Personal Philosophy

Kedar Sudhalkar

American Literature Honors, Block 3

Fujii

April 12, 2014

Personal Philosophy

            The only way to truly have fun in life is to relax. Most people bustle through their day without relaxing, hurrying from one task to another. Others are so driven by work it is all they can think about as it consumes every waking moment of their day. It is important to relax, kick back, and do what you want to that is not related to anything productive. The key to this strategy in life is not simply relaxing, but getting rid of stress. Once you reach the level of understanding in which you realize that if something bad or not positive is happening to you or around you and you cannot change it, there is no point in worrying about it. Reaching that level of understanding about life and your surroundings is key to having a happy life. But there are limits and restraints that must be followed. When most people hear this philosophy of mine, they assume I take it to the next level and care about absolutely nothing and do not care about anything, which is simply not true. The balance is to have the drive to do what needs to be done while at the same time understanding your own limits as a human being and not pushing yourself to the breaking point.

            Up until midway through sophomore year, I was not like this at all. In fact, I was the complete opposite, doing every homework assignment when I got it, even if it was due a week later, stressing over assignments and grades way more than I needed. It made me a lot less happy as a person than I should have been, although it did not seem that way. However, I realized in the first semester that it was not a good thing to be that way. I let a little loose, followed the example of some of my friends. Some of them were bad examples to follow, but the idea they had was a great philosophy if it was dialed back to a manageable level. As it turns out, I dialed back to much, but corrected it as best I could. Understanding the principal of no stress is difficult for most people. Stress comes from things like worrying about school and work. Understanding that the big test you took will not be graded faster just because you hope it gets graded by tomorrow is a massive relief. If you cannot do something about a situation, you should not worry about it. Another thing is thinking about cost effectiveness of attempting something. Most people go all out on projects and spend huge amounts of time and effort, stressing out as they do so, when in all honesty it is not needed. Examples of this are evident everyday in school. When I hear a friend was up for hours late at night to write a simple rough draft of the intro for their Grapes of Wrath essay, I just think to myself; why? There is a difference between effort and too much working. Another example is APUSH notes, when people take over ten pages of notes, and I usually take none to about two pages of notes, and get the same or better grades in APUSH. I understand that some people learn differently, but the amount of sleep that people can sacrifice for such little rewards is truly astonishing.

            Although I am considered too laid back by most of my friends, the attitude and approach works for me. I do as well as I want to in any project or class, and what I get I am happy with. Only so much effort can be put into certain parts of life, otherwise they become too stressful and drain your time and energy, for little reward. 

GoW Travel Journal Ch 16- 19 Part C

This poem is from the point of view of a migrant farmer on the highway to California. It is based on the theme of hunger and looks at how he looks forward to California and the great fruit that people talk about in the book.

Cornbread and beans, thick like mud

Salted pork, gritty and dry

Nothing to see but empty blue sky

Stale bread hard as rock

No water, just dust

Is the land California just a bust?

Broken cars, hot smoke

Running low on water

Is California much farther?

Longing for the famed fruit

No end in sight

We will reach California, right?

GoW Travel Journals Ch 11-15 Part B

Route 66

Map of Route 66 in 1930

Route 66 was the popular route through the desert for many people like the Joad family during the 1930s to escape the Great Depression in the suffocating Dust Bowl region. Traversing eight states, it was the main way for migrant farmers and people desperate for a better life to reach California, the promised land for many people, with its large fruit farms and open land. The highway was a long winding route that traveled through large deserts and dry open expanses of land in the middle of the country.

                                       

This picture shows the true desolation of parts of the highway. Dirt roads and vast expanses of what appears to be nothing for miles. The mood of the place contributed to many migrant farmers' feeling of true isolation and depression along the road. Soaring heat during the day and freezing cold in the nights further contributed to one's sense of hopelessness as they fled the worsening conditions of the Dust Bowl.

The happier side of the route were the many businesses and shops that sprung up along the route, indicated by the diner in the picture above, with a gas station and rooms for people to rest. An all in one service station, the place would have made people feel happy as other people in their same situation sat down for a good meal to talk and complain about their similar lives and situations.

GoW Travel Journal 3 - Chapters 1 - 10 Part G

The conflict of man v. machine is central to the plot of the novel. Whether it be the tractors plowing foreclosed fields, or broken down cars sold and exorbitant prices to tenant farmers who don't know better, machines are one of the main enemies of the characters in the book. Machines are large ugly pieces of metal that the farmers, who like to do hands on work, can not come to appreciate or use. 

Perhaps one of the most hated machines are the large impersonal tractors that plow abandoned fields. Steinbeck depicts tractors as large monsters without any emotions or ability to care for the land the way a farmer can. The tractors work is described as; "twelve curved iron penes erected in the foundry, orgasms set by gears, raping methodically, raping without passion." The ugliness and brutality of the tractor is evident in the quote, a beast that knows nothing about the land, or forming a connection to the ground you plow and seed. The tractor cannot fathom such intricacies of a farmers life, of how a man plows his field. All the tractor can do is take orders from the evil and faceless bank, and plow away, "raping" the fields without emotion, carrying on its duty without consideration to what it is really doing to the land.

The other form of machinery that is not necessarily evil but disgusting in the eyes of farmers and of Steinbeck is the car. Used cars in particular are ugly heaps of metal designed to do nothing but spew grease and the bad smell of gasoline and neglect.
"Piles of rusty ruins against the fence, rows of wrecks in back, fenders, grease-black wrecks, blocks lying on the ground and a pig weed growing up through the cylinders. Brake rods, exhausts, piled like snakes. Grease, gasoline."
The "rusty," "[greasy]," and the smell of "gasoline" all contribute to a sense of unease and disgust. The poor tenant farmers, unfamiliar with the vehicles, are taken in and given broken machines in exchange for a lot of the meager amounts of money they actually have. Although the cars are necessary to their survival, it is obvious that the farmers are not and never will be comfortable with the cars, or machines in general.

GoW Travel Journal 2 - Chapters 1 - 10 Part D

Chapter 7 in the book reveals much about the nature of selling cars in the formidable Dust Bowl during the 1930s. As thousands of people seek to leave the inescapable clutches of the dust, they buy any cars they can find. As most of them are just simple farmers, they are not car experts and get cheated by many crooked car salesmen.

The picture above depicts a line of broken down cars. Many people would pay extremely high prices for cars that were worth much less, by mistakingly trusting the car salesmen, who would convince people they were getting quality cars, when in fact they were getting old cars with sawdust in the engines that would hold together just long enough for people to drive away from the car lot.

Cars those days were relatively underpowered vehicles compared to todays engines. A higher powered vehicle of the time was a 60 horsepower engine, while today a low powered engine is considered to be about 110 horsepower. Looking at this link, we can see some specs of cars from the time period. Carrying a trailer full of household items even in a new working car would be difficult, while today most cars can manage a small trailer attached to the back. While cars from the 1930s are admittedly sexy cars, many people could only afford the broken down kind that would only get them stranded in the middle of the highway, just like the tenant farmers in Chapter 7 of Grapes of Wrath.

Grapes of Wrath Travel Journal 1 - Chapters 1-10 Part A

Farming during the 1930s was especially hard in the region known as the Dust Bowl. For the 1920s, farming in the region was prosperous, with lots of rains and a large amount of usable topsoil. In the 30s, the weather turned dry, hot and windy, kicking up massive storms that stripped the topsoil and caused lots of damage to property and farms, destroying people's lives in the process. As the decade began, people were hopeful the weather would return to its original paradise for farmers and the rains would return, however the dust storms got worse, more than doubling in number from 1932 to 1933. An estimated 100 million acres of farm was lost, and dust settled everywhere. People living in this region of hardship depict the impacts from the storms here. One farmer stated that their chickens went to sleep in the middle of a storm because it got so dark. The dust became an inevitable part of life, finding its way into all parts of life, in houses, covering everything, and even getting into the food you would eat. Another farmer tells his tale of trying to buy a tractor to help with the meager farming, but he had to dig it out of the sand and dust that covered it. Houses, farms, and fences were buried in dust piles that were akin to a heavy snowfall of a few feet, the difference being it did not melt, but stayed forever, ruining lives and dreams of a simple farming life.