Learning Challenge: Keeping Up With the Times

In this video “The Secret Powers of Time,” psychologist Phillip Zimbardo talks about how time is subjective based on one’s perspective. According to Zimbardo, people live in one of the “six main time zones:” two on the past, two on the present, and two on the future. As I watched him explain each of these types of people, I couldn’t help but associate each category with people that I know. For example, one living in the past type who lives in their nostalgic memories is totally my dad in a nutshell since he can’t stop re-telling stories about the “good old days.” So he would be a “past-positive.” I tend to fare right in the center since I’m super sentimental, but I also sometimes get hung up on past regrets. My boyfriend is a present-oriented type, also straddling that line of distinction between the hedonist that seeks novelty and sensation and lives for “now,” and its realist type that believes fate has full reign on his life. As far as those future-oriented, they’re either looking for a pay-off in their later life on earth, or those of protestant faith are looking to secure their soul’s salvation in the afterlife.

Bottom line I see in Zimbardo’s talk is that the way we experience time has much to do with our environment: “shared time perspectives characterize nations,” he says. In our own American society, it’s hard to debate this statement. It’s easy to see how despite a few outliers, those in small towns are associated with slow, easy living while their city counterparts are stereotyped as “busy-bodies.” How these studies apply to schooling in the digital age is game-changing. With the onset of simulation video games, those students who’ve spent enough time online find their perception of time digitally rewired. The traditional, analog classroom is thus finding it more and more impossible to entice the hedonist addicted little heathens they teach to put off the urges of their present appetites. This debate dates back to thinkers like Thomas Aquinas, Jean-Jaques Rousseau, and John Locke in some ways as it pertains to civic education and childrearing with concern to how to, when to, and if it’s proper to teach littles to resist hedonism as it is humans’ basic nature. I completely agree with Zimbardo that “many of life’s puzzles can be solved by simply understanding our own time perspective and that of others.” This is in line with some of my most fundamental beliefs that self-reflection either as an individual, nation, globe, or what have you is a more than necessary first step for progress. History has proven that everyone and everything is ever-evolving, but without appropriate awareness of this, our analog school system has little hope of keeping the attention of students for years to come.

(Image Source: Pixabay Stock Photos)

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Extra Credit: Reading Notes- More Ramayana (Part B), Sita Sings the Blues

Part B of the film was a little shorter but equally excellent content-wise. Again, I loved this film—I would watch it again and will watch it again, and recruit whoever will let me to watch it with me. Let me just say before I start to break it down that I figured out what the visuals remind me of—there is a short by Felix Colgrave whose animation style very much reminds me of the puppet-bubble characters we see in “Sita Sings the Blues” that have the sort of paper-doll joints. His short is called “The Elephant’s Garden,” and it’s a video that was shared with me a long time ago. At around :44 you'll see what I mean. This is an arbitrary connection, but I'm sharing for the sake of realizing where I had seen this animation style before. Colgrove's short is the reason why Nina’s film seemed so familiar to me straight away since the styles are similar what with the weirdly shaped, colorful nature of their 2d characters with pivoting joints.

Just as awesome as multi-media type visuals of Nina’s film is Sita’s story itself. Even though Nina’s cartoon representation didn’t have many lines, I feel like super important to the film were both her “voice” as well as the modern-ancient Indian woman who discusses the story with her two male counterparts. I felt like we were meant to interpret Sita’s story in the Ramayana through them primarily. In Nina’s case, her own experience with her boyfriend, Dave, seemed to mirror the events of Sita and Rama’s here-and-there-again relationship. The unrequited love and loyalty that Sita had for Rama in following him wherever his duty takes him seems parallel to that of Nina and Dave, who she follows when he is transferred to India for work. As the narrator's debate about Sita’s devotion to Rama, who is so indifferent to her sacrifices and subjects her to mistreatment, we are set up as an audience to celebrate Nina’s eventual departure from Dave to pursue her own passions on her own terms. The whole message that is Sita singing the blues, a musical genre born of the enslaved Africans in the 19^th century, speaks volumes about the message of “freedom.” Sita sings “if you want the rainbow, you must have the rain,” a quite submissive stance to take in the face of, in her case, being in a metaphorical prison confined by the sexism and gender stereotypes of (what did they determine it was?) the 14^th century? Wow, the undercurrent of feminist tones throughout this film is in some ways so obvious and in others so understated! What. A. Film. That’s all I can say.

Bibliography:

Author: Nina Paley
Title: Sita Sings the Blues
Year: 2008

Link

(Image Source: Screenshots by me, Youtube)

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Reading Notes: More Ramayana (Part A), Sita Sings the Blues

This full-length animated film by Nina Paley was honestly stunning. Having no idea what to expect going into this viewing experience, I was impressed to say the least. I had anticipated and prepared to watch it in two parts as suggested on the assignment overview page with the embedded link, but I was sucked in and ended up watching it all the way through in one sitting. I even paused it a few times when I stopped to laugh at its more comical moments or to simply pick my chin up off the floor because, frankly, I was floored by its narrative and visual brilliance.

I particularly liked how the ancient story was brought into the 21^st century through both the cartoon couple Nina and Dave and the modern Indian storytellers who spent the length of the film recounting and debating the details of the myth. What this did for me was put into perspective the historical significance of the Ramayana. When the three modern Indian characters (depicted quite paradoxically in a style that seems inspired by antiquated art) start to debate about whether the Ramayana was based off of real events, with the woman character commenting that it is as “real” as the Bible made me realize how important this story must be culturally and spiritually to many people. I also love how the producer in a sense represented the oral tradition that the (many versions) of the Ramayana by the fact that these three modern Indian characters “created” the story in a communal way, with their commentary as a sort of unique “reading guide” if you will.

As they talk amongst themselves of the story, the scenes play out for the person watching. I got the sense that the “old fashioned” looking illustrations were the “cut and dry” story, whereas the cartoonish bubble characters were as if it was written for today’s audience. Or, since they look a little bit like paper dolls (the kind with push pins for joints) I thought it could be like a digital version of how this story might have been told through puppets in the past. This is a sort of in-depth analysis of everything but the story, but more than just the story itself I was super intrigued by what message Nina Paley was sending. It seemed to me a commentary on oral tradition first and foremost. It also seemed that by highlighting certain parts that were “controversial” (between the modern-ancient Indian characters) she emphasized how a reader influenced by a modern environment socially and spiritually casts new interpretations on the morals and ethics of the famous tale. It makes it seem as though even I felt like I was constantly trying to read between the lines, and I loved it.

Bibliography:

Author: Nina Paley
Title: Sita Sings the Blues
Year: 2008

Link

(Image Source: Wikipedia)

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Famous Last Words: Looking Forward and Backward

Before I get started on Week 5’s assignments, I thought I would stop and reflect on my progress both on and offline in this couple of weeks. I have made strides on my Storybook project as far as continued brainstorming is concerned. As for the Introduction on my Google site, however, it has a ways to go. I’m assuming I will go an expository route since I plan to do an anthology rather than a narrative. My Week 4 story went well, too. I haven’t attempted to write poetry since probably high school, but I was pleased with the finished product despite it’s few flaws. Writing poetry takes more patience as it requires more time and effort than prose, but after the rush of satisfaction over how my “Sampati and Jatayu” re-write went I’m thinking I will try to recreate this feeling and keep working with rhyming verse. Something I was reminded of while writing was a poem (one of many) that I read when I was younger called “Humpty Dumpty’s Funeral,” which I suppose is a Western version of mythology-inspired reconstruction not unlike what we’re doing in this class with Indian epics.

Outside of class, I have a full plate. I have a first exam in one class, a first paper in another, and a date to deal with some financial matters that is a little overdue. Such is life, I suppose. However busy as this upcoming week appears, I know that I have provided myself some cushion with extra credit assignments. I also feel my grade is safe since I so far have been consistent in following the schedule I created at the start of the semester.  So long as I stay on track, I am confident I will just barely make it through the week.

(Image Source: Pixabay Stock Photos)

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