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Post by Rylee Wenzel on Jun 30, 2024 23:37:11 GMT
This idea of a “search” to make life more meaningful was interesting to me. It almost gives me this sense that if you’re not aware of the search, you might actually be more peaceful. If that makes sense. Sort of like an “ignorance is bliss” type thing. It seems that Binx becomes discouraged and exhausted with life when he worries about what it’s all for. When he chooses to just live and be content, he seems happier and less stressed.
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Post by Dr. Nemmers on Jul 1, 2024 4:14:07 GMT
Oh, for sure Rylee--- good catch here. I think "the search" is supposed to be set against "everydayness" and the "malaise" that he sometimes experiences. If you're feeling like one day is like the other and you're feeling mundane, just go on a a search.
(For what?)
I'm not sure. And Binx certainly doesn't know, either.
One interesting thing I pulled from the secondary article for this week is the following quote:
A “proper Bolling” is a “go-getter” (43). Kate recognizes that Binx, like his father, is not a “proper Bolling.” “[t]oo much fellow feeling” makes him “nervous” and “uneasy” after too much time with good boy Stanley Kinchen (206, emphasis added). The same social expectations that threatened his father threaten Binx’s selfhood as well and manifest as an environmental threat in the form of the malaise.
Binx is not, in other words, a "go-getter." He doesn't even know what he's trying to get, much less how to go and get it. I guess the question that Rylee brings up is if one might be more at peace if they chose not to search. But is that really a choice? Can one just give up the search and settle into the everyday malaise? That seems to be the "societal expectations" that people (namely his aunt) have. We'll have to see what happens by the end of the novel...
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Post by dianarmartinez on Jul 2, 2024 19:53:42 GMT
This idea of a “search” to make life more meaningful was interesting to me. It almost gives me this sense that if you’re not aware of the search, you might actually be more peaceful. If that makes sense. Sort of like an “ignorance is bliss” type thing. It seems that Binx becomes discouraged and exhausted with life when he worries about what it’s all for. When he chooses to just live and be content, he seems happier and less stressed. His coping mechanism is to ignore but is it necessary in a good way. I agree that sometimes not knowing certain things help the individual feel better. However, it might just be that he was not taught the correct mechanism to cope with certain events in life. People can become avoidant because they do not know what to do with them. They become overwhelmed just thinking about making choices that have consequences. Like you said, "discouraged and exhausted with life when he worries about what it's all for." To me sounds like he did not learn to make choices because everything else in his life has been chosen for him. For personal development being ignorant or avoidant better for the sake of happiness?
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Post by connorswauger on Jul 3, 2024 1:20:48 GMT
I like that you mention the Search because Binx kind of comes at it from both attitudes. In one way, he wants to break the routine of everyday life and find the “wonder” but he also wants to stay in his routine when he reluctantly accepts the Chicago invitation.
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Post by Rylee Wenzel on Jul 4, 2024 1:44:59 GMT
I really like Diana's notion that maybe he is not ignorant just avoidant. It completely makes sense that if he was not taught healthy coping mechanisms and given the right tools to succeed, he would stress himself out over something like this "search". I think it is a normal part of life to contemplate the choices we have to make and also to worry about the consequences of the choices we might make. I think Binx could possibly fall into this category of being avoidant rather than ignorant. As Diana said, everything else in his life seems to have been decided for him.
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