HAPPINESS

Obi’s thinking was very modern.  He thought the school needed a new way of thinking.  The children needed to be taught on how to disregard the “foolish” thinking methods of the primitive generation and mock them.  This is proven when he mentions that the purpose of the school that he is running is “is to eradicate just such beliefs as that. Dead men do not require footpaths. The whole idea is just fantastic. Our duty is to teach your children to laugh at such ideas.” This statement clearly displays how disrespectful Obi is towards others ideas and thinking which leads as to think that his actions were a result of “misguided zeal”.

Another reason that points out that Obi’s “misguided zeal” leads to his actions is that he is more educated than the other teacher’s at the school, which makes him think that he knows more and has a more intelligent thinking anyone else present at the school.  One can safely say that Obi is too overconfident about his ideas and does not care about anyone else’s thoughts or ides. When enthusiastically he mentions to his that all his other colleagues are young and unmarried, and this is a good thing because they will be able to devote more time and effort to their job as a teacher at the school.  This is very hypocritical of Obi, as he himself is married, and this in any way hinder his job as a headmaster at the school?  His thinking that everything he thinks is the only rite way, and rest everything is nonsense, proves his misguided zeal.  When he decides to completely ignore the plea of the priest to re-open the “Dead Men’s Path”, he mocks the reasoning of the priest and disregards the tradition that had present there for generations even before him or his father was born.  This lead to the destruction of the school compound and a bad repot for the school and Obi from the white supervisor.  It was the anger of the people of his own village, which was caused by him because of his arrogant beliefs he held.

Obi should have never forgotten that humility is the best way to become a best leader. His leadership skills lacked the most important thing, which was understanding the people you are trying to lead, and understand their ideas and way of thinking and then present them with your ideas, not just believe that what you are doing is the only rite way and other are just mere fools.

One key idea that Achebe seems to repeatedly return to is the pursuit of objectives, and how ideals can clash to feelings of conservatism, and perhaps reality. To achieve the objective, no matter the means, for the end justifies the means; this is the philosophy demonstrated by Obi. Going so far as to ignore the villagers’ leader and his pleas to keep the ancestral pathway open. Putting myself in Obi’s shoes, I could imagine myself wondering why I would want to retain an ancestral footpath when I plan on teaching the children to ridicule such ideas? Obi’s dreams far outweighed any objections a village of people could muster; what’s a dream in comparison to a bunch of old people and ideas? Most obviously he reaped what he sowed, for destroying the dreams and customs of a village, he paid the sacrifice the diviner conjured; the very dream he was attempting to pursue.

This idea is as old as time itself, and is as recent as today’s debate on health. People will always be uncomfortable with removing or changing something that they’ve had and lived with for the majority of their lives. It doesn’t matter if it is a changing of Greek paganism vs. rational thought, or changing the way Washington works today. When people want to push through new ideas, there is always a barrier. Sometimes people can get through it, and sometimes the wall is stronger than the force to push.

Perhaps another feeling that Achebe wishes to convey is the idea of compromising between the old and the new, and the consequences of NOT doing so. Flowers tend to be a symbol of peace, and from what I remember, hibiscus flowers represent a delicate beauty. Such beauty is easily crushed when there is no effort to reconcile between new ideas and old customs. The timing of the story can be taken as significant as well, 1949 being very shortly after WWII, and the white supervisor is probably weary about conflict breaking out.

To this very day, there are conflicts of old and new between generations and cultures. I invite anybody to answer this question, for I’m curious, in your everyday life, whether it’s family, friend, or just people on TV, where do you see a clash between old and new?

I decided that as its my turn to post a blog, and we did not have to actually follow the assignment, that I would post something different, of course related to “happiness.”  It has come to my surprise that we are very much into the middle of the semester and have had so many discussions on happiness, and yet no one has ever brought up the movie “The Pursuit of Happyness.”  If the movie has come up I must have missed it, but I believe this movie fits perfect into our happiness discussion.  (For those who have never seen or heard of the movie here is a link for its trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xcZTtlGweQ)

There is a quote from the movie that I pulled off a site that really caught my attention.  It goes as follows:

“It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and the part about our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I remember thinking how did he know to put the pursuit part in there? That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue and maybe we can actually never have it. No matter what. How did he know that?”

It made me think about the point he makes.  Why did they add the word “pursuit” in there.  I mean, they assure us life, assure us liberty, but why not just leave the word happiness without the pursuit in front?  This is obviously a question that does not have a definite answer, but one thing that did come to mind is that the person who wrote this knew that happiness was not something guaranteed.  That everyone would have to fight for their happiness and find it their own way, if its even “findable.”

In the story “Dead Man’s Path, we are introduced to a man named Obi who has a great deal of pride and ideas for his new job as headmaster.   My first thought of this story was that it had no point to it and that these people are crazy.  But as I thought deeper into it, i realized that the story had a deeper meaning to it than what I read.  Sometimes looking at things from different perspectives is better than forcing your own ideals onto something with a closed mind state.
   Many people have been given opportunities at time that gives them great success but I believe absolute power corrupts absolutely.  In this case Obi was given a great power of being headmaster of a school.  With this power also came zeal and selfishness.  Also, sometimes perserving old traditions can go a long way with  relationships than modernizing them.  Obi was blind sided by his power which in the end led to his downfall.
   Everyone who has been in positions of great power would  be in the position to have a downfall.  A great experience of this is the situation in my job.  My boss would test his associates by giving them the power to be manager for a week.  If they survived then they would continue their job or they would get less hours.  But in majority of the cases, the associates got power hungry and ended up not being able to handle the store.

So, who likes zombies? How many of you are fans of the good ol’ fashioned slapsticky brain hungry totally punk rock   monsters? Do zombies (and/or horror flicks) inspire happiness?

Look at this picture–do you recognize these folks from Night of the Living Dead? From Zombie College? What about from Baruch College?

Since, we’ve been talking about why use blogs in an academic setting…when I saw this course site–Topics in Film: Fear, Anxiety, and Paranoia–well, I was quite pumped. So, please do check it out, and feel free to wear  heavy gory make up to class.

Kudos to Jessica McWilliams who shared this link with me.

It makes me think perhaps I need to plan a vacation.