Cake and Grief Counselling Will be Availible...

Sick. I hate the phenomenon and it happens seldom enough that I have difficulty coping with the inactivity and mandatory stupidity. There are some things that help me cope. Oddly enough, books do not help me very much when I am actually sick. I can read, but retention and comprehension are minimal. I read the prologue to some interesting non-fiction last night, but my head hurt by the time I had finished an introduction to the commonalities between Epaminondas, Sherman, and Patton, and I went distinctly foggy.

In dire straits like these television is actually of some small use to me. But greater still, video games.

My stupidity is enough to render my strategy games a challenge, but not impossible. The best games for these deathbed moments are FPS and action type games, one in particular standing out. Portal. I find myself chuckling at the promises of cake and other "enhanced truths" told to you by your little guide. It has to be the most innovative game I've ever played. Amusing.

Catching Fire. This one was, I thought, more predictable than the first, but immensely satisfying none the less. The writing is just as good and the story advances. Toward what it advances, I know not.

My mother touched on something that separates this book from the majority of dystopia and makes it seem plausible, realistic, and not nearly so hopeless. When you think about the norm, the rebel is usually an intellectual, someone whose ideas and characteristics neatly mirror those of the author. A sort of conceited and inaccurate view of human nature and behavior. The lone intelligent hero stands against the machine, the people are sheep plodding along, too stupid to know they are slaves.

In Catching Fire the people, the hoi polloi, are the ones who are fighting back against the oppressive system. And so it is throughout history. Reform and revolution tend to come from the masses, not the brilliant, daring, attractive, genius type who sounds rather like the author.

I guess my complaint and malcontent with Dystopia are caused by the assumption that the working poor would always be sheep, easily enslaved and lead to the slaughter. Even if death was the only alternative, I have a feeling that a large portion of humanity would choose death in an attempt for freedom over a long life in bonds. Who knows though; I could be very wrong.

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