We are aware, just don't care

“I worry that our lack of contact with the sky is doing something to us that is very subtle.” (qtd. In City Dark) As the human race, we are constantly changing. From new technologies such games and entertainment to common luxuries and necessities, we are gradually and continuously flowing into new shapes of living. I don’t think we’re unaware of it. It’s kind of like getting a new flat screen. You get it and bask in its newness, the quality of the picture, and compare it to the old box that used to take up the place upon the living room table. And it’s more convenient! You even have a remote, so all you need to do is sit on the couch and watch along-side your family, no sending off a child to switch the channels, only relaxing. You’ve had it for a few years now, and the kids (instead of playing outside) are still planted on the couch, but you don’t mind. Like some kind of ritual, you plop yourself next to them and sit for hours, not really taking in the fact that you’ve spent the last few years staring at the rectangular object. But you know.

Having so much light is a similar luxury. It’s obviously convenient, and the more we have it, the more productive hours we have. And like the old box TV, we ignore what used to be and accept what is now. This changes our way of thinking too. In my opinion, the TV has made people way more unproductive than they’d like to admit. Losing the night sky is like losing some kind of religious and spiritual connection with the universe. Seeing the cosmos is like a reminder of how puny we are, and is supposed to smother our pride. It’s not really a bad thing actually. If less people believed that the universe rotated around them, they’d have more respect for things like nature and other people. This shapes a person’s character, which is what we should want for our future generations.

 

I don’t think we can really stop it though. It’s a type of problem that, with age, becomes more and more difficult to control. In today’s society, it’s common that a city would only have less than ten stars out at night, and unless it is desired differently by the masses, then it will continue to stay that way. But maybe that would be the solution to solving the problem. If someone would find a way to make the night sky much more appealing to people, even to those who live in the city and have seen that meager four or five stars a night, then the world would be more motivated to clean itself up. I don’t know how that would be possible, because anything associated with goodness, cleanness, and nature is immediately distasteful for the younger generation, but there may be hope yet.

Parenting and Punishment

In Stephen Dunn’s “The Arm” and Sharon Olds’ “The Clasp” poems, they dwell into the themes of child-parent relationships. They both dwell into it, yet in different perspectives of parenting and punishment.

In “The Arm”, the narrator is strolling alongside a pond at a park when he came across a doll’s arm. He pondered over the arm, like he would do with other objects he’d find when walking his dog, and went beyond the fact that it was lost to rather how it had been broken off. He imagined the doll had possibly belonged to a boy whose father had broken his doll to better influence the boy into playing with more masculine toys. The imaginary father hated his son’s decision to play with dolls, and felt it necessary to punish him, but despite the boy’s doll being violated, he ended up loving much more. The boy felt for the broken doll, possible because he had received the same harsh abuse by his own father just because of his preferences pertaining toys. The father, in this case, felt an importance of forcing his opinion on his child for the sake of himself and his pride.

“The Clasp” is an entirely different story. The parent-child relationship is the main story, and instead of being an uncomfortable relationship, the mother and child are affectionate and loving towards each other. The narrator’s daughter was pushing her son, who was still a baby, onto his face for the second time when the narrator harshly clasped the daughter’s hand in a firm grip. She held it tightly for a moment until the daughter understood not to ever, ever, do it again. The daughter had obviously never felt such malice before by her own mother, and was astonished beyond words that her mother had used such force. The narrator had a far better motive than the father of the previous poem. She had to definitely make her daughter understand the seriousness of what she was doing with her other child in mind.

“The Arm” is about a father’s desire for a perfect child of his standards, and punishes his son to make it so. “The Clasp” on the other hand is not about preferences but an essential action that would protect her son from suffocating by the hand of his sister. Both are different examples of how parenting can occur, and they deliver themselves as bittersweet or cruel. Parents can have the best of intentions, for themselves or others, but it depends on the parent and situation.