A Simple Life

Should we follow the moral taught by realistic novels like the distinguished piece of literature by Saul Bellow, Seize the Day and the thrilling book by Gustave Flaubert, A Simple Heart? It depends on each one of us, our opinions and ideas, like everything in life revolves around the difference. It is trail and error what life is about. for whom we owe acquiring knowledge and the satisfation to fill our human curiosity. The seeking to seize the day resembles the idea to live the day as if it is your last, but does it really benefit you in any way? Feeling the stress of having to take advantage of this last day must not be very comfortable. And crying for the meaningless life you have lived will not help much either. Tears will dry and will not change anything, only your eyeball color (and your mascara will be ruined). For this same reason we should simply do as our hearts tell us, not our minds. At the end it is easier, but practice is needed. Practice is essential for everything, even subconsciously, like repeating things to yourself, with enough practice you will believe what you are saying. Following karmas can be very useful sometimes, as long as the unnecessary thoughts are wiped away from your mind. This is the key to open up your heart and receive the peace from inside.
Using the heart as a guide is the simplest way to achieve happiness. Like Gustave Flaubert’s A Simple Heart which is a great example, with practice, obstinacy, perseverance and a great amount of faith, a human being can get rid of any obstruction in its path and achieve happiness. For instance Félicité, a woman with an admirable character receives the gift of a simple mind and a devoted heart. Even though she has experienced tremendous disgraces (starting with the loss of all her family), she faithfully persists in the goodness of the people. A remarkable person, getting to die with a smile on her face even though her life was worthless, should never be forgotten. We must seek for happiness to make our lives worth the pain.

Methods to Seize the Day

To be able to seize a day, mastering the feeling of love, nurturing your intelligence, and banishing perturbing memories are some required skills. Without forgetting the most important one, to learn the best way to live life, a skill that can only be taught with experience. A character who is learning this lesson is Wilhelm, a fotry-aged man who I am the most sorry for. Hi life can't be worse, his wife hates him, he doesn't live with his family, he is unemplyed, did not finish school, and his father is well-known and he is a nobody. In one day his whole life is demonstrated through phone calls and memories. the search for the key of a happy life is this the moral and the only opportunity the dead man at the end of the novel has given the character to seize the day. The only opportunity to make the day worth something, at least a tear. Saturation is the word for the amount of shame I feel for Wilhelm, at least he took the opportunity to live life.
Anyway there are so many combined thoughts that it can be summarized with this quote,"I labor, I spend, I strive, I design, I love, I cling, I uphold, I give way, I envy, I long, i scorn, Idie, I hide, I want." (page 111) Usding this tool to represent the worries and troubles of so many people that on that same day are actually experiencing. I would like to emphasize the use of love, just for the reason that this is the strongest feeling humans can experience. Even though this novel talks mainly about one unique character, love is always present. It is there implicitly simbolizing the heart, which does not always love but the opposite as an effect of love. This can be a reason why love is present everywhere except in the novel, The Crying of Lot 49 where sex steals the place of true love. Working, for instance, is an effect of love for your family and for your confort, your social life and finally yourself. Actually these are the reasons to love money, created from labor. In a couple of words, love and money help you live life as good as it can be and it can be done in just one day.

Try to Seize the Day

Picture yourself in the middle of a crowd walking through 5th avenue as the mob pushes you from side to side. Loitering smells and stirring colors mix in the air. It is here, in the middle of New York City where the novel written by Saul Bellow depicts the daily life of a man facing his own failure. Feelings inside the author gather to create Tommy Wilhelm the unsuccessful actor whose dreams crashed at a certain period of his life. A period marked by ten decisions that changed the course of his life. The worse thing is that these decisions where taken without any kind of supportive ideas or explainable reasons. During this special day he keeps remembering his unwanted past. During this few pages he describes the encounter with Maurice Venice, the first step to Wilhelm's disastrous life. The sensible details of each scene make of this book a close reality of the human heart.
“I was too mature for college.” Can this be called satire against oneself ? This declaration explains the immaturity of the character itself. Falsity, lack of confidence and a great way to hide mistaken decisions, are few of the characteristics of Wilhelm. The main character goes through a period of crisis which his own childhood cannot describe with all his problems, like divorce, unemployment, etc. His desperation turns to indignity and humiliation. Nevertheless he conserves an inner peace with himself. The detail in each memory awakens human emotions. Aimed for the reader's emotions this book becomes a masterpiece of reality.
Profound thinking and questioning take this character to the deepest spot in the human heart it is this that attracts the reader. “Listen, everywhere there are people trying hard, miserable, in trouble, downcast, tired, trying and trying. They need a break, right? A break-through, a help, luck, or sympathy. ‘That certainly is the truth,’ said Wilhelm. ” (page 18). It is this style of phrases that touch the majority of the people, because probably they are experiencing it also. Around the globe people suffer for thousands of reasons, and Bellow finds the best way to summarize it all in just a couple of sentences. There few pages made me feel sorrow for the unlucky things Wilhelm have to overcome for his stupid decisions. In any case, Wilhelm never takes a reasonable decision, it is his fault foe being where he is now. This feeling resembles the movies. I feel so sorry for Venice and even more for Wilhelm although it is a fictional character. I really hope this book will not continue with this fooling of emotions.