Most recent public comments by Ron-Tyler Budhram https://nowcomment.com/users/3650 https://nowcomment.com/documents/11115?scroll_to=91439 https://nowcomment.com/documents/11115?scroll_to=91439 Tue, 02 Aug 2016 01:59:45 -0400 https://nowcomment.com/documents/11115?scroll_to=91438 https://nowcomment.com/documents/11115?scroll_to=91438 When reading about or watching movies that depict prison camp scenarios, I had never thought about how even the lulls in horrific treatment might be a kind of torture. When you have time to think about survival, physical pain, or anything else along those lines, it seems natural that worry would set in. Heartbreak over broken families, lives left behind, the state of one's country - all of these necessarily bubble to the surface of consciousness in such situations as this "atypical" period of time. Tue, 02 Aug 2016 01:59:45 -0400 https://nowcomment.com/documents/11111?scroll_to=91361 https://nowcomment.com/documents/11111?scroll_to=91361 I really enjoy how, here, this first-person narrator questions the sensation of pain. Earlier, in the last sentence of paragraph 18, he seems to decide that his grandfather’s ghost isn’t “real.” However, I think readers question the reality of ghosts at that point (at least in the universe of this memoir), and now in this sentence, the narrator questions pain in a similar way. It is as if, on some level, his twelve-year-old mind is trying to understand that maybe there is something “real” beyond what most people can see. Seeing a ghost must naturally call a lot into question. For instance, can people really trust their senses? Tue, 02 Aug 2016 01:59:45 -0400 https://nowcomment.com/documents/11111?scroll_to=91092 https://nowcomment.com/documents/11111?scroll_to=91092 Tue, 02 Aug 2016 01:59:45 -0400 https://nowcomment.com/documents/11111?scroll_to=91085 https://nowcomment.com/documents/11111?scroll_to=91085 We see the first ghost in this paragraph, but I think it's interesting to acknowledge the fact that a ghost is a kind of monster. Maybe this is the reason for the narrator's unmistakable feeling of dread. The great thing about monsters of the supernatural variety (ghosts, werewolves, vampires) is that it doesn't make sense for them to exist. They represent something in the world that operates in a way it shouldn't, and then they have the nerve to constantly remind us about it - to terrify us. Even more interesting is that all of us have some part of ourselves, whether on the surface or deep down, that doesn't make any sense at all. Perverse inclinations, subliminal desires, etc.... these don't belong, and they are - in a very real way - comparable to monsters. They are our own monsters that live inside of us. The challenge comes in deciding whether or not it's best for us to love and embrace our monsters. Tue, 02 Aug 2016 01:59:45 -0400 https://nowcomment.com/documents/10968?scroll_to=90295 https://nowcomment.com/documents/10968?scroll_to=90295 So, perhaps you would say that co-opetition currently takes place in certain aspects of our day-to-day lives, but this book is a call for many more people to realize this universal principle’s effects and implications? I’m not sure if it’s “normal” for students in my generation to believe that the world is slowly changing for the better. Maybe all young people feel, or hope for, this improvement in interpersonal communication. Certainly, with the advent of technology in the past few decades, as well as social networking in the last few years, we’re all connected in a way we never were before. It’s easier for us to be competitive, easier for us to be cooperative because our society is becoming slightly more collectivized. So, after the preface, I get the sense that one of this book’s main purposes is to spark awareness of what it means to interact with each other on a very large scale, in the present. Tue, 02 Aug 2016 01:59:45 -0400 https://nowcomment.com/documents/10968?scroll_to=90294 https://nowcomment.com/documents/10968?scroll_to=90294 Tue, 02 Aug 2016 01:59:45 -0400 https://nowcomment.com/documents/10968?scroll_to=90292 https://nowcomment.com/documents/10968?scroll_to=90292 This kind of "unbalanced" practice is very common in academia as well. Whether by word of mouth or even in featured articles, we hear stories of students abusing adderall in order to perform well on exams or to complete all their work by the end of the term. So, the same effects occur: a gap forms between those who follow the rules and those who selfishly want to get ahead, perhaps out of a sense of misplaced of competition. This quality is not to mention the fact that such drugs cause the body harm. So, with examples like these, imbalance emerges not only on the societal level but also on the biological level. Tue, 02 Aug 2016 01:59:45 -0400 https://nowcomment.com/documents/10968?scroll_to=90290 https://nowcomment.com/documents/10968?scroll_to=90290 Last year I took a Shakespeare course, and we talked about the concept of paradoxes. A paradox, we established, is a "whole" dynamic comprised of two opposing "halves," or forces. At this point, the principle of universal co-opetition sounds like a paradox. Naturally, discussing Shakespeare at the undergraduate level, we touched on weighty topics such as love and death. These aspects of human life, especially in Romeo and Juliet, seem to naturally balance each other no matter the social conditions. For example, death snuffs out love, yet love may transcend death (depending on your beliefs). So, my question is, is this "whole" homogenous or heterogenous? Is it a solidly-colored circle, or just a yin-yang? Tue, 02 Aug 2016 01:59:45 -0400