Story Lab Week 6: Tedx Videos- One side of story and fictional vs real emotions

The Danger of a Single Story

When watching this Tedx video that features Chimamanda Ngozie Adichie and her view of a single story being told and how we base that knowledge of our perceptions of the world. This is very interesting in that you can truly see the beliefs one person has of any culture or of any one thing in particular by looking back on what they were exposed to. If you look at her example of her moving to college and meeting her roommate for the first time and how their encounter transpired. 

Personally I think that this is an issue that is seen all around no matter where you are brought up, that from a child you are brought up in a certain way with your families values and what the family views as right and wrong. Even if you look at old philosophies this trend as already been documented as a thing that has been watched and observed, when looking at rationalism- where a person is said to learn from "a priori" (prior to experience) experience and they base all knowledge off of what they have learned before hand to experiencing something else to rationalize what is right or wrong. 

Imaginary Friends and Real-World Consequences 

Jennifer Barnes does a really good job at bringing up a really good point as to why we can connect to fictional characters way easier than our real life figures. I feel that Barnes could have done a little better in actually discussing a more factional reason for why this is. However, just from experience of having these feelings toward fictional characters, I think its really due to the recency of the feelings that are develop toward those characters or people. With fictional characters you are bonding with them right there in the moment and you have no control of what is happening to them so you show more empathy to the characters. Where for real life lets say your immediate family members, yes we do show empathy and sadness for them but we are with them at all times. With our family members we have a closer connection that we can see and control in the real world and I feel that desensitizes our feelings toward them as time goes on. 

Source: Quote Fancy

Video Sources: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrWYQjLLbXcjPshEANsTgZZHDnBQt7N30

  

Reading Notes: Mahabharta Reading Part B

- at first the brothers and the one wife are summoned to the kingdom that they were banned from

- asked to gamble basically for the rights to however should have the best palace whether it's the brothers or the brothers uncle

- in my opinion the brothers are cheated out their palace when they gamble on the dice game, but it was also their fault for continuing to bet when they were just losing every round

-the brothers ended up losing everything in the bet and were forced to become their uncles slaves in his palace

- the uncle started to feel bad for them after one of the elders talked to him, so he gave the brothers back their palace but kept everything else

- then they were summoned back to their uncles palace to gamble again because their uncle now got scared that the brothers would regain everything they lost and come back to kill him and the rest of the people that supported him

- and once again the brothers lost everything and this time they were forbidden to reside anywhere except the forest and they were to stay there for twelve years and one more year unless somebody noticed them

Horses talked about in gambling
Source: India Today

Bibliography: R.K. Narayan, "the Mahabharata". Source: Textbook

Mahabharta Reading Part A

-We have two characters that fall in love, the wife only has one condition on the marriage and that the man can not question anything that she does on her time
- The couple has a kid and the mother drowns the child in the river
- This trend continues until the 8th child is born 
- 8th child is allowed to live only because it was the rebirth of the person who granted the wish of the curse for the other 7th children 

- Some character is flying overhead the water and he drops some semen in the lake and it is received by a fish and this fish had two kids a girl and boy
- The boy is taken and the girl is left to live and be raised by a fisherman
-We meet a the characters of the girl who is raised by a fisherman and the fisherman won't allow the marriage of her unless she gets to take the throne 
- A proposal is given and the marriage happens 
- Since the fisherman agreed to the marriage the woman's stink of bad fish was removed 

- Meet Bhishma
- Satyavati given in marriage to the king
- gave birth to two sons
- Chitrangada and Vichitravirya
- All the sons are taken through training 
- Bhishma took care of his family
- Bhishma renounced thrown
- Chitrangada was proclaimed king
- haughty ruler but for a short time
- waged war against Gandhari and killed in battle
- Bhishma put Vachitravirya on the throne
- since he was young, Bhishma was regent
- All the brothers are forced to leave the palace and find refuge somewhere until it is safe to return home 

Representation of Bhishma
Source: Global Fashion Street

Bibliography: R.K. Narayan, "the Mahabharata". Source: Textbook