That's Montag and Clarisse talking, by the way.
I was going to colour it and make it neater, but right now I'm a little depressed because I have a math exam tomorrow, I think it's going to be hard, and I don't understand the challenge questions the teacher gave us >.< I could just go to bed and sleep. I'll post some more examples of the things we wrote for English class.
This was the question:
How would you respond if someone asked you, "Are you happy?" How do you define happiness? What makes you happy in life? What impedes (or obstructs) your happiness?
Is a state of happiness something you continually strive for?
My answer:
I was working on my comment, and for some reason it got deleted. Until then, I was happy. Now I'm not. Happiness is a feeling. Feelings are unstable. A person can be patient and stay that way their entire life, but emotions are not like that. Unexpected things can come and ruin people's moods (like what just happened to me). They could be sad, and a person could tell them a joke and they'd be happy again.
Montag took happiness as a quality, not a feeling. At first he thought he was happy, because he had a job, a house, and was married. But when he thought about it he realized the bad things in his life. His job was wrong, and he didn't actually love his wife.
If you want to be "happy" you have to do what you like doing, not what you do just so you do it. As I mentioned before, happiness is unstable. But things you like are not. So basically if you do things you like, you can stabilize the feeling. It's only then that happiness becomes a quality and not just a feeling.
Other question:
Read carefully the following list that identifies several influences on a society's value of books and writing. How do these influences affect the attitudes and behaviors of a society?
Select one influence from the list and describe its role in shaping the attitudes of people toward books and their reading behaviors.
Please use details from Fahrenheit 451 to support what you say.
• Advances in Technology
• Population Growth
• The Increasing Pace of Life
• Abridged Versions of Writing
• Elimination of Time Wasting Thought
• Shortened School Day
• Pursuit of Pleasure
• Leisure
• Increased Physical Activity/Organized Sports
• Impatience
• Minority Pressures/Fears of Offending
My answer:
Impatience.
Impatient people can't wait for anything, and are easily bored or angered.
I like speaking from experience, and that's why I picked impatience. Most of the time I'm very patient, but when I'm reading books or watching movies, I tend to skip parts I find boring. I like reading any scene with action, a little bit of romance, scenes that include my favorite characters, and especially scenes with dialogue. The parts I skip are those long paragraphs with no dialogue at all. The same applies for comic books. The reader looks for action in comic books, not pages of philosophy about the characters.
My point is, as things change people have more things to do, and things happen very quickly. Using the internet or similar sources, we can get what we want in a matter of minutes. This creates impatience in people, because (for example) when their internet loads slowly, or when their video buffers slowly, it takes longer for them to get what they want. That's what happens in some books (usually fantasy books where the author just keeps going about the area surrounding the characters. Or non-fiction biography books. If not written properly, they can be very boring.)
Why do we read books? Because we find their topic interesting. Because it's homework. Because we have nothing else to do. If the book doesn't give you what you want, don't you want to stop reading? This is a sign of impatience and being picky.
Other question:
"Humanity is losing its ability to be alone with nothing but our thoughts."
So writes Buzz Poole in "The Consequences of Writing Without Reading" in the online magazine Imprint.
What might Ray Bradbury think of the statement? What do you think?
Poole also provides a fill-in-the-blank sentence that invites readers to engage his exploration of the theme. Complete the sentence yourself, read the article , and then post your comments in the forum.
"Wanting to write without wanting to read is like wanting to _____ without wanting to _____."
Answer:
"Wanting to write without wanting to read is like wanting to paint without wanting to use paint."
Honestly I disagree, but that's only because I like spending hours thinking. When I can't find anything to do, I sit down or lie on my bed and think. About what happened at school that day, what a person said to me, how much I laughed at lunch, what I drew in art, the plot of the story I'm planning, whatever. I don't know what other people do, so I can't speak for them.
I think Ray Bradbury would agree to this statement. Not only in Fahrenheit 451, but also in his short story "The Pedestrian" which we read last year: he's always creating worlds where people are stuck to the TV screens and are arrested for walking outside at night, or they've lost their ability to have opinions on things. People in Fahrenheit 451 were also always watching TV, and talking about how cool their new wall was. The burning of books took away peoples chances of reading others opinions, and knowing different opinions on things makes you think! Also stories in books turn the creativity switch on in our brains! Without reading you can't get inspired! Without reading you won't know what or how to write. You won't know how to draw, you won't know how to argue. You won't know how to think. I really like Ray Bradbury's approach on this. He predicted the future!
I read a lot. I've always read a lot. And I write too (but I usually get bored of the story and never bother to finish it. or my co-author abandons the story but that's another thing). When I'm thinking characters walk into my mind. I like developing the idea and making it into a story. If I didn't read and think so much I wouldn't even try.
Ahh I feel like I've gone off topic. READ BOOKS, PEOPLE!
And here's a little something to cheer me up:
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