Sergey Kazakov: The Lotus Eater

Sergey
Why did Thomas Wilson choose to live a life of happiness and what were the consequences?

Somerset Maugham in his novel "the Lotus Eater" has aroused old philosophical question – how to live ours lives? Great majority of us, despite being unsatisfied with our lives, think that it could be only one way - as it goes. But only few of us are really trying to change it, to take our fate in our own hands. Is it possible to reach this goal? Author analyzed this not very common situation in example of Mr. Thomas Wilson, an absolutely ordinary person, who seems to be one of us. Mr. T.Wilson had tried to solve this problem by cutting off all boring things of his life. He took all advantages of time for preparation his "happy life" – he analyzed the situation from different points of views and made his decision in absolute agreement with his desires. But despite Mr.Wilson’s reasons to live a "happy life", his approach could not be regarded as absolutely successful.
Although this question had not been discussed in the novel in full details we can suggest that it was only one of many possible ways to build up a "happy life", which in the biggest way was up to Mr. Wilson’s personality and suit his mentality. His dull life in grey smoky London, his everyday boring duties went in contradiction with beauty and splendor of southern Italy – gorgeous nature, lovely weather, friendly people and atmosphere of leisure and joy. According to the story this occurred not long after his wife’s death and maybe it was his first visit abroad. He was charmed, fascinated! An other reasons which influenced his decision, had to do with his character – he was selfish. Even his daughter’s death did not disturb him a lot; despite the fact that he spoke about his wife with respect, he did not felt any remorse because of her early death; he hated and despised his mother-in-law. He was an ordinary man, "common place", as S.Maugham characterized him, without any bright abilities and without any tiny will to achieve something which needed a scruple of efforts. He did his work only for living – the only one thing which he mentioned during his long conversations was remark that he needed 37 minutes to reach his work by walking. So this ordinary, unsatisfied, unambitious person without any close relationships in the whole world had chosen his own way of living – he decided not to struggle with obstacles, but to cut them off, to build up "happy life", which totally consist of pleasurable things.
Full consequences of his decision became evident not so fast. At first he was quiet happy with his life – all had moved in accordance with his plan. He enjoyed food, his tiny living place, small measure of pleasures such as books, tobacco and wine. He did not allow anybody even women to disturb his peaceful and quiet existence. I suppose that during this period he was quite happy in his own way. But as time passed his troubles began. And the main problem was the lack of money. Consequences were dreadful –a once respectful man became a "vegetable". He lost all his dignity, self-respect. The finish was expectable – death in the dirt. I even felt a relief that this had occurred at last – it is difficult to see a man without any trace of humanity. We feel that it was reasonable – T.Wilson was not able to take into account all consequences of his idea of "happy life".
But can we be sure that it was the only one possible way of events? No. We can imagine that he would be wiser and he would not be in such kinds of troubles. Would he be successful with his idea in this case? Can "happy life" be built by this method? The supposed answer should be "No". When you are cutting some troubles from your life, other ones became troubles which you had not regarded as troubles before.

Wang-Tai Lee: Think Before Choosing Home Schooling

Think Over Before Taking Home Schooling

In the ancient time, education stemmed from home; people learned things from their parents and siblings while farming, hunting and cooking. Being dissatisfied with that, people went to churches, wizards’ places, or some wise men’s houses to learn more. Schools, therefore, were developed gradually. They have played a great role in civilization history for thousands of years. Until recently, again, people were dissatisfied with the school systems, and some children are being taken out of school. Home schooling is becoming an issue in the education arena. Still, I never think home schooling is a good idea for three reasons.

First, a huge sense of alienation is widening everywhere because of urbanization and computerization, and the idea of home schooling will worsen them. People made conveniences of the inventions of modern technology in their lives wind up isolating themselves from the society. In addition, most of the families have one or two children now, so the kids are very lonely and isolated at home. However, human beings are social animals; both individual’s success and civilization developments depend on effective team works. A nice teamwork depends upon nice people skills. Thus, it is a good idea for parents to start looking for peers for their children, and even a little bit peer pressure in classroom is becoming useful for children’s growing up under such circumstance. Actually, schools provide good places to train children and practice team works. Home schooling doesn’t have such functions.

Secondly, political and economic stability depend on some major ideas, and home schooling cannot help to build them up. Those ideas such as majority rules and respecting minority, rule of law, team works, among others are necessary and extremely important. Without them, no government, company, international organization can operate efficiently; besides, the people in developing countries will keep suffering from dictatorship and despoliation. Those ideas are easier to know than to do; therefore, children need to be trained not just taught. In another words, in order to build up those basic ideas, our children need to be trained in schools for years through many different kinds of classes. People can learn some ideas in groups not just by one-on-one teaching method. Schools are the most supportive system in this world and can hardly be replaced.

Thirdly, the need of home schooling will be eliminated gradually because of the changing methods in schools. There are two main reasons for home schooling; one is the common use of modern IT (information technology) at home; the other is the unity teaching components in school. Now, distance education can provide flexible places and flexible time for teaching and learning activities. Moreover, school systems have become more varied. More and more schools allow different classroom philosophy so that parents can choose the most suitable one for their children accordingly.

As a matter of fact, our world is becoming a global village; globalization plus urbanization put a lot of strangers and foreigners together in the same community. School systems are one of the inevitable venue for parents and students to meet together. What’s more, there will be a device letting us to carry whole library’s knowledge in our palms; we can get it almost instantly by just using one finger only. Therefore, everyone is knowledgeable in the foreseen future, but I still believe the diverse schools are even more in need instead of none at that time.

Bessie Chan: Wilson's Choice

Wilson’s choice (by Bessie Chan) Date:12-10-2007
In W. Somerset Maugham’s story “The Lotus Eater”, Thomes Wilson decided to follow a life of pleasure but he confronted a sad ending. Wilson, a commonplace bank manager who had boldly taken the course of his life into his own hands, decided to have his early retirement at the age of thirty-five. He chose to live a life of happiness for twenty-five years on the beautiful Capri. At the age of around sixty, he committed suicide unsuccessfully and died six years later. He, on the whole, got what he deserved.

There were a few reasons for him to make this decision. First of all, he had great passion for the beauty of nature and happiness. He fell in love with the little island of Capri at first sight when he was having his summer holiday at the age of thirty-four. He also realized that “Leisure” was the aim of his work and his life. In addition, he had no one dependent on him any more. His wife had died when he was thirty-one. His kid went to live with her grandmother. The only one that he was responsible for was himself.

The consequences of his choice were amazing. He chose to live a life of happiness for twenty five years in the beautiful Capri. He had his own little place to live. He had a servant to look after his house work. He had leisure life to read a great deal on all sorts of subjects. He had time and patience to play piano. He had enough money to enjoy tobacco and wine.He had energy to walk on the mountainside in the moonlight, He had the serenity to enjoy the beautiful scence of Capri…. However, he faced a sad ending in the last few years of his life. When he was sixty, his annuity expired. He managed to hang on borrowing money from others for something over a year. Afterward, he could get no more credit; no one wanted to lend him any more money. Then, he committed suicide by burning charcoal in his tiny badroom. He was found alive and was taken to the hospital but finally recovered. He, no longer in his right mind, “endured to live like a hunted animal for six years”. He was found dead lying peacefully on the beautiful mountainside after a full-mooned night.

As said by the author, W. Somerset Maugham, “on the whole we all get what we deserved”. Wilson got what he deserved too. He lived the excellent life while he still had the capacity and the vigour to enjoy life. His passion for the beauty of nature was fully satisfied. Life offers happiness to everyone in the simple and natural things, and he successfully found it. He had attained his only objective of life-his own happiness. He was such a wise man that had enjoyed happiness, which very few people know where to look for and fewer still find it for twenty-five years. In my opinion, the only thing that he might possibly have regretted was the moment he hesitated after he committed suicide.