Laura's+Intellectual+Musings



media type="youtube" key="OVi7awpv6Xo&rel=1&border=0" height="235" width="300" "oh, your wounds are full of salt. everything's a mess & a chore & what's more, it's all somebody's fault. GET OVER IT."

I do not aim to achieve perfection, I aim to hit the bumps in the road and fail sometimes. I believe that failure is as powerful a motivator as success and that lessons can come from anywhere, from anyone, at any time. To keep moving forward with an open mind, I must continually forgive, reconfigure my stance, and accept new ideas.

To forgive and continually be open, I deal with the concept of wrongdoing people still being good. I seek goodness in everyone. Also, in my quest to always try and sometimes fail, I must deal not with my own actions- not cruel, but occasionally inadequate. I must recognize that I can still move forward even with past failures.

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-noah personifies 'id' (unconscious internal desire) -post-crime, noah is not punished harshly (reluctance in everyone to punish inner id)

-noah escapes solitary confinement - without tight restriction, //id will always prevail//. "yes, i have risked - i hope i can __risk //everything//__ for the right cause!" "money can be a wicked thing."

"you may run from sorrow- __sorrow will find you__."media type="custom" key="351403" ('the whole world is moving, and i am standing still." sorrow is inevitable, moves as the earth moves and will catch up to anyone.)

-noah's evil & good sides twined together- is neither entirely one or the other. he is not wholly defined by his cruel action. -noah's death makes the town's continuation possible. in this way, his wrongdoing led to good for others

"the world moves for love, kneels before it in awe"

media type="youtube" key="Tj8zvLH_dZk" height="250" width="325" (//you kind of get the idea after, oh, ten seconds of video//).

when a perceived moral, righteous person is forced into an influential position (assuming they are not both things already), they change into something completely different than the sum of those parts. they become an animal, holding them selves and their kin desperately close to their heart.

"it is my name- //I cannot have another in my life.//"

every person in the town sees a different kind of evil running in the streets- some see an evil that threatens their family, their standing in society, themselves. some see an evil that threatens sanity and trust. evil is regional. evil is personal.

media type="custom" key="351379" - "reach out. touch faith."

God knows of every impure thought and sinful action. He has more than enough proof to condemn you to Hell.

"repent-" and you will be forgiven, but until this point, you are not one of God's children.

a person is either entirely evil at one time or entirely pure- the two are never mixed.

Goodman Brown leaves his wife (who wears pink ribbons in her hair, symbols of innocence) alone for an evening and takes a stroll with the Devil.

Lucifer reveals that Brown's town is full of Satanists and hypocrites.

Brown's walk ends when he finds and joins a throng of Devil-worshippers (where he encounters his wife, pink bows gone from her hair) and wakes, the next morning, in the woods, unsure if the event really happened, shamed into silence.

Where he would ultimately die.

His mission failed. McCandless sacrificed his own life for an ideal. Even with it's dangers, nature entices humanity, says 'come hither' with no promise of reward. The idea of Chris McCandless still motivates people everywhere to be driven solely by their ideals. I aim to move furiously and desperately after what I want. I aim to hit the bumps in the road and fail sometimes. McCandless acheived his goal and died happy - the ultimate reward.



'The grandmother didn't want to go to Florida.' She wanted to go to Tennessee. (after convincing her family to vacation Georgia, so as to avoid criminal The Misfit, she insists on visiting a house from her childhood which, she assures the family, is nearby.) 'the house she had remembered so vividly was not in Georgia, but Tennessee.' (the family encounters The Misfit anyway, and the grandmother attempts to reason with him) "Listen, you shouldn't call yourself The Misfit because I know you're a good man at heart."

"She would of been a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." - grandmother tries to put insight and wisdom into her last moments and is unsuccessful, this is a message to society about waiting until the last moment to become who you want to be

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media type="custom" key="351397" "Just as every cop is a criminal, and **all the sinners are saints**."

good can apply to evil - sinners can be saints - and policemen can be criminals. definitions of evil vary by personal viewpoint

Maybe our most desperate instincts are fatal, self-destructive. Chris McCandless followed his instincts, lived free, and died. John Proctor told the truth and was executed. The grandmother and her family tried to visit a 'vividly familiar' home and were killed. Maybe we are predestined for much more failure than we've been led to believe. By this logic, all human life serves only as a lesson for other humankind, who will never learn the lesson but must experience it for themselves. We are trapped in a vicious cycle, destined to live without meaning or die at the pinnacle of experience. I'd much prefer the latter - wouldn't you? And so, every day, I look for paths to take to shove meaning into my life. I take chances and risks, knowing that whether I succeed or fail, I'll be in good company. I do not aim to reach perfection- I aim to live for a reason.



Allmoviephoto.com. //Scenes From The Village.// 6 Oct 2007. .

Edwards, Jonathan. "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Connecticut, 1741.

History.sandiego.edu. //Film Notes - The Crucible.// 7 Oct 2007. <[|http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/filmnotes/crucible.html>.]

LWBC.co.uk. //Mark's Gospel - Repent.// 6 Oct 2007. <[|http://www.lwbc.co.uk/Marks%20Gospel/kreu_dhe_lajmetaret_e_tij.htm>.]

Loc.gov. //Sinners//. 7 Oct 2007. <[|__www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/obj-list.html__]>.

Lyricsfreak.com. //Rolling Stones, Sympathy for the Devil lyrics//. 6 Oct 2007. <[|http://www.lyricsfreak.com/r/rolling+stones/sympathy+for+the+devil_20117881.html>.]

Lilrascalsboutique.com. //Hair Ribbons - Pink//. 7 Oct 2007. <[|**__www.lilrascalsboutique.com/wee_ones.htm__**]>.

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York: Penguin Group, 1952.

You Tube, LLC. //The Crucible//. 7 Oct 2007. .

You Tube, LLC. //The Village - The Vote.// 7 Oct 2007. .

Village, The. Dir. M. Night Shyamalan. Perf. Bryce Dallas Howard, Joaquin Phoenix, and Adrien Brody. Touchstone Pictures. 2004.