MaryWright

This is a really good article, especially for a writer like me who finds fiction to be such an art, such a great experience when I feel it’s “working” (I’m talking about me).

“What unifies these principles is the assumption that creative productivity is attained by doing more; be proactive and your muse will reward you accordingly.” – This is a very good point. I didn’t think about it this way before, but I’m glad you pointed it in this article. You must work for your creativity, these methods say, not to just let them come to you. Which is, I think, what your main focus is, when connecting ideas of Zen to writing? That you should do the opposite?

I also like the Alan Watts quote about clouds. Whatever you do, it doesn’t matter that it ends up in disaster – it’s something that you do, and that’s all. That’s you. I haven’t heard of him before, but I certainly will research more about him, now.

This is a great article. I knew of how I Love Lucy established norms of the housewife, but I wasn’t exactly aware of its use in promoting consumerism! Being a college student now, I only know of vaguely about the names of shows of Roseanne, According to Jim, and the Mary Taylor Moore Show, so it was a fantastic opportunity for me to understand the gender constructions and general plotlines of those situational comedies as well. If we can ever get over ideas of the gender roles that the myth of the gender binary, and establishment of patriarchal society has drilled into us, and the sexism and misogyny that has come as a side effect of its normalization, we can move on to the fact that gender isn’t man or woman, but a spectrum of gender identities. Anybody can do anything. The fact that we’re stuck in what we’ve dealt with (specifically on television in the case of this article by Nilab Ferozan) since these 1950s situational comedies, change doesn’t come fast. But white people don’t brag about currently having slaves, and same-sex marriage is a thing, so maybe we’re on our way.

I think, for fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Zaheer was the most menacing. He was taking what a guru had said, right out of the temple where the descendants of Aang reside, and does what Tenzin, Aang’s airbending son, could never do: be one with the spirit world, so intensely, to eventually “Let go your earthly tether. Enter the void. Empty and become wind.” (“Enter the Void”, Book Three: Change, Episode 12). He could communicate with his team, even while in the spirit world and talking with Korra at the same time, and eventually was able to float above the ground.