So, now instead of comparing Beowulf to a terrible movie that was only very loosely based off the epic poem Beowulf, I am getting to do something more fun and instead be comparing it to another Epic Poem of great stature from the Greeks, The Lliad. But we're not going to be comparing the stories to each other. Instead we are comparing the heroes of each to one another in terms of epic hero levels, Beowulf versus Achilles. Who will win, I have no idea at this point, so you'll need to read to find out.
The first thing we will focus on is there mental fortitude, now in my opinion, they both fail in this department in different ways. Achilles shows himself to place his feeling above his rational actions, which as he states, almost led him to killing the king. Now Beowulf also has a problem with rationality in that he always believes that fate decides the battle and not himself which I believe turns into a self fulfilling prophecy at the end when he does die as he believes fate is against him in battle and almost gave up morale wise admitting that. So in other words, both of what one could call their biggest flaws could be seen in their emotionality and not physicality. Since the first was a draw, it looks as if we will have to bring it to the next area of debate. Who is physically better. Now this one is also a very easy one as Beowulf still shows the ability to basically breathe underwater and pick up usually unusable objects as weapons as he picked up the sword to slay Grendel's mother, not to mention he beat a demon to death with his bare hands. Whereas Achilles only has the killing of a prince as a major accomplishment. So the choice of winner is obvious in this case. So as I feel the word limit closing in on me, I will end with that brief overview in which Beowulf has come out as the better epic hero, however, The Lliad will always be known as much more useful in the development of western literature into its modern form.
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Yes and no. On the level of a theory true love does exist, the theory that humans can truly bring themselves into one another fully and completely is a concept that sounds plausible. However it is impossible to have in reality and would only be destructive for the people involved in an emotional sense. Basically humans on a social level, are naturally unable to connect with each in something that is known by both philosophers and psychologists as the porcupines dilemma or hedgehogs dilemma A number of porcupines huddled together for warmth on a cold day in winter; but, as they began to prick one another with their quills, they were obliged to disperse. However the cold drove them together again, when just the same thing happened. At last, after many turns of huddling and dispersing, they discovered that they would be best off by remaining at a little distance from one another. In the same way the need of society drives the human porcupines together, only to be mutually repelled by the many prickly and disagreeable qualities of their nature. (Schopenhauer, 1851) This dilemma is caused by one of the main mental safeguards to the individual. Our emotional walls that we build throughout our childhood and adolescent years from social trial and error. In order for true love to take place, humans would have to tear down the walls to each others hearts, which while sounding again good in theory. Would be catastrophic in the emotional destruction of someone and the destruction of their own self. And without the destruction of the wall, you will both just drive each other away the closer you get.
So you want to open this can of worms. Well basically if we exclude the fact that this video was basically a marketing ploy by code.org, then we can get onto the heart of it. I will answer it like this, schools of today do not prepare us for the world of tomorrow because they're not supposed to, that's what college is taking over as, thus the push for free college. The point of high school is to learn basics necessary to do well on tests that will get us into colleges so we can be prepared for the world of tomorrow. What we learn in high school nowadays is only the tip of the iceberg on almost all subjects and it would be impossible to give us enough knowledge on them all in order to be prepared for the real world. So instead primary and secondary schools are made so that we can learn the basics so we can be able to get the topics when they start to merge in college and the subjects aren't so different.
Now I understand the concept of time and I realize that soon college will become the new high school as we get more and more advanced with mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, economics etc. it is a never ending cycle that we must go further and further for education to be ready for jobs in the real world that has only been accelerated in the pas 120 years by numerous scientific advances. In fact, I believe that we actually learn more in high school or maybe even middle school than nobles did going to Oxford at the time of its founding. Times change and humanity must adjust to the Brave New World of the 3rd millennium as clinging to the old ways will only cause destruction. Now because all 0 people on this have been amazing followers, then I have decided to answer a few questions some people may have over this book
Q1: Hey, why does Beowulf travel all the way across Skagerrak to present-day Denmark? A1: Thank you for the first wonderful question book. The reason why he travels across the gulf is because he defeats demons and he heard that there was a demon terrorizing people in the Land of the Danes. Also for the genera welfare of the Danes themselves, but more for reason number one Q2: How exactly did Beowulf trap and kill Grendel? A2: Another great question Anon that definitely isn't just me because I have no one else to ask the questions. But less digression now, Beowulf managed to trap and kill Grendel What do ya know. I guess today I'm going to have to compare and contrast the characters known as Grendel and Beowulf. Now I can give some differences yet the problem with trying to find similarities between the hero and the villain is that there aren't any. The thing about Epic Poems and even most pre-modern literature is that there is a very clear unambiguous black and white gap between who is good and evil. So instead of attempting to (I apologize for the close curse) speak bull over what this was meant for, I will just state the stark differences between the characters of Beowulf and Grendel
Now Beowulf is a human being and Grendel is a demon to start off by listing off the physical differences between the two. However on a deeper personality level you can easily get from a quick reading at their interactions with others. As this epic poem did have heavy Judeo-Christian influences, I will go by naming each others traits as one of the seven deadly sins or the sins opposite virtues depending on the character. Beowulf himself shows the virtue of kindness by heading across Skagerrak (the gulf between Sweden and Denmark) to help the Danes in the defeat of Grendel, whereas Grendel shows the corresponding deadly sin known by people as Wrath when he slaughters 30 grown men while they sleep just because they woke him up. Now as I feel like I am running close to the word limit. I will only say that while Grendel shows the deadly sin of gluttony in the way that he over-indulges on his blood-lust with his 12 year rampage in Herot while Beowulf shows the virtue of diligence due to the fact that he himself has spent many years hunting demons without end. Patrick out. Hello again people reading this. Today we'll be taking a little bit of a different turn of events for the blogging, now we are moving onto the more difficult concept of evil and what exactly is evil
When you get to a concept such as evil. There really is no real objective way to define evil. So my take on evil is that evil is destruction for no real logical reason. What I believe is wrong is calling people evil for doing things that will cause less pointless destruction and other negatives such as war and famine, I mean it's just short sighted to believe that doing less evil in the present will no matter what cause less in the future. To give a partially outlandish but effective metaphor. Let's say you need to choose between saving the bombing of the main U.N headquarters in New York with all of the U.N Security Council inside or the destruction of Mount Pleasant killing everyone in there. Letting Mount Pleasant be destroyed may sound evil considering you're putting the lives of 6 people over the lives of ~25K people, but in reality it would not be evil as it would more than likely prevent a larger global meltdown that would kill even more than 25K and could even possibly spiral to the destruction of all life on the planet through nuclear warfare What makes a true Hero
I'm gonna keep this half short and sweet so I can elaborate on the second half of the questions. A hero would be someone who is willing to do bad if it would do good. A utilitarian if one wanted to use more complex words, someone who would be willing to do what's best no matter how many people will die so long as it prevents further deaths. Someone who is willing to break the law to uphold it. Someone who is willing to kill so long as it prevents more from being killed. How was that have fun reading it while I move onto the next big thing that'll be even more fun Does fate control our lives To put it simply. There is no fate we have. We are as a famous philosopher once said "We are damned by free will...", And as another philosopher that there is no fate in life as there is no objective meaning to life because reality is just an absurdity randomly generated. We can no longer use fate as a crutch for our own mistakes and must learn to go beyond that and create our own existence and meaning instead of being bound by the petty social concepts such as fate and destiny. As this is my first attempt at a blog, I will respond to criticisms and improve it. And without further exposition I will begin with my blog post
To answer the question of what I think is important in life in general. There is a very long version and a very short version. The short is that there is no objective important thing in life. All this stuff that 'love is meaning of life' is completely worthless in the grand scheme of things, there is no objective thing that is important in everybody's life as we are all different in our objective importances of our lives. Of course if you meant about my life, mine would be that importance to me is keeping myself existing, for if I am not known or remembered, did I ever exist and will my life have ever meant something, the answer would be no. In all ways but physical, I would never had existed or be existing. If you want the pessimistic view on this next question on the teachings of the video, then you've come to the right place. The video taught me nothing as there was no lesson to be learnt from it, the video itself was just bait to try to smash in the useless 'love is da best' thing that has been going around, the sad thing about it was that it wasn't even aimed for children, they're trying to instill this into us as growing adults and sedate us into submission. There, I just barely hit the limit. See ya. |
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