Fahrenheit 451 pp. 21-40

Ask a question: What do you find confusing? What is something you don’t understand?

I was confused about what was going on in the scene where books kept falling into Montag's hands

Write about one of the following topics (at least a “solid paragraph” – minimum of 8 sentences)

2) How are the people in the novel – both children and adults - similar and/or different from people today?

The children in the novel (with the exception of Clarisse) are rather violent, described as people who "kill each other." In the two examples Clarisse gives, they are said to shoot each other with guns, and to kill each other through car wrecks. Allow me to blame the car wrecks on acts of stupidity, which are strangely common in most children these days, and focus on the shootings.

Now, it is a very few amount of kids who sneak guns into school, and possibly (although this is not but idle speculation) even less actually shoot them, as opposed to having second (and smarter) thoughts. But, regardless of if a bullet is fired or not, it still takes a very violent mind to even think of bringing a gun to school. However, plenty of children these days never needed to bring a gun to school to prove they are violent. In the media, all you see in movies are shootouts, explosions, and swordfights. Even comedy movies are filled with nothing but slapstick and "dirty jokes." On TV, it's much of the same. If it's not SNL or a show about cars, celebrities, or the like, then it's an anime show filled with blood, gore, cursing, and more blood. Even the most innocent shows like "Pokemon" have a few episodes that were forbidden in America because they contained excessive violence.

Then of course, there is video games. Sadly, a successful video game that contains no violence is the greatest of rarities in modern times. The biggest selling games in the world are all blood and gore fests, people of all ages who have never met each other and probably never will again, being shoved onto one battlefield to spray their sub-machine guns at each other for one oddly disturbing purpose: Fun. Of course, it's just a game, right? These kids can still sleep peacefully in their beds without the guilt of killing someone hanging over their heads, right? For most, that is true. But, children are very suggestible. Give one kid who can't think for himself one copy of Halo 2, and the next morning he'll come to school with a revolver to see how many head shots he can get, and if it's better than a battle rifle or not.

Thankfully, there are quite a few kids out there who are probably smarter than adults, much like how Clarisse is in the novel. Although children are often thought of as ignorant, there is something in them that changes that ignorance into brilliance, something that strangely goes missing when one becomes an adult. When you are a child, your intelligence lies not in petty facts, memorizing procedures, and plotting out business plans, but in... comforting people, for lack of better words. Tell a child a problem in your life that's constantly nagging at the back of your mind, and he will give you a very predictable, child-like answer. And yet, merely by the way he will word it, it'll have a very different, much more impacting meaning. Allow me to share an anecdote that occurred to me this morning.

As you all know, yesterday's blog I went and wrote a little rant about how I'm growing old without being old to vent out a little steam. As you all probably don't know, I also posted the same on several forums, and asked for a bit of advice to quell the disquiet in my mind. One forum was mostly populated with teens my age, and I got a short, impersonal answer. One forums was insanely busy, with people posting constantly regardless of time of day. I only got one answer that was somewhat helpful, and it too was rather short and not as thought out as desired.

Then the last forum, oh what a surprise I did find. The last forum was a forum populated with fans of a Disney game called VMK, a sort of virtual Disneyland. Due to that, I am one of the older players on there (although by no means the oldest). This morning, I checked my little rant there for any responses. I only found two, but they were extremely effective. They hit each and every little point I made in my rant, and provided an answer that was strangely calming. In effect, all they really said was to have fun a bit more, and shared a few, rather silly anecdotes with me. And yet, there was something about it that was far more effective than any psychologist could have said. I assume that part of it is just the way they went about it. There was no extreme thought, filled with allegories and relations to the outside world. It was a very casual, very calm sort of post. I assume the other part is that a child could not only relate to my problem, but take the time to read that huge paragraph I wrote, and then help me with my woes, as opposed to just skipping over it or writing some nonsensical, only half related post like that second forum did.


Aaah, ahh, but today's reading response does not end there! I still have adults to write about!

Adults these days, they're very one-dimensional. They have to have a routine to everything. As Murphy's laws dictates: "Air goes in and out, and blood goes round and round. Any variation of this is bad." And, much like Murphy's laws dictates, adults become extremely flustered when something alters or hinders their routine's progress. Even in the book, it claims that people are always in such a rush that they had to stretch out the billboards so people could see them. Maybe that's what makes kids so much smarter than adults. Their minds aren't on rails. They can think outside the box. They can be different. They have time to stop, smell the roses, and maybe even take one home with them. Kids think about anything and everything, even without provocation. Is this what goes missing that turns thoughtful children into mindless drones? The feeling that you have all the time in the world, and all the world to roam?

Hmm... strange thought indeed.





Now that that's out of the way, a little update on that rant yesterday:
I'm feeling a bit better now, as hinted upon in the assignment, although at lunch today I learned the hard way that fate has a cruel, cruel sense of irony. I will go no further into the details. For that, you may ask Julian Grijalva, Danielle Smotrich, and Cameron Parvini.