"The One" & "The Moor"

Seeing as how I skipped last weeks blog I'm going to include The Matrix, Daosim, and Othello. For starters let's talk about The Matrix and Daoism. As mentioned in class, it's amazing to see how similar the themes in The Matrix are to Daosim. First off, the matrix itself is thought to be a world which one must experience before it can be explained. Morpheus straight up tells Neo that he must "walk the path" to understand it ("the path" also coinciding with Dao or "the way"). The Oracle is so conscious of the matrix because, spoiler alert, she is a program and thus realizes that the matrix is not reality. This can be said of those who believe in Daosim; such people reject this reality because they have walked "the way" and thus  understand the truth about our own reality.  Neo also goes with the flow, which is a fundamental theme within Daosim. One example is when the Oracle tells Neo he is not "the one". He realizes that his place in the universe is not that of the one and instead Neo chooses to follow his new destiny as an ordinary member of the Nebuchadnezzar. I could go on, but we pretty much covered the majority of points in class.

Now onto my thoughts on Daosim. Trying to leave all of the philosophical, and analogical phrases aside, I would say that Daosim is essentially a religion based upon following the "tune" of the universe while simultaneously finding your place in it. Like we discussed before, "The Way" is much like water. It flows here and there with its own direction and momentum that influences the objects around it. "the way" is very similar to other religious experiences where many believers will tell you that you must experience a particular feeling, emotion, moment, etc. Like I said, we pretty much got this down in class (or did we?)...

On to Shakespeare. First off I'd like to say that Othello should be named Iago. Iago is responsible for most of the changes in the plot, much of the manipulation and simply has many more lines than othello, but thats besides the point. Something interesting i found within the reading was Iago's jealousy of the adultery that supposedly occurred between Othello and Emilia. My first question is: could Othello actually have slept with Emilia? To me it seems unlikely. Othello seems quite loyal to Desdemona and seems to be quite in love. However, no actual proof is given within the play that Othello does NOT sleep with Emilia. My second question is: why do we consider Iago to be so evil? I would be pretty upset to if I believed that my wife had slept with another man, and that that other man had denied me a well-deserved promotion. But much like other "villains" we have encountered in class, what is considered evil by some is usually a majority opinion that differs with that of the antagonist. But hey, if society didn't have differing views, then we wouldn't have villains, which would me that we wouldn't have stories such as...well...pretty much every story. I would like to point out, however, that if Iago was a super villain his super power would be manipulation. He is literally an artist in deceit and manipulation. He understands the differences and weaknesses in separate individuals and uses those weaknesses against them while also benefitting himself. 

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