https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/53364/i-allow-myself

“I allow myself” by Dorothea Grossman. “I allow myself” is about her breakfast every morning, and how good it is, for instance “the eye-opening properties of eggs,” which is a sentence that brings to mind eggs. Perhaps fried ones, or diced ones, or even boiled eggs. It does this for every part of her breakfast, all to describe a point. This point being ‘Everyday you choose whether or not you do the thing you want to do, and if you stuff up the selection, the world will burn.’

The point of the poem is that everyday you must make the decision about what you will do each day. You could end up deciding to do nothing about what you enjoy and become depressed for the rest of the day, or you could do what you want to do, but then you get to watch your life crash down all around you. In any case, I will now analyse every part of the poem to see what each bit means, and how it connects to this overall point. And I will also mention multiple solutions to the problem of not being able to do what you enjoy because it is too destructive.

“I allow myself
the luxury of breakfast ”
This is the first line of the poem, and also the title. The first line is talking about the person allowing themselves to do something, which can get rather difficult depending on what we are talking about. For instance, it could just be what you are going to eat for breakfast, and allowing yourself to choose something new, or it could be allowing yourself to go to sleep early, and not stay up late reading and stuff up your sleep schedule even more. These simple ,small decisions, are easy to make and won’t really cause anyone any kind of trouble, so they are easy to allow. But then there are the more difficult ones. For instance, perhaps you are depressed, and you just don’t want to care about anything anymore. However, it would be difficult to allow yourself to do that, since you’re supposed to care about things. So allowing yourself to stop caring and just accept that your mind is as it is, is difficult. Another one that would be seriously difficult for anyone would be enjoying something you enjoy, without holding back at all. Particularly when there are multiple small things in the way normally. I mean, everyday you will do the same thing, and always just ignore that one amazing thing you want to do because it is: too expensive, not possible, a treat for when you do something good, something you just aren’t allowed to do. And so, you allowing you to do that one thing would be difficult, even if you truly enjoy doing it. And let’s not even get into the whole ‘not allowed to express my enjoyment over doing something because it isn’t cool to do so.’
In short, the first line is describing how allowing yourself to do something is a conscious decision you have to make, and it is not always going to be an easy decision. And the second line is talking about how for the author of this poem has something she won’t let herself enjoy, which is, she won’t allow herself to enjoy a good breakfast. I can’t claim to know why she wouldn’t let herself enjoy breakfast, but that is how it is(Might have to do with religion, since she said the line “(I am no nun, for Christ’s sake)” which makes it seem like she use to be, which stopped her from having a good breakfast for whatever reason.)

“Charmed as I am
by the sputter of bacon,
and the eye-opening properties
of eggs,
it’s the coffee
that’s really sacramental.”
Just read all of those lines, imagine the breakfast in your head! Clearly, it is a good, no, a great one, something anyone can enjoy. And every part of it is important(Although she clearly likes her coffee more than the others), no part of her breakfast can be missed out.
This is what it means to be doing your favourite thing, truly enjoying yourself over the whole thing. And you can tell that she was, seeing as she was “charmed” by bacon, had her eyes opened by “the eye-opening properties of eggs”, and even thought that coffee is sacramental. All this is something that can only happen over something amazing to yourself, something you have to let yourself enjoy. And the important thing to notice here is that she is letting herself enjoy breakfast. She is doing the thing she enjoys, and she isn’t stopping herself from enjoying every bit of it. I wonder if you can do the same thing?
Basically, this part of the poem is describing what it is like to actually enjoy something in your life. My point from it is that I wanted to make sure that you as a reader knew what I meant when I talked about enjoying yourself. Without this, you might end up with the idea that just doing what you enjoy means that you are enjoying yourself. This isn’t the case. You have to actually ‘enjoy’ yourself, focus on every bit of it like the author did for her breakfast. That is what it means to enjoy yourself, so keep it in mind.

“In the old days,
I spread fires and floods and pestilence
on my toast.”
This quote is describing what it is like for those who think that the thing they enjoy is only a destructive past time, something they can’t do because it would damage everything. Perhaps they even did it anyway. And because of this, you can’t allow yourself to enjoy the thing you want to do since it would ruin your life, or perhaps it even has been already. This is a problem that is difficult to solve, I mean, how can you? Lets say, just as an example, that you as a person are fascinated with the idea of killing another person. You’re just so darn curious as to what it would be like. But you know that it would be a terrible idea, I mean, you would feel so guilty, or even if you didn’t, all of the legal problems! You can’t allow yourself to do something like that, what do you do afterwards? And then the next problem is figuring out what to do with your life, when the thing you really enjoy, is something you can never experience.
From the authors point of view, all this bad stuff is in the past, something that doesn’t need to be thought about anymore, and really, is all just a bad memory. We can see this when they say “In the old days,” which makes it seem like that this rather bad sounding piece of toast was only made before this poem was written. Which is a good way of thinking, as it allows you to stop caring about it and develop your own point of view.
Then there is my point of view on this quote, or at least, the idea of how to get past that feeling of not allowing yourself to do what you really want to do. The way I deal with it is to endure it. If you wait long enough, it has to disappear at some point, right?
Another solution is in the next paragraph and it appears to be a lot more constructive than my solution. You should probably go with that one. It would certainly have more of an effect than my one, and in a good way too.

“Nowadays, I’m more selective,
I only read my horoscope
by the quiet glow of the marmalade.”
And this quote describes the other solution I have come up with for this problem. And it follows the first line of the quote, “I’m more selective,” which is to say, she selects some parts of what she enjoys and focuses on that. Like with her breakfast. Instead of having all of that “I spread fires and floods and pestilence”, she’ll just have “by the quiet glow of the marmalade.” Which is still breakfast, just without the bad bits(If you like marmalade, and if you don’t, I would prefer a piece of food over a flood). And you can do this with other things too, like with the one I mentioned earlier. Just play a video game or something, it has plenty of killing in it and you don’t need to worry about the consequences. Basically, if you can’t let yourself enjoy something in life, find a different way to enjoy it.
Oh, and another thing I need to mention is how when she says selective, she is saying that she selects what to eat for breakfast each morning. There is a wide range of options to pick from, and she decides what it will be from all of them. So when you decide on how to divide up what you enjoy into something different that you can do, you can pick different parts of that for each day. Like, play a different video game each day or something. Basically, everyday you choose whether or not you will do the thing you want to do, or not. And now, everyday you can decide what part of what you enjoy to do. Like, for that person who just wants to kill something, well, they can play a different video game each day, and enjoy each one of them.

“I allow myself” by Dorothea Grossman is a interesting poem that describes the luxury of breakfast, and how it can often be difficult to enjoy something in life. We talked about how it can be difficult to always let yourself enjoy what you want to do. Then we talked about how the author could actually manage to enjoy what she did, in all of its full glory, which is something that doesn’t happen all that often these days. After that it was about different problems that could come up if you enjoy yourself, and a ‘solution’ to that problem. And finally, it was the solution the author came up, to select what you can enjoy, and enjoy it to the fullest, which sounds really helpful and like something I should start doing.
Thank you for reading this, and I guess I will recommend this poem to all people who have something in their lives that they refuse to let themselves enjoy, but are yet to even realize(Yeah, you might not of even noticed the fact that your holding yourself back from truly enjoying some things in your life. Honestly, you should have more fun in your life!)

I can’t remember what I was planning from last term, and that plan is really messy, so…lets do something new!

1. Analyse how language features were used to reinforce or challenge a point of view.

Analyse how the narration of Death was used to challenge our idea of what Death is like.

World war 2 was an absolute nightmare. However, from whose point of view can we possibly describe it all? With this novel, we can use the concept of Death to describe the horribleness of World war 2, and in particular how terrible it is to have the people around you die.

We start off with an introduction that explains what happens in the book thief, then move onto a paragraph that introduces our well written point. Then a paragraph to explain one aspect of our point(lets say how Death views the death of people), then another paragraph(All of the deaths that Liesel has to deal with), and another paragraph(What Death thinks of world war 2 and Liesel) before putting everything into the conclusion that will sum up the meaning of the last 3 paragraphs before this.

“The point is that as World war 2 is full of death, we need to figure out what it means in the book thief to die, and the only one we can use to figure this out is Death and his job of narration.”

By the way, this is a good point, unlike the other one that needed to have so many words to convince others that it had worth.

 

So my plan is to convince everyone that dying isn’t good, in an effort to convince everyone to live a little longer than others.

 

 

4. Analyse how language features revealed the writer’s purpose in the written text(s).

Characterisation

personification of death

symbolism of colours, books, nazi flag, hunger, words, characters

imagery of weather, colours, events (Jesse Owens incident)

Planning for this question:

This question basically allows me to use any particular symbol(language features) to talk about anything Liesel might of been trying to do, or whatever I say the authors aim was. This means I could use any symbol to talk about anything. Like an event(World war 2, the situation of the Jews), or the character Liesel(Why is Liesel important, how does she affect the story, what does her life mean to us, the reader), or perhaps any other character, as long as it is talked about in a way to change the readers view, and that it is written like that was the author’s purpose. And since this is the book thief, it might be possible to talk about what people meant to Liesel since she did write a book that the book we read originates from.

Let me just say this again, characters are a symbol, they symbolise all of the things that happened in Nazi Germany. As long as I focus there, all is good.

How the narration from Death gives us a view of Liesel’s life that no other point of view could give. (The point to achieve is how important Death is to the text; how irreplaceable he is; the importance of Liesel to Death; how any other point of view could of changed the text completely.)

How the books that Liesel sees and reads changed Liesel into a completely different path on life, which changed what the book could of ended up being like. (The point is how each book is very important to both Liesel and the story; how if any one book wasn’t there, the story would of been quite different; the point behind the book thief is to tell us what it might be like to live in Germany during world war 2 from the eyes of a little girl, and that the books that this girl reads is just one symbol to tell us what it was like.)

How the purpose of the book is to showcase how all problems that people face was caused by humans, and how the proof for that is with how people were written into the story. (The point is simple, that all our problems are caused by humans. The important part to take note of is that to prove this point, we shall be using how each person lives their life, and how all the problems in that life, or the problems they caused in their life; will be used to prove how all the problems we face originate from humans. Like how Tommy Muller is bullied by people, his ear infections started from being left out to freeze by people, he was beat up by Liesel because he was smiling for her victory in a fight that was started by people. Or how Death wouldn’t have to work seriously hard between 1938 and 1945 if it wasn’t for people. That kind of thing.) (I know that thinking all problems were caused by people is a bit of a tunnel vision of the whole thing, but still. Most of our problems exist in some part due to people.)

How colours in this book is used to describe the world of “The Book Thief”. (The point of this is how Death usually sees a different colour in the sky every time he picks up a soul, and how each of these colours mean something different. And because these colours are repeatedly used throughout the story, we can use them to explain the story, and in turn, our own world.)

 

Now to talk about the exact point I want to make and why. Personally, I have used the ‘Humans cause all our problems’ in the book report for the book thief. And even if it is a pretty good point, I have done it before…which is something the markers probably won’t know. And because of that, lets do that! All of the other points are fairly good, but I personally think the best is that one. Or at least, I can write the most for it, and with a different proof than to my book report.

Structure:

Introduction/overview of story, point I want to make stated, first person/group of people, second person/group of people, third person/group of people, conclusion based off of all this/reverse introduction.

People I could use:
Rudy, Hans, Rosa, Liesel, Tommy muller, Adolf, the thief’s group, the school teachers, the people who tried to take away Rudy, the bullys, Death, Max.

Point: Symbolism – How characters represent various problems in Nazi Germany in 1939-1945

Rudy: Hitler Youth and bullying from Franz Deutscher only could happen in that way in Nazi Germany.. Jesse Owens Incident and how that would only happen in Nazi Germany.

Problems are caused because Rudy rebels against Nazi control.

Lets see, Rudy has problems caused to him through the bully, and through Germany/Hitler, and then there is how he caused problems for others by stealing from people (Nazi Germany), cutting line, that kind of thing.

Hans: Painting over the rude words on the Jews window. Saving the Jew being pushed over on the street. All problems only in Nazi Germany.

Problems are caused because Hans rebels against Nazi control.

Hans life is just full of different problems that he endures somehow, although it is better than what either Liesel or Max went through(Arguable); he never causes a problem besides when helping other people out, causing him to get in trouble with the Nazi’s.

Max: Jews being persecuted, him rebelling against this. Hiding away to stay alive while everyone else hunts him down. All only possible in nazi Germany.

Problems are caused because Max rebels against the persecution of Nazi control.

Rosa is nice and never really causes problems, although she can shout and swear all she likes, she is still too nice to cause problems; her own problems are the same as everyone else’s. Liesel’s life is full of problems that we all know, and she causes problems through her stealing and being nice to others. Tommy has problems from constant twitching and not being able to hear, caused by being left in the freezing cold too long as a kid, he causes no actual problems. Adolf Hitler did some bad stuff; not talked about if any problems were done to him, but clearly something must of went wrong to dislike everyone but his own race that much, I guess it would be his heritage from his ancestors which caused this. The thief’s group stole food from farms; there were no problems caused to them besides not having enough food. The school teaches were pretty darn rude to Liesel, and so caused some kids to end up getting beaten up(Although they probably didn’t realize that would happen); their problems are the same as everyone else.The people who tried to take away Rudy caused problems in the way that were they nearly got Rudy to go too was pretty much a death sentence; problems to themselves is having to do that kind of job. The bully’s that I forgot the name of is pretty darn mean, and causes problems for Rudy and Tommy again and again; problems to him is having to live in Nazi Germany where they suffered from food shortage(Not to say other countries weren’t like that, but they were all problems caused by humans).

Death: Having to watch on as Nazi germany causes massive amounts of suffering across the world and within the country itself. Having to pick up the souls of EVERY SINGLE PERSON who died because of Nazi Germany. All of the mental trauma’s caused by this is because of Nazi Germany.

Death has problems in the way that humans are dying constantly, and he has to pick up their souls, and this is in the millions(A self named, but completely correct, miracle worker); he causes no problems, he just watches as humans stuff up everything, and cleans up afterwards. Max is the representation of all the problems Jews faced(Besides the whole dying part); the only problems he causes is imposing on the Hubermann family, which they were fine with.

So, now that I have written the basics of each of these people, let’s choose 3, with 1 back up in case I need an extra point, or one of them becomes unusable due to not having enough information. (Have to remember I am describing how each character was written into the text, not what kind of character they are, although I will include that too). So: Death(I did a lot on Death, somebody who can showcase all of humanity’s problems from outside of humanity, so a great point of view to prove my point), Hans(Hans suffers a lot, but still deals with it, and even goes so far as to solve other people’s problems; in general, he is written as an amazing person in a terrible situation), and Liesel(Yeah, I know that everything is about Liesel, however she is the main character who we know the most about, and she is written with plenty of problems already). The back up character is Max(Great guy, made 2 pretty interesting books, but mainly is the fact that him being written into the story was done in the sort of way that his very existence is caused by other people’s problems, and that him ending up in Himmel Street for such a long time was a mistake too, and also him leaving).

So, Hans is first, to showcase how a normal person leaving their life, could in fact have many problems. Then Liesel to show another person with their own problems too. Or Max instead, so as to show how his entire race had a problem caused by Hitler; although I need to make sure I stay on point. Then Death, as the final to prove everything once and for all(And like they say, leave the best to last).

So, shall we begin? No, we shall not.

P.s Quotes will be done during the writing since at the time I will know what quote is needed the most.

 

Oh yeah, there were different methods to fix, and cause problems. Like words, or the usage of paint. Perhaps even the colours of the night sky can be included? I just have to make sure I keep to the point.

 

1. When I think of a person who steals books, I think of someone that doesn’t originally own many books, but likes to read, and so have to find them somehow. Or perhaps an international criminal who breaks into museums to steal books specifically. Not necessarily a bad person, I always just wondered why someone would bother stealing books. I mean, we have library’s, so either they don’t have access to those, or they want to be rich through books specifically.
   Now, in terms of Liesel, I have to say that she was in a position were she didn’t have access to books, and so had no choice but to steal them. However, her reasoning behind it will be more important than just “wanting to read”. So yeah, her reason is different, but still fits the character of the first one.
2. Next is a description of how messed up a kid will get when someone suffers from the things Liesel did. To be exact, not knowing your father, your mother abandoning you, your brother dying in your hands, with the only way to remember them being a photo and a book. And then being left in the care of some foster parents that you have never met before. Basically, anyone would of went near insane from that kind of suffering, right? Like, how do you deal with all that. As a child she would be withdrawn, with constant mental suffering and nightmares, never able to find a distraction from her memories, which will be constantly fading as she gets older(and would you want your only memories of your family to fade?) Now then, her goals will be at first to find her mother, try and get her back. After that fails, then read the book, which is her only memory of her family. So, yeah, like how the book goes. Oh, or she could of become depressed and not survive beyond a couple of years. I mean, with that kind of suffering how do you not?
   And problems in the future will be dealing with nightmares from the past. Or the many, many, traumas she will face.
3. First off, Han’s, you are amazing. You brought back a young girl from the brink of insanity. Like, I understand Liesel is a strong minded girl, since she did manage to get through all of that stuff, but still. You used a single book to save Liesel. Next, books are important to Liesel for a few reasons. I have explained each individual book before, so lets put this simply, and connect it to what I already said. Books are the tool for keeping Liesel sane. If you have something like that, then you will want to keep a hold of it. I mean, why get rid of the thing that kept you sane? And also, something to do with words can be used for good and evil. I think that was from when she began to notice how the words other people use can hurt people, or save people. Some words destroy everything, and other words keep someone sane. Perhaps around the book burning time? That was the time she realised many different things.
4. Rudy! He is a good kid, going to miss him. Even Death will miss him, that’s how good of a kid he is. Anyway, he is the best friend of Liesel Meminger, and one of three people who didn’t care how stupid she is(Han’s, Rosa, and Rudy, Max isn’t there yet). They became friends, and did everything good friends would do with each other. And of course, to Liesel, this would of been great. This is somebody who treats her as a kid in her childhood. You know, she gets a thing in her life that matches everyone else’s. But then, who would’ve thought that Rudy would want a kiss from Liesel. And for Liesel, well, why?! Why would she want a kiss. With everything that just happened in her life, there is no way she would want to have romance at that point in time. And so, this would affect her in the way that she will never want to have any sort of romance with such an insensitive person. So she vows she will never kiss him as long as they both live. And her vow does become true, too, so you know she is serious to her vows(Just kidding, that was a bad joke. ALthough she can keep a promise surprisingly well for a young person like her.)
   Oh, and if they weren’t friends, then we would be reading the story of a depressed, withdrawn, teenage girl later on in the book. She would always be at home, with next to no good memories. I mean, okay, so that is the case, she is withdrawn, and she doesn’t truly trust anyone. But, you know, at least she went outside, right?
5. Max Vandenburg, someone from a group of people who all suffered things even worse than what Liesel had suffered, from one point of view. And so, when Liesel meets Max, she discovers the fact that her life isn’t the worst. This would of been a shock, as it will show to her that there are other people out there, who are still alive, and sane, who have went through even worse situations than her. And so, after learning about the suffering that Max goes through, it will help Liesel go through her own suffering, as she knows if it is only this much, it can be dealt with. Oh, and Max is someone she can confide even more of her thoughts too, unlike Rudy or something. The reason being that, well, who is Max going to tell? He will understand what Liesel is going through better than anyone else, so of course Liesel will use him to unload all of her concerns, and the same for Max too. And that will lead to a very good friendship, were you both suffer together.
6. Why does Liesel steal more and more books? Is it because she finished her last book, and wants to read another? Is it because she just likes stealing? Or maybe it is because she knows how powerful words can be, and so wants access to more. Like when Hitler took control of a country through the power of words, and convinced them to go to war with the rest of the world. So yeah, after witnessing something like that, of course she is going to want more words in the form of books.
7. And Liesel, somehow, got a good ending. She lived in Australia, with children, and grandchildren(If you view that as a good thing), and she even got to see Max again. She lived a successful life, with probably a few more problems along the way, but that is just how life is. And so, assuming she did live a good, fulfilling life; what does this teach us, the reader? Well, it teaches me about how even people who go through a terrible beginning can have a good life in the end. And it also proves that happiness is a thing everyone can have if they survive for long enough. I don’t know what it teaches other readers though. Maybe that childhood sucks, but other people had it worse, but still didn’t let it hold them down? Or maybe that Death likes colours, with a chocolate brown sky being one of the best, and with a clear blue sky being another good one. Or perhaps all you got from this book is that you thinks the ending ruined it. Well sir/madam, I say, this book is great. Really shows you how life can get better even from the worse point, as long as you survive. And if you dislike that ending, then you disagree with that point of view.(Just kidding, if you dislike the ending that is your problem, not mine.)

“The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” by Oliver Sacks, is a book that describes a few different patients that Oliver Sacks has had over the course of his work. These descriptions each describe the problem the patient faces, how Oliver reacts to these problems, and then how the daily life of the patient proceeds to be like. Then there is the postscript that has anything else that has to be noted, or anything else that needs to be learned, like if there have been any new patients suffering from the same problem. And, of course, the entire time there are plenty of questions that he wonders about which might get you wondering about their answers.

I would recommend this book to those who want to not only learn more about problems that occur with people’s brains and nerves, but also to those that want to see a view of the world through the eyes of people who see it completely different to us. And honestly, it is quite an experience, which is sure to get you thinking about everything in a new light.
Although it gets a bit annoying when he begins to talk about the brain in detail, while using all sorts of words that make little sense to me. I just want to put up a warning that many things will be difficult to understand if you don’t have sufficient background knowledge. Like a rather large vocabulary, and a basic understanding of the brain and the body’s nervous system.

I shall focus on the first section of the book, ‘Losses’. For the section “Losses”, we get to read about people who are missing something from their lives, like particular senses, or parts of their view of the world. With this section, we can begin to wonder what it would be like to live in a world that is completely different to our own view of it. The reason being that these missing parts have something to do with the brain. The brain controls how we understand the world, and so if the brain starts doing things differently, then the view of the world will change. And as we are reading about those people who have had their brains change in rather ‘interesting’ ways, we can try to catch a glimpse into these completely different worlds. Below will be my views on how these concepts of the world affect us, and how they changed my understanding of reality. Or at least, what got me thinking a little.

Imagine if you were to find yourself in some random hospital, with old people all around you. Then this doctor like person begins talking to you. And of course, you will ask why you are there, right? Well, I wonder what you will think when that doctor says that they have lost count of how many times you have said those very words. And then they proceed to hold up a mirror, showing some random old guy staring right back at you. Wouldn’t that freak you out immensely? Probably would for most people, so I guess its a good thing you won’t be remembering that for long.
For this point I wanted to explain to you how terrifying it is to forget. And how interesting it is to wonder what you personally would think about it. For one of the patients of our author, we get to see someone in this very situation. They have forgotten everything after 1945. Well, more like their memory regressed a few decades at one point after too much drinking, until they reached this point in their memory. This lead to said memory loss, and the inability to make new memories. And so, they are left in a ‘home’, which will take care of him, and other, older, people. I won’t go too much more into detail, but basically, he is fine here. He becomes more ‘animated’ when talking to his brother(Although he thinks his brother is aging kind of fast), and he is also happier when staying at his old house, with his family(Although it sucks for a couple of minutes when he is dropped back off again, since he thinks his wife is abandoning him in a place full of strangers). Now the interesting thing here is what this made me think of. Which is to say, what would I do if I learnt that every few minutes I forgot everything. Like, still got my current memories, but no new ones can be made. Well, the possibilities were few to be honest. Either get depressed over how my life will never develop in any direction. Or begin a document(Or continue it) that will detail my every thought, and everything that is going on. Like, anything I find funny, or interesting. The point being, this document will fill up over time with all these different, and interesting things. And each of these things, I will never of heard of before. It would be like reading over a life of some other person, with the same ideas as me, just that I haven’t thought of them yet. Cool, yeah? These are my thoughts on what I would do. So now here is a question for you: What would you do in this situation?

“She knows it intellectually, and can understand, and laugh; but it is impossible for her to know it directly.” The next point I need to make, is that this is your brain which is missing something. YOU ARE YOUR BRAIN. Your entire consciousness is affected, and controlled, by the way your brain works. And as this is so, if your brain is missing some important piece, then how the hell are you supposed to tell?! The quote I started this point off with pretty much says what I want to say. You are intelligent, or at least, if you can read this, you possess the ability to understand things. However, that doesn’t mean you truly get it. Like if I was to try and explain puberty to a 7 year old. They would say that they get it, but they don’t. Not really. They haven’t experienced what it is like. They have never experienced it, so it would be near impossible to understand what it would be like. And it is the same if you lose something from your brain, or if something stops working. Your entire concept of that thing is gone. You will be like that 7 year old, who can understand the idea behind it, but it is still something outside of your reality. The only saving grace for this kind of situation is that if you posses memories of it, then it could be fixable. But if even your memories of it are gone; or changed into something else; then you might never be able to experience it again, as you won’t know if what you just thought, or did, was that thing. And, okay, this whole paragraph here is something that has always been in my mind, it is just that this book brought it back up with that quote. The idea that something central in my brain(Or maybe someone else’s) could be missing, and I would never know. And if no one ever told me, then I would never notice. I could end up living my entire life, with no idea what that one thing is. And so I mention this here, in the attempt to get you to understand that not everything is understandable. Our brains can only do so much, and they could easily be missing something important, or not so important. There is nothing we can do about this, except question others as to how they see the world and compare it to our own views of it. And then marvel at how different some people’s worlds are.

Okay, so now we can do something a little different. Imagine if one day you go to have a surgery, to remove some kidney stones or something like that. And then you begin to feel a bit odd. And, you fall unconscious. the next time you wake up, well, your fine, but you have no idea what is up with your body. So obviously you try to get up, but you fail to move as far as your concerned. However, to the others around you, your body is flailing about, with no idea where it is supposed to go. Now what am I talking about? This patient had some of their nerves in their spinal column irreversibly damaged. This lead to losing her ‘6th sense’. That is, the ability to know where each of your body parts is, even when you can’t see them. Without this, you can’t do much at all. Like, you can’t walk without constantly looking at your feet. And even then, it will require you to relearn how to walk, as you won’t know where your feet are if you don’t look at them. So what do you think about this? Actually, have you ever spared the time to think about this sense? You should, it is really important. Sure, your sense of balance, and your other 5 senses are really important, and they can make up for it(Spare the time to think about them too). However, they can’t replace it. Sure, they get stronger, like how a blind person can have super hearing, but I still am going to want to keep my eyesight. So yeah, think about it. Without this sense, your life would be so different. So you should think about how important it is to you, and how annoying it would be to not have it.(Apparently the patient in question had to convince herself that was even her body, as she didn’t really know if it was. I mean, how do you prove it? It won’t do as you want unless you look at it, so how do you know if it is even yours?)

And finally, let us talk about phantoms. And even more interestingly, hands. And even more interestingly, corpse legs. Phantoms being where an amputee has lost a limb or something, and begins to imagine that part of their body still exists. And the hands is where 1 person never used their hands, leading to not even seeing a point in them. And the corpse leg being when people think their leg is someone else’s, so they kick them off the bed, only to fall out with it. So let’s get to the point of this paragraph. That is, do you really understand your limbs? Is it you controlling your limbs, or is it your brain convincing you that your body is your body? The first point to prove this is the amazing fact that there was a patient of our author who hadn’t used their hands for 60 years(They were 60 years old). This left them thinking that hands were as useful as ‘a lump of clay’. And so, this story continues on, to show her how useful hands can be, in the way that you can feed yourself. And then, you can touch and feel other objects, and learn what they ‘are’. Ended up turning out she is a pretty good artist, with great ability to sculpt. This patient got me wondering about ‘what if we never used one of our body parts?’ Would we end up the same as her, not knowing what the point is in that body part, and just keeping them around us because we don’t know what else to do with it? Anyway, the next point is the corpse leg. Some people have been known to fall out of bed every now and then. The reason why they did so is because they found the leg of a corpse in their bed, and so in their panic, they threw it out of the bed. Then, they found themselves falling out of bed. And all the while, this terrible, ghastly, leg is still there, still freaking them out. In their panic, they might notice that this leg is attached to them, making them think that someone attached someone else’s leg to them. All the while, not even noticing that they are missing a leg. What this got me thinking about is ‘What do we do when we forget about a limb we still are using and have on us?’ Is it possible to forget about a particular body part, and assume that it is someone else’s? And finally, phantoms. That is when someone has lost a particular body part, however the person themselves can still feel the body part, can still sense where it is, and what it is doing. Interestingly enough, for people who have to use a ‘replacement’ arm or leg, these phantoms can be really useful, as it allows you to use that body part without having to look at it constantly(Reminds me of that women who lost her 6th sense. Like she lost her body phantom, and so couldn’t sense her body any more.) This gets me wondering about if it is possible to remember and use a limb you don’t even have anymore. In any case, all this draws me to the conclusion I wanted to make about limbs, and in general, your body. Your body is something you don’t own. Your brain sets up all this information that allows you to believe that your leg is your leg, and that it still is there and exists. So when it doesn’t exist, well, your brain still thinks it does.  And if your brain comes to the conclusion that your leg doesn’t exist, well, clearly that lump in your bed isn’t a part of your body, but somebody else’s. And in the event that you never use your legs, like, at all, then clearly your brain can only come to the conclusion that your leg must be useless, and so it is basically just a lump of clay. What I’m trying to get at here is that your brain decides if your body is your body, and so if your brain decides that it isn’t, then too bad, you don’t have your body. And if it thinks it is your body, then good for you, you have a body, even if you really don’t. And the only thing you can do is trick your brain into thinking something different if you want that limb back, or not at all.

“The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” by Oliver Sacks, is a very good book. Just the first section alone, and you can already draw so many different ideas, and world views from it. Like what it would be like to lose the ability to make new memories. Or how your brain is you, and deciding to change it is near impossible, as impossible as describing colour to a blind person. Then there was the idea of what it would be like to not own your body anymore, and the revelation of how your brain controls all the data for your body, so it is not you that you need to convince about it, but your brain. However, there are so many more things I could of talked about, like the concept of the abstract and what sight has to do with it. Or how an entire view of the world, the very concept of left, can just disappear. Oh, and I haven’t even begun on the other sections of the book.
In the end, this book is really quite good. Read it, I guarantee that what I have so far said hasn’t even begun to spoil all the new ideas you stand to gain from reading this book.