Watch your @#$%ing Mouth!

When Suzanne first started relating Leaves of Grass to our image of the body, sexuality, and the like, while I honestly enjoyed the conversation, I really didn't see how it connected that well. It wasn't until after class when I really tried to decipher more of Whitman and the points made in the facilitation that I began to see this message of freedom and clarity or satisfaction of ourselves. In a way, I took Leaves of Grass like I took Emerson's Self Reliance(although I was far more inspired by Emerson), in the way that it gave insight on how to free yourself from the cares of others. Whitman took a risk for the time and let out his own thoughts, whether society approved or not. Now we consider books, movies, and other things that cause controversy to be interesting, even refreshing. They are more of a good thing! Just take "banned books" for example! Some of the greatest, thought-provoking novels have been put on that list because people are "afraid" to open themselves up to other possibilities than the ways they already know. It's like how in Dead Poets Society, the student wouldn't "yarp" or express himself until pushed to his limit, but then he just let it out and felt good about it, as did the others in the class. This reminds me of how in the film Pleasantville, everyone there lived life perfectly the way they knew it would be, but as soon as the brother and sister came, rubbing their new ways onto the people of the town, things began to change from black and white to color, literally. Then when things started to change, the young people accepted it while the older generation were concerned and didn't like the change.

    
His sense of freedom comes off a bit patriotic, but not in a "better to be an American" way. He treats it as more of a whole, "one of the great nation, the nation of many nations--the smallest the same and the largest the same," like it should be, with beauty in freedom, saying that of these people "such as it is to be of these more or less I am".  But in this way it was also about his freedom of speech. Although for that time, many people found his words too outspoken and his images vulgar, like the man when "his blue shirt exposes his ample neck and breast and loosens over his hipband." His work was edited because people were offended by some of it(What does this say about the first amendment?), where as now, like we seemed to agree in class, there wasn't any part of it that we found a bit risque. While the perspective seems dated, there will always be something that we find vulgar for our taste, we even have vulgar quirks about ourselves, although it seems we are much more tolerable about it now. I've seen that now we even find pleasure in some of what was once considered vulgar. Fear Factor comes to mind! Signing up to and watching people eating disgusting things and doing strange stunts for enjoyment!

Haha! The classic "hold your nose so you won't taste it" trick! Lies.....

Why is it that we can even find pleasure in vulgarity or the risque or even just the new? How does this relate to our freedom? It seems we fear what gives us freedom and pleasure because it is so different to us and to others, but once we experience it we no longer feel that way, even more so when others join in. We don't realize other people are the same way, questioning and trying some of the same things we are, "these are the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me, If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing or next to nothing," even if some of it may seem a bit strange. It's the fear of stepping out of our element in front of everyone else that gets us. If we all can find something we enjoy out of these things, is it really even vulgar, strange, or risque to begin with or is it just our morality getting in the way? 

In my opinion, I feel that there is a right time for things to be serious, but if you can lighten up something by finding a joke or play with a situation somehow, it isn't as threatening anymore. When my grandfather passed away, we were all so close to him, but instead of making his funeral sad, when we gave our respectful words about him, we made jokes, poking fun at him as well as giving our memories of quirks he had. Some people might think that is strange or disrespectful, but it's the way he was and we all thought he loved hearing those things. It was our way of shedding light on an event that was dimmer on one side, but light on the other. I still remember how he used to hunt squirrels, but then as a nature loving man would feed them out of his hands later in life and how he would fall asleep while watching the news, but as soon as you tried to change the channel to cartoons he would say, in his sleep, "Hey, I was watching that!" Haha! I feel people take things far too seriously now, even when they don't need to, we still have problems accepting change and new things, but doing this takes away the fear or scandal of it, what was it that Hermione said in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets?" "Fear of a name, only increases fear of the thing itself"...............Voldemort haha.

 Well I have to say this class has been very enlightening and interesting! I can honestly say I enjoyed everything we read and all topics covered. I noticed the whole way that my blog topics always seemed to be a step ahead of the subject focus for the next week of classes and while I first I thought it wasn't a good thing, I realized it just proved how well everything can flow into each other. I learned that everyone is obsessed with something, we all have and should accept the darkness inside of us, and that we are all insane and animalistic. Pretty dark stuff, but I love it! It makes me realize and appreciate myself more because we are so complex as humans, even on our most seemingly boring days, and you know what? It feels great to be a freak of nature, through the good and the bad inside us, because we are all freaks together! "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope some day you'll join us, and the world will be as one."

Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. Original 1855 Edition. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 1855. Print.