An easy life

I was thinking  that changing from Takers to Leavers is not easy or even impossible. Takers would have hard time to let their things to go and convert to Leavers. Technology would be one of things Takers would want to hold.  Technology made our life easier, faster, and more convenient. However, I also believe that technology easily makes people to think less and sometimes degrades our intellectual ability. I would like to relate to an article, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by Nicolas Carr. First thing I noticed was the title and I was questioning why Google makes us stupid, because I used Google to search various information in all fields. Carr's main idea was that information flows over media and that even though we could access to information easily, media affects negatively on people by consistently distracting us and making us to lose focus on long pieces of reading. I could agree with him, and this reminded me of when I was taking AP Literature class in my high school. I skipped through many books and accessed online and found all various information about books, such as character analysis, settings, and others. Although the sites helped me to do well on my assignments and tests, I did not directly get connections from authors through the books and missed several important concepts.  I also no longer used a paper dictionary, instead I searched on websites, which was very fast and easy. However, When I used an online dictionary, I found that the definition did not really stuck on my head as much as when I looked up a paper dictionary and highlighted the words. I agreed with Carr's statement, "we turning into 'pancake people'-spread wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of button."  

I also wanted to mention Quinn's idea, "The Leaver life-style isn't about hunting and gathering, it's about letting the rest of the community live... The Leaver life is not an antiquated thing that is 'back there' somewhere. Your task is not to reach back but to reach forward" (p.250).
Does this mean that we do not have to give up technology?

Ishmael is done but the ideas are continued!

Waste Land

I just want to share one of things my art history class talked about.

WASTE LAND by Vik Muniz

The subjects of his art is the world's largest garbage dump, Jardim Gramacho, located on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and “catadores," who are self-designated pickers of recyclable materials.  Muniz’s first objective was to paint the catadores with garbage, but he changed his mind that he recreated photographic images of themselves out of garbage and used garbage as tools/mediums to create great art pieces.

visit http://www.wastelandmovie.com/ all about Waste Land;)
Death of Marat by J-L David

3 thoughts after looking pictures:
1. Vik Muniz is creative!
2. I would like to make some crazy art pieces!
3. People made, have made, make, and will make lots of wastes...