Reading: Zlotchov

Though there were aspects of this reading I found agreeable on a whole I did not like the tone of this author. It seems like throughout this passage Zlotchov is trying to belittle the reading. He is constantly emphasizing how small and insignificant humans are, and those who think they are important are even less so. He also defies one of the greatest minds of the enlightenment, René Descartes, who said, “I think therefore I am” by saying, “Thus if they think they exists, they most certainly do not.” (157) This a can’t agree with at all. Existance is one think that I believe in absolutly with the same logic that Descartes did. If I am able to question my own existance then I must exists.

I didn’t like the overtone of this reading, but there were a few sections I still found agreeable. The very last line was very powerfull, “ Like a drop of water fallen into a great sea and is one with the waters of the sea and cannot be recogniozed as aa separate thing.” The fact that if we are broken up we are indistinguishable from the rest of the universe the same way a drop of water is from an ocean made a lot of sense to me. This reminds me a lot of the Hindu way of looking at things as all the same.

The last section I wanted to talk about was where we discus time and its perspective. “…how can they be great, when one night they exist and the next night they die? Their days are like passing shadows…” (157) This is a perfect example of the relativity of time. To an entity that has and will exist forever one day would seem like an instant, and an entire life would be over and done in the blink of an eye. To us it all seems very important, but to a divine being I imagine the definition of “great” would be slightly diffent.

I liked this reading, even tough I couldn’t agree with a lot of it I felt like it did give me perspective.