Love Songs

I can’t say that I am familiar with any of Aimee Mann’s songs. Her kind of music is not really the type of music that I am interested in, but I found her lyrics to be rather interesting. It wasn’t one of those traditional love songs. It was different in its own way, but it was still a love song. The title of the song pretty much sums up the entire message of what it is that she is trying to say. The title of her song is “Save Me.” She wishes to be rescued, from the people that she calls “freaks” or in other words, those that believe that they could never fall in love. The theme in this song does deal with love, but it also deals with escaping from the kinds of people that she doesn’t see eye to eye with. So she sees this person as the kind of man that would fit the role of being her Superman. I went online to search for others of her songs, to see if there is some sort of common thread to her song writing style. One song that I looked up was entitled, “Red Vines.” When I think of Red Vines I think of licorice, and I’m guessing that is what she is referring to as well. Not sure where licorice fits into the picture but whatever. In comparing this song with “Save Me,” I see some similarities between the two of them. It is another type of love song, sort of like the first. It isn’t one of those traditional love songs, where it talks about all those happy and bubbly feelings that people in love experience. This song sort of has a sad tone to it. In this song she describes herself standing on the sidelines and watching another couple that is in love. To me it seems as if she is saying that everyone else sees them as a perfect and happy couple, but for whatever reason she knows otherwise. Another one of her songs that I looked at was called “Calling It Quits.” This song also deals with relationships, but this one starts out sort of like a warning against a certain kind of guy that can and will take advantage of a woman. Then throughout the songs she is telling us that she isn’t taking any more of it and she is going to go ahead and call it quits. The last song of hers that I looked up was called, “Deathly.” Just from looking at the title, I could gain a sense of what she would be talking about. This song is talking about the negative side of relationships. Then it goes into how she walked away from the poor relationship she was in, and she was so determined to stay away, she would rather have somebody shoot her with a gun, and stop her, than for her to go back into that relationship. So to sum it all up I’d say the general theme that I saw in Aimee Mann’s songs were love, but more of the negative sides to it. I saw that it went more into the bad that can come out of a poor relationship.

Creation Myths

The creation myths that I watched came from the Maoris in New Zealand, the Chinese, and also the Yoruba in Africa. This was something new to me. Each of these myths were different in their own ways, and each of them had their own twist to how the world came to be and where people came from. In spite of this though, I saw that all of these myths had a common thread to them. I found it interesting that none of these myths took on an evolutionary theme. Instead all of these stories had some sort of creator or creators in all of them. None of these myths had a theme that all of what we see came about all on its own. Maybe they saw themselves and other living things as too complex to have come about all on its own. Another thing that I noticed was that there wasn’t only a view on how people came to be, but also a view on how the sun, moon, mountains etc. came about. It really makes me curious to want to know how exactly these stories came about, it is rather interesting that although these stories come from such diverse regions, they all have the same type of central theme to them. I also wonder if these stories were actually believed, or if it was just taken to be some sort of fairy tale. One thing that these myths showed me about people, is that they all had questions that wanted to be answered. The biggest question of all probably is how we all got here. We as human beings like to have a sense of belonging and also a sense of purpose. I think that people feel they can have more of a sense of purpose if they have an idea as to where they came from. This can especially be said about myself. I am a Christian, and also a firm believer in the Bible, so naturally I am a creationist. I also don’t believe that this world and all of the wonderful things that are contain therein came about by chance. Instead I believe that God, created everything by simply speaking them into existence, but He took special time out to form man out of the dust of the ground. I know that it takes a great deal of faith to believe this way, because we are not able to see and actually touch God at this point in time. Yet I feel that there is much evidence all over the world that can point to this as not a myth, but instead fact. To me, believing this gives me the greatest sense of purpose. Knowing this really helps me to know who I am, what I’m doing here, and where I am going. I know that many see what I believe in as just another creation myth, but I am so happy to know that there is a God above, who loves and cares for me.

The burden of knowing

I believe that in this novel, there are a few characters that are suffering from the burden of knowing. I guess from these examples, the phrase can be true when it is said, “Ignorance is bliss.” Sometimes knowing a thing can do more harm than it would, had we just remained in the dark. But we are curious creatures, and many times our curiosity gets the better of us. Also at times, the feeling of not knowing plagues us so bad, that we do all in our power to know, even if we know it could potentially hurt us. What is better for us really depends on the situation. I think that character that suffered the most from the burden of knowing is Lily. The burden had started once she found out as a little girl that she accidently shot and killed her mother. I don’t believe such a burden should have been placed on such a young girl, but due to the hatred she had received from her father, he had kept that memory alive and well in her mind. And so with this burden that she had had, although it was purely an accident, and not really her fault the gun was near her in the first place, she had guilt to deal with. I think that another thing that made this even more of a burden was her thoughts that maybe if her mother was still alive, life would be so much easier for all of them. And so then she has the burden of knowing that her mother isn’t there, and can not be there, all because of an accident, in which she was the cause. But she still had a desire to know about her mother while she was alive. She knew that one of the bee keeping sisters, mainly August, might have the answers that she was looking for. Once she found more about her mother, she then had the burden of knowing that what her father had been telling her for so many years actually was true, that her mother really had left her for a time. Another character in the novel that really suffered from the burden of knowing was May. Even if what she had heard about wasn’t related to her in even the slightest sense, just her knowing would send her into a fit of tears. This obviously had happened so much, because the sisters seemed to be used to it, and would routinely ask her or take her outside where she could empty out her emotions at her “wailing wall.” These experiences came about from the knowledge that her sister April had shot herself a long while back. The other sisters got along with life find in spite of it, but May was just never the same after this had happened. Within the story, I think the burden of knowing might have affected May in the very greatest sense. In the end she felt as though she could no longer deal with all of the sadness, and she ended up taking her own life.

No sorrow?

It is a habit of mine to read the questions before I do the actual reading part. The questions alone gave me a little shock. How could anybody not be suffering from grief of a loved one that has passed. Especially when that loved one is the person's very own mother. The one who raised and nurtured that child, and took so much time out to care for the child all the way from childhood, and most mothers are there for their children even when they are leading their adult lives. I basically figured tout hat this mother was not the greatest or ideal mother that people would love to have. I thought that maybe this mother might have done something horrible to upset her daughter, so much so, that she would hardly care once her mother has passed. Once I read the story, I still did not feel so good about the type of feelings that the daughter was having about her mother's death. I am sure that there are many things that parents do and say that may make it hard to love, accept, or be around them. But I think a great deal of these feelings that she is having has to do with her inability to let go of hurt and things that had taken place in the past.I am not trying to say that the mother was completely innocent in this situation that had happened. But I think that there is fault on both sides. Not only on the side of the mother, but I think that there is also fault to be found on the side of the daughter. I don't really think that much or any good for that matter, is done when a person is harboring feelings of hurt and, or hate. I think that I am having these feelings about her reactions because I feel that the death of a person, especially somebody who is suppose to so close to us like our mothers, should cause such a great deal of emotion. Not just any emotion of course, I don't really think death should cause somebody to feel relief or a sense of a burden lifted. Not all mothers act like angels, but I think in order to not feel such a great deal of guilt when they are gone, one should do all in their power to make things right before the person is gone. Because once that person is gone, it is too late to tell the person that you love them, or that you are sorry, and it eats at some people for so very long. I once saw this documentary about this lady who adopted all these kids with serious health problems, and some had mental problems as well. This one boy caused her a great deal of grief, but she still managed to treat him kindly and tell him she loved him. Then the boy died. I think a person asked if she felt relieved, because of the great deal of pain he caused the family, but she said no, and expressed how sad she was that he was gone. I think that no matter what, one should never let ill feelings or hate take precedence over one's attitude toward another. To relay bad feelings back only does more harm.