She posted just today to tell us what book she was and I decided to take the quiz myself:
You're One Hundred Years of Solitude!
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Lonely and struggling, you've been around for a very long time.
Conflict has filled most of your life and torn apart nearly everyone you know. Yet there
is something majestic and even epic about your presence in the world. You love life all
the more for having seen its decimation. After all, it takes a village.
Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.
Ironic, ‘it takes a village’ is one of my least favorite phrases, I think it’s complete bullshit and it negates personal responsibility... but that could be a long and winding discussion... Anyhoo, what else was I going to post but the results of a silly internet survey thingie... now off to read my horoscope and finish up The Secret... which, by the way, is a revamping of both traditional prayer and old Wiccan / Strehgeria beliefs, but I’ll digress...
6 comments:
Catch-22 for me.
this was a fun one! I am trying to get it posted now (having to learn about the coding at my new site!)
I did it, I got my book posted on my new blog! I think you'll like it!
I posted mine here. I wasn't exactly surprised by the result.
I'm A Prayer for Owen Meany. But I retook the quiz, answering 'hot' instead of 'cold' (because my preference can go one way or the other depending on the season and my ever-changing mood) and got 'Love in the Time of Cholera,' so we're sort of author buddies, aren't we? In more ways than one, I mean.
That 'Takes a village' quote is open to different interpretations. I see your point and know that there are people who use this to get out of making painful parenting decisions and taking ultimate responsibility for their kids, but I see this as a reminder to keep an eye out for the welfare of others' kids, to do what you can to help them, when possible. Not to become en loco parentis, but to see yourself and other like-minded parents as useful members of a greater parenting scheme. I've always loved Colin Powell's story about growing up in a quasi-rough neighborhood; how there was a network of 'aunties' who kept an eye on him and other kids to make sure they went to school and stayed out of trouble.
Jeez, I do go on. Sorry.
Hi Guys,
Glad you enjoyed the little bloggy diversion...
Mary,
You know, I agree with you, but I think I kind of take it for granted that you're supposed to watch out for all of the kids around you. Like Colin Powell, I grew up in a neighborhood where every person in a five block radius knew me, and more importantly, had my mother's phone number... you were much more at liberty to be 'out on your own' because there were so many safe zones if you ever got in trouble...
I know, logically, that a lot of people today have fallen away from that and don't watch out for anyone else's kids... it's the reason our kids can't have that same kind of freedom. But, when I hear the phrase, "it takes a village" it's generally not spoken by someone who spends their time watching out for their neighbors... it's spoken by those who think others should take responsibility for them - there's a difference....
"It takes a village" has political connotations that I'm not comfortable with. You can't mandate decency, if it's mandatory it's no longer a moral action anyway... So when I balk at the phrase, it's not from any kind of personal view that I wouldn't help or look out for a neighbor, it's from the view that someone telling you how to act socially is as far removed from freedom as one can get... and when you mandate things like that you diminish the very real pull most of us have toward being good people for it's own sake... you can't erase the bad in the world by mandates... but you can create indifference in taking away people's moral freedom.
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