Captured Thought: Storytelling

At the end of class today, I sort of, uneloquently, in broken English, attempted to articulate something I that popped into my head a few days ago and has been troubling me ever since. And here it is: we have been reading this whole novel, Heart of Darkness, and listening to Marlow tell this terrible yet incredible story, right? He has been telling us about Kurtz and the Manager, and how he felt, what effect these events had on him, no? But, what if, just, what if, Marlow is not exactly telling the truth? Not on purpose, but he is retelling this story, it has already happened, gone, done. What if he's remembering wrong? Or what if that which he's telling us he thought or felt at a certain time is really just what he came to believe he thought or felt after further reflection?

Isn't this whole story just a lie then?

That just begs me to ask the question, how accurate is storytelling? Can we really know that what is being told is what really happened? Especially when we're talking about how someone felt, because people's feelings fluctuate so much.

I think the scariest part, though, is that the person who's telling the story really thinks that they're telling the truth...

It Matters: Post-Modernism and the Olympics

“The six colours, including the white background, represent the colours of all the world's flags... this is a true international emblem.” ~ Pierre de Coubertin,French Educator primarily responsible for the revival of the Olympic Games in 1894


One of my best friends from hockey is Canadian (big surprise there, eh?). For the opening ceremonies on Friday, I went to her house for a little party. My whole team always picks on her for being Canadian, because with hockey there's that time-honored, traditional rivalry between the U.S. and Canada. But I think we're all secretly jealous of her. Her family was so dorky, with their maple leaf cake and red outfits, singing the national anthem at the top of their lungs; they have such pride in their country, and I just don't feel for the United States. But reflecting on the different points of view, the variety in levels of pride for your home, got me thinking about the plurality and multiplicity in our world, something we have been stressing as we chug along Heart of Darkness. The Olympics, themselves, illustrate perfectly the mind-boggling diversity we live in today.

Now, I am going to make a radical claim right now and say that without a global understanding of Post-Modernist thought, there would have been no March of Nations on Friday, the NHL would have an All-Star game this year, and the best athletes in the world would be sitting, unchallenged, at home right now.

Without understanding the vastness and mixture of people and views on this planet, a major tenant of Post-Modernism, why would anybody see the need of the Olympics? The elite athletes would be famous with their own, and wouldn't that be enough? Who cares about people in other countries on the other side of the world? They are the best we have, and that's all we should care about.

If you read list of Post-Modernist beliefs, and you go down the list, just about every, single, thing can describe the reasons why we have the Olympics, besides just the athletics: "The distinction between economic and cultural breaks down," "Multiple worlds and multiple points of view," which I just discussed, "What is distant can be close and what is close can be distant." And what are the affects of this one the world? I'd like to think that for two weeks, every two years, all political differences or cultural prejudices can break down. For those two, short, brief weeks, the world can watch together, as the best of the human race competes for honor, along the way, learning how different and the same we really are.