A Bold Destiny (Candide Chapters 1-5)

What most highlights in the novel is the way in which it is told. It is an uncommon way to narrate a novel since everything that is important, or at least important changes, are told in a brief way as if to not give them importance. It can be inferred that the material and physical life of Candide is not what eventually matters, but his actually mind an senesces towards the world and situations. He describes events as passing by, and fortunes of time: "After being turned out this earthly paradise, Candide wandered off without thinking which way he was going" (Candide 22). As it is axiomatical, Candide has just past from living in "the most beautiful and delightful of all possible mansions" to wandering off into the streets of uncertainty. It is a small sentence making a big change.

Amazingly enough, in Candide, free will and liberty are mentioned prematurely in the first pages of the novel. This is obviously because, Voltaire was most famously known as an Enlightenment writer, in which he expresses the indispensable needs of civil liberties.

So reflecting this in Candide, he evidently shows the opposite of free will when Candide is charged in the Bulgars court because of running away: " It was useless to declare his belief in

Free Will and say he wanted neither; he had to make his choice. So, exercising that divine gift called Liberty he decided to run the gauntlet thirty-six times"(Candide 24).

Voltaire expresses with this that their is no actual Liberty, at least not in the world he lived in.

Ultimately, as I expected to find, this novel contains somewhat of a satire tone, since it employs irony in a serious manner, after Candide finds Pangloss, and tells him about the destruction of the mansion: "As for the house, not one stone was left standing on another; not a barn was left, not a sheep, not a duck, not a tree" (Candide 28).

Irony is seen as the mansion is remembered as a beautiful place, and the reader looses hope as Candide is kicked out of it, but this actually saves his life. So he is saved by a bad scene, and also as the beautiful home is destroyed, with its integrants, brick by brick.

What We Materially Take For Granted (Epitectus Sec 25-30)

We often omit the simple, but valuable things in the courseof life. We omit them because we think of them as insignificant and as non-important. One of the most common misconceptions is when a person is not invited to a "banquet", as Eptectus refers to it: "Indeed you have something: you did not praise some one you did not wish to praise, and you did not have to put up with the people around his door" (Epitectus Sec 25). So as he wisely refers to this, is that we often do not see, that we win or loose something in life. If you are not invited to a banquet, you do not loose at all, since your attention is not diverted from yourself towards the obnoxious host. You save your attention, it is not wasted. Anyways you are prived of the banquet, but the ones who attended it, had to pay a price, that you still conserve. 

In a higher state, obviously regarding people, humans we tend to do the same thing. When we brag about being fair to the neighbor, and understanding the neighbor it is actually facetious, because we really do not feel any pain or true grief, because it has not happened to myself, it is only the neighbor: "Someone else's child is dead, or his wife. There is no one would not say, "It's the lot of a human being." But when one's own dies, immediately it is, "Alas! Poor me!" (Epitectus Sec 26). Unfortunately, this is true, we will never feelanother person's torment, for it does not lie in our mind, in our hearts, in our souls.

The Face Of Reality: A Time Traveling Letter, An Idea

To my friend Robert Frost:

Dearest comrade, I should question your acts of free will, no further since you have taken the correct path. You understand how the will in a human being works, and you comprehend the path that roots in life. You have explored the boundaries that the human mind undertakes under a lifetime's pressure to take the correct will or path in life, assuring that there is actually no free will. We can't stray from the path. We can choose different and dark ones, but it will always be on a path be it rocky or smooth. 

Robert, your poem "The Road not Taken" explores these possibilities to their maximum. You have achieved understanding of my text, my handbook. 

Farewell good friend, and keep on writing the way you do.

Truly yours,

Epitectus A.D 55.  

Let The Horror Become The Common (Epitectus sections 21-26)

As Epitectus goes on enlightening us with his knowledge about how virtues in a man can change and as well his points of view. Everything can be seen with different eyes. so focusing on this, Epitectus mentions: "Let death and exile and everything that is terrible appear before your eyes every day, especially death; and you will never have anything contemptible in your thought or crave anything excessively" (Epitectus Sec. 21).

Not many people realize how true and significant this is in a human's life. It would completely change the way people viewed death, hence changing the morbidness and darkness about dying. It is actually a simple excercise more of the mind and conciusness than of anything stronger such as the soul or anything resembling it or any divine power.

You just have to understand, and picture life without that person, or object. It works, by making death or actually anything that upsets you into something daily and common, like taking a shower. We don't get scared every morning of getting our skin wet, because we do it every day, and we know that our skin and hair can be dried up.

This is the same. Death can also be dried up. Maybe not with a towel, but something poetically resembeling it. If you entertain any thought for a correct amount of time, the craving of it becomes a routine, hence not wanting it and desiring it as you prevoiusly did. It is just a routinary mind game, that only does the simple task, to help you get over death.

Indiosyncratic Judgement (Epictetus Handbook sections 1-20)

What Epictetus makes reference is actually true. "What upsets people is not things themselves, but their judgements about the things" (Epitectus). I would like to open with this, and specially about death. It is often that we see death as a bad thing. In this, Epitectus has a point. we don't know what happens after death, ther is no reason for us to refer to death as a dangerous and frightful word. Maybe after we die, there is some kind of Paradise, and all the way long, we have been daring to die. We tend to view everyhting that we think "bad" will always harm us. 

Epitectus alludes mainly to this: "Remember that what is insulting is not the person who abuses you or hits you, but the judgement about them that they are insulting. So when someone irritates you be aware that what irritates you is your own belief (Epitectus). 

What does he really mean by this? Is it really true that what they say is not really what hurts, but rather the attitude,the tone, and the voice? It is is your own belief on irritation, because what is actually irritating you, is the fact that that person is yelling at your face, or punching you for any kind of reason. So it means that our brain is actually telling us: "Hey, this guy is abusing me", and so this is the reason it bothers you. 

It is the simple fact that they are actually abusing or hurting no matter what. 

"Remember that you are an actor in a play, which is as the playwright wants it to be: short if he wants it short. If he wants you to play a beggar, play even this part skillfully" (Epitectus). 

So what this means is that even if you are asinged by God-or destiny any job, you might as well do this right. Any job, be it simple, or humble must be done correctly, with the best efforts in mind. Mediocracy is not accepted. You are asigned a street sweeper, and there  is nothing you can do about it. You might just sweep the street the best you can do it, so at the end of the day, you feel satisfied that you did a good job, even when you are just a street sweeper. It is amazing! To feel satisfaction even by doing a cheap job. Yes, it is possible. You don't have to be the president to be satisfied, you just have to be yourself. 

In the end, life is how you judge it, and how you interpret it. It's a book full of messages. You can interpret anyway you please, and anyway you feel is what you want to percieve.