhaps—quite certainly: it will come” (9). The idea of now is extremely complicated and subjective, and not one that Isherwood is ready to concretely answer, hence the stuttering back-and-forth of his protagonists’ observation. Even still, Isherwood does want to give his take in A Single Man and does so by granting his now-less protagonist one final day of life, thus attaching his unknowing now to something— time. George’s supposed-to-be average day of getting up, going to work, hitting the gym, and spending time with a friend all of a sudden given new meaning because now is the last time he will brush his teeth and go teach, now is the last time he will sculpt his body and drink with friends, and now is the last time Jim and the past will be able to hurt
While reading Flannery O’Connor “A Good Man is Hard to Find” we read that a family of five are on a roadtrip to Florida where they go every year. We have The Grandmother who derailed her family from the actual road to see a house she thought was in those parts of town. When all of a sudden her helpers are the murders she is afraid of. The murder “The Misfit” kills off the rest of her family and leaves her to dwell in her sorrow that she will be next. The Grandmother tries to maneuver her way out of dying by sweet talking The Misfit into thinking she can love him as her own child and that he doesn’t have to kill anymore. When she tries to reach for him he moved back and shot her. The Grandmother didn’t want him to be violent anymore and thought
In Katherine Anne Porter’s, “The Future Is Now,” the author develops her argument through the use of rhetorical devices, as well as varying points of view, which greatly help emphasize her argument. In the second paragraph she notices a siren going off outside her home, she then starts to wonder about all the different things the siren could represent. As she considers all the possibilities she notices a man across the street who is consumed by a table he is carefully building. She fails to understand how a person can be so absorbed by something that they fail to notice something so alarming surrounding them. The primary argument the author is trying to make is that it is more important to exist and cherish life rather than always worry about
Depending upon your definition of the present, it is hard to distinguish when the present time really is. Trying to pinpoint the exact time of “now” seems to be impossible because when we actually finish saying “now” it is already in the past. It is believed by many people that when a human dies for example, they cease to exist. In this essay I will be looking at two key concepts that relate to the topic of existence and the present time. These concepts are ‘Presentism’ and ‘Eternalism’. I will begin the essay by outlining what ‘Eternalism’ is and how its followers may see the present in a different way because of it. From here I will propose some of its weaknesses followed by objections to these weaknesses. The second main concept will be ‘Presentism’ which will be the opposing argument that suggests that things only exist in the present time instead of the past, present and future. After giving this argument, I will also be giving objections and counters to it. I, myself believe that there is a present time and existence, as we I find it difficult to believe that something exists in the same way once it has died and decomposed.
Often times you find yourself in deep thought, reminiscing about the past. The good, the bad, and even a few memories you wished to forget and never return. In Flannery O’ Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, you are taken along on a journey. Why yes, Flannery writes about the journey the family takes together on their way to Florida, but she does a job well done figuratively joining the forces of the past and present, as well as what lies in the middle.
Daniel Meier uses “One Man’s Kids” to demonstrate how he, inspired by benefits that could not be spent or calculated, surpassed the stereotypical presumptions of others to become a first grade teacher. Meier begins by introducing readers to his life in the classroom: injuries, fighting, questions, and an endless need for multitasking. Despite the chaos surrounding him, Meier argues his work is not “traditionally male”(1). To him, there is no end goal, no final achievement, no rights to be earned. He states, “My energy is spent in encouraging, supporting, consoling, and praising my children” (Meier 1). As a responder to the emotional distress of a room full of six year olds, he finds himself unable to submit to stereotypical bluntness and
Newton spoke of relative and absolute time, but time for Heidegger remains indeterminate. Heidegger states that both the past and the future are both meaningful, and they help define human beings. Moreover, the present for Heidegger doesn’t have meaning in relation to past and future or as an abstraction, but it has meaning due to the activity. The activity or the situation or the Being of now creates Time, which means that Time is finite just as human existence is finite and has existential character. Aristotle had a great impact on Heidegger development of the concept of Time in Being and Time
O 'Donnell, Angela Alaimo. "A Litany for Flannery." America 23 Mar. 2015: 33. Biography in Context. Web. 30 July 2015.
Gender is such a controversial subject. There are some people who see it as what you are born as whereas other people see it as a choice to be whatever you want. There are people who judge whatever gender you are, no matter the choices you make. Paul Theroux wrote about how restrictive masculinity is in his article “Being a Man.” There are so many more restrictions on being feminine. Theroux’s idea of masculinity being restrictive is being challenged on the account that being feminine is seen as bad, and weak.
Christopher Johnson McCandless, a.k.a Alexander Supertramp, “Master of his Own Destiny.” He was an intelligent young man who presented himself as alone but really he was never lonely. However, he believed that life was better lived alone, with nature, so he ventured off throughout western United States before setting off into Alaska’s wild unprepared where he died. Some may say he was naive to go off on such a mission without the proper food and equipment but he was living life the way he wanted to and during his travels he came across three people: Jan Burres, Ronald Franz, and Wayne Westerberg. McCandless befriended these people, it is believed that he made such a strong impression on them that their connection left them with strange feelings after finding out about McCandless’ death.
For my Literature Circle assignment I read the novel entitled The Catcher in the Rye, written by J.D. Salinger.Taking place in the 1950's, The Catcher in the Rye is one of the most popular American books of all time, though, its hero is not really a hero at all. Main character Holden Caufield, is a 17 year old, disproved and misunderstood, classic "screw-up", who does poorly in school, loses his team's equipment, and takes an impulsive trip to New York. Distraught by the death of his 11 year old brother Allie, Holden wanders around his birthplace of New York, reconnecting with old friends and making new enemies. The main conflict of this novel is Holden transitioning into an adult and trying to cope with his brother’s death. One main theme displayed all throughout this novel would be depression. For the duration of this novel, Holden spends his time alone, and even if he is in the company of other people, you hear his thoughts of being depressed. Most of this depression is derived from his brother’s death, but there are many other things accountable for his mental issues. Although much of this novel was just Holden’s opinions and thoughts, I found this novel to be very interesting and thought provoking.
David Sheff’s memoir, Beautiful Boy, revolves around addiction, the people affected by addiction, and the results of addiction. When we think of the word addiction, we usually associate it with drugs or alcohol. By definition, addiction is an unusually great interest in something or a need to do or have something (“Addiction”). All throughout the memoir, we are forced to decide if David Sheff is a worried father who is fearful that his son, Nic Sheff’s, addiction will kill him or if he is addicted to his son’s addiction. Although many parents would be worried that their son is an addict, David Sheff goes above and beyond to become involved in his son’s life and relationship with methamphetamine, making him an addict to his son’s addiction.
Time is and endless phenomenon that has no beginning or end, therefore making it infinite. Emily Dickinson proves this point in her poem, Forever – is Composed of Nows, referring to “nows” as more significant than the future (Wilbur 80).
Primo Levi was an Italian Jewish Anti-fascist who was arrested in 1943, during the Second World War. The memoir, “If this is a Man”, written immediately after Levi’s release from the Auschwitz concentration camp, not only provides the readers with Levi’s personal testimony of his experience in Auschwitz, but also invites the readers to consider the implications of life in the concentration camp for our understanding of human identity. In Levi’s own words, the memoir was written to provide “documentation for a quiet study of certain aspects of the human mind”. The lack of emotive words and the use of distant tone in Levi’s first person narration enable the readers to visualize the cold, harsh reality in Auschwitz without taking away the historical credibility. Levi’s use of poetic and literary devices such as listing, repetition, and symbolism in the removal of one’s personal identification; the use of rhetorical questions and the inclusion of foreign languages in the denial of basic human rights; the use of bestial metaphors and choice of vocabulary which directly compares the prisoner of Auschwitz to animals; and the use of extended metaphor and symbolism in the character Null Achtzehn all reveal the concept of dehumanization that was acted upon Jews and other minorities.
The mystery that is time comes from the common-sense idea that the present moment, known as “now” is not fixed, but rather it is always moving forward into the “future”. This concept is known as the flow of time. As humans, we describe the present as a single moment which allows time to appear to “flow”, essentially sweeping moments from the past to future. However, at the same time humans also want time to be a sequence of moments, with all motion and change consisting of the differences between versions of an entity at different moments. What this means is that a particular moment cannot become the present or cease to be the present. The present is not objectively a single moment. Humans think we need these two definitions of time. When we describe events we say things like “when” which implies that time is not flowing, but then when we say “why” it implies that time is flowing.
“You can mess with a lot of things, but you can’t mess with kids on Christmas. The movie “Home Alone” by Chris Colombus in 1990. The main character, Kevin McCallister as an eight year old boy, who was about to celebrate a Christmas trip all the way to France but just that night before, things weren’t so well in the McCallister household as Kevin himself was being disciplined by his mum and because of that he couldn’t care less of how he dreamt of not wanting to live with his family and the next day knowing that he was forgotten, he decided that he will be having the most out of it by having lots of fun and adventure all to himself.