How does the influence of others impact our own lives?
“A teacher lives forever through his students.” Page 70
The legacy that a teacher leaves can really impact a student just like any action or person can. A testimony can change perspective or show someone that they aren’t alone etc. A teacher applies good learning habits or maybe was there for the student in ways no one else was. An action like Brent’s killed someone, yet maybe it was Brianna’s action. We all live on through others no matter how far back. Influence affects many, throughout generations.
Mr. Scott a middle school teacher who I had two classes with over the years shared something with me the first year I was in his class. We had done a cooking project as it was a group of kids that cooked food for events in the school. The project was the quality of food vs quantity and it was our first big project in the class. He looked at us and said, “Some of you have done amazing and some of you not. So if you’d like to know you’re mark come and ask, but ask yourself do you want the reality or the fairy tale.” That always stuck with me, do I want the truth or a lie. Is it easier to not know the truth or what? He said he never had a problem giving us the reality or the fairytale but we should know that with life we won’t have that option. I’ll never forget, fairytale or reality.
Terry Fox, yes an overheard story for many of us yet look how he has affected us. In a way he was our teacher, teaching us to persevere. He still lives on, inspiring us every year. He’ll live on through our lives and the lives of our entire community. Influencing us to give to the ones who suffer, because we are more fortunate then they. We are so very blessed with our health and safety and Terry’s legacy helped many others have hope and persevere.
“In his mind, his whirligigs were meshed the same way, parts of a single coast to coast creation. The world itself was a whirligig, its myriad parts invisibly linked, the hidden crankshafts and connecting rods carrying motion across the globe and over the centuries.” Page 133
Interconnectedness throughout the world. The wind is what sets things in motion, actions create after effects. We influence people unknowingly in either positive or negative ways. We all have affected other people, as Brent had affected Lea and Lea to Brent. He had made the wrong decision causing Lea’s death, influencing Brent’s life by helping her live on and make others happy. She was living her own journey even through death while influencing Brent’s. History, music, earth, time everything affects us just as we affect it.
This specifically reminds me of the Rube Goldberg machine. A usually large contraption and complex machine that allows a simple task to be done. It starts with a simple motion or action and reflects throughout the machine as our actions affect and influence others. The machine is planned out, very, precisely our actions are not, yet it still applies to the inquiry question because if a piece is in the wrong place the machine will not fulfill its duty. Just as us, when we do “wrong” things it impacts not only others but mostly us.
The influence of others impacts our own lives throughout years of history, emotions and actions. Simple actions that we think not to have various consequences.
Discussing Shakespeare the other day reminded me how his words still live on today. We continuously use his sayings and review his genius works. History and Literature have always affected and impacted us. I mean look at the Gutenberg Press allowing for an education and interpretation of religion for everyone. Books became more common throughout the years. So many inventions have brought so much change to what we have today. Even the equations that gave birth to the deadly and treacherous atomic bomb. We are impacted and influenced by time in the way that we rush to work (passing speed limits), by history, new discoveries, by literature gaining information and a vast education, by art and what it provokes us to feel.
Poem from Jenny
The things you taught me
The things you’ve lost
I’ll always recall life
Comes with a wavering cost
You suffered more than much
But never ceased to smile
Leaving a soft, light touch
Upon my hearts aisle
Now I know to enjoy
Even when we struggle for breath
Just as you had
As you lay on your death bed
Ill miss you dearly
Remembering the moments
You loved life sincerely
Imagining the ones you’ll always share with me
Allusions
Page 48 – “Your family and friends weren’t part of your karass.”
This is an allusion to Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. Karass is the most important word in this phrase, its a word that originates from a fictitious religion Bokononism invented by Kurt Vonnegut in his book. Bokononism is a religion based on foma, harmless untruths. From this religion comes the word karass. Karass is “a network or group of people who are somehow affiliated or linked spiritually.” Obviously this touches the books theme of interconnectedness, how Lea was connected to Brent and Brent to all the characters he touched with his whirligigs. We are all connected in some way or form what we do affects many others, we are all a group of people linked together by actions.
Page 33 – “The bus was his ferry across the river Styx”
This is a mythological allusion from the greek underworld. To cross to the underworld and be placed by the judges to Elysium, the fields of punishment or the fields of Asphodel and after achieving Elysium they were sent to the Isles of the Blessed (Eternal Paradise). This allusion connects to the theme of self-identity. It was a journey through the underworld to see whether or not you are worthy of being put in the isles of the blessed in which you need to be reborn as Brent needed to be in order to be free of guilt, to feel forgiven.
Page 75 – “He claimed one of the rockers, took out his harmonica, and began work on memorizing, ‘My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean’”
A allusion towards music, referencing a traditional folksong of the Scottish. The song talks about a loved one that is at the other end of an ocean that is uncrossable. As Lea has died, she is at the other end of life something someone alive cannot cross until they die. Brent cannot reach her, Mrs. Zamora couldn’t either but she still lived on in their memories as the loved one lived on in the song. I believe that this connects to the theme of interconnectedness because even in death Lea and Brent were connected and because of Brent Lea will still live on through the Whirligigs connecting to other people. The unseen force of love that Lea shared with her community she will now share with others across the States.