1. introduction:
- opinion on the book:
- mid
- ending criticized a lot, I liked it
- plotholes yes
- interesting concept for a dystopia
2. main part
- social environment: family, friends
- personal fulfillment
- hobbies idk
- doing nothing for once
- pets
The Marc Moron Show
John Moron’t
Lois Lowry, Book Con in August
Boy Jonas, lives in a distopian perfect colony, can’t see colors Turns 12 and gets job at ceremony, becomes The receiver of memories, gets memories, sees how bland the colony is and decides to free it by convincing the giver to help him escape, during the planning of his escape takes Gabe, who’s Gabe?
After successful escape, treacherous path, planes, open ending
Havard Study of Adult Development
724 men
since 1938 Entire life
Expanded to 1600 Social environment
Fitness Hobbies Sleep Family Free Time Food
transcript
Welcome to the Mark Moron SHOEw, where we interview regular people like you and me. Today I’m interviewing John Moron’t.
Hi, I’m John. I’m excited to meet you.
Nice to meet you too, John.
Today we’re going to talk about life. Or rather, what makes life special, what makes your life livable. And before we dive into that topic, I also want to talk about a book, because today’s sponsor is Penguin Books. And Penguin Books have a very special book written by Lois Lowrie called The Giver. Do you know the Giver? John?
Yes, I’ve read it recently.
Perfect. Well, for those that don’t know, The Giver was written by Lois Lowrie and I met her at BookCon in August this year. The book is about a boy called Jonas who lives in a dystopian but perfect colony where nobody can see colors and everybody is the same. They start at age one, everybody is treated similarly, even if you’re born in the same year, maybe 6 months apart, you’re both still a one.
And once you turn twelve, you get a job at a ceremony. Well, Jonas becomes the Receiver of Memories, which is a very special role in the Community because it’s the only role that is allowed to have memories of the past. Nobody else in the Community these.
So when Jonas gets these memories, the first memory he gets is of a hill with snow. And he rides on a sled down the hill. And that’s how he learns of snow. Nobody else knows of snow because the weather’s always the same for maximum efficiency. And the longer he lives, the more memories he starts realizing how bland life in the Community is.
And then his father gets a boy from the childcare center where he works, or the Nurturing Center, as they call it. And this boy has trouble sleeping, and his name’s Gabriel. And so what Jonas does is he gives a memory so he sleeps better.
But if you don’t fit into the colony, you get killed. Or as they call it, released. And once Jonas finds out what release actually means, he decides that he wants to rebel against the Colony. So he stops taking his pills, which suppress emotions, and then he convinces the Giver of Memories, which gives Jonas the memories that he wants, to escape the colony.
And so together they plan a plan which fails, but he still manages to escape with Gabriel so he doesn’t have to die. And after their successful escape, they have a treacherous path ahead of them where they are searched by planes and they have to hide in the bushes, and they have to walk and ride a bike for kilometers and kilometers. And then they finally make it to the hill where the memory was, and they climb on the sled. They are almost dead, starving, freezing, and they ride the sled down. And that’s where the book ends.
A very interesting book. I definitely recommend you read it. You can get it by Penguin Books for just 5.99 or on Amazon, also by Penguin Books, but I recommend getting it on penguinbooks.com/themarkmoronSHOEw.
What’s your opinion on the book, John?
Yeah, like I said, I recently read it and it is definitely an interesting concept how Lois Lowrie portrays the whole society. But I’ve seen the ending being criticized a lot because it is very vague and feels rushed. I actually kind of liked it, but in general I feel like the book wasn’t quite as good as it could’ve been.
Well, that’s a harsh statement. Why do you think that?
ell, if you take a close look, there is a bunch of things that don’t quite add up and the vision is there, the idea and how the community could work. But I think it could be more fleshed out because the concept of the community is really good. But how it’s executed in the book left some more opportunities.
Anything else? Do you have like examples for plot holes or things you didn’t like?
So at the start there is this story that is told a small flashback when Jonas was a child and there is a jet flying over the community. And I think that’s one of the aspects they could have or the author could have made more interesting. Because to me, this was like a thing where I thought, well, they’ll come back to this because everybody in the community is shocked that there’s a plane because normally planes aren’t allowed to fly over the community except big carriers which bring resources from time to time, but not jets, for obvious reasons.
So there is an announcement that the pilot is released and it’s just someone that came off their path during training. But due to the nature of the community this is immediately not really believable to the reader. And that’s like a little thing that bugged me during the whole book and I was kind of sad that I didn’t get back to that.
Yeah, interesting. Well, Penguin Books offers lots of great books. So if you don’t like this book, there are hundred other books. Maybe read the original 1984, it’s a great book also published by Penguin Books. And thanks to Penguin Books for sponsoring this episode of The Mark Moron SHOEw.
But now let’s dive into the actual topic of this episode and that is what makes you happy? In the case of Jonas, what made him happy or rather what maked his life un-livable was the lack of emotions and feelings, especially love, the lack of colour, methaphorically and literally and a lack of freedom. One of the great American dreams.
What makes you happy, John?
I think there’s a bunch of things contributing my personal happiness. Most importantly I’d say family, friends and pets too, there’s a fine line between that and family often times. I actually have a dog and she’s very sweet and she brings me a lot of joy.
Also, on the contrary, what is very relaxing and nice oftentimes is just doing nothing, going to sleep, taking a nap, just laying there and contemplating your existence. It’s wonderful.
Do you think money can make you happy or make people happy?
That’s an interesting question. I’ve always had the stance that money is something you have to have, not something that you want to achieve. So money is a means, not a goal. So I wouldn’t say money makes someone happy, but you’re unhappy if you don’t have money.
I think I agree. Actually, there’s an interesting study in regards to happiness. It’s called the Covered Study of Adult Development and it was conducted since 1983.
And they took 724 men, which were teenagers in 1983, and they surveyed their entire life to see what has effects on their development, what makes them happy, what makes them sad. And later they expanded the study to 1600 people. It’s still running today. And they found that the biggest contributors to happiness were your social environment, which means family and friends etc. And the second most influential aspect is fitness or physical health because that can really improve your mental health and in general, just help you succeed at life.
For me personally, I’d say the biggest contributing factors to happiness are hobbies. I love what I do and I really enjoy doing what I do for work or doing what I do when I come home. I also love sleep. On days where I don’t get enough sleep, I feel horrible and obviously I’m going to be unhappy and grumpy.
And probably the most important for I’d say everyone is family. Family is very important. They can help you in times of need and they’re always nice to have around. And what’s also important is next to your hobbies and sleep and family is to have some free time where you just do nothing or do whatever you feel like, like baking a cake.
And on the note of cake, I’d say what’s also really important is food. Eating is probably one of the most important aspects in life, not only because it keeps you alive, but also because food can have a huge impact on morale and happiness.
Yeah, I’d agree with that. I think it’s also like a social thing nowadays. It’s not like with modern society, we’re not starving, so food has become like a social act.
Well, what’s interesting is when it comes to happiness, one differentiates between factors that make you happy, but you need to survive and factors that make you happy but aren’t necessarily needed for survival. Do you know what that’s called?
I don’t know what it’s called, but I definitely get your point. You wouldn’t need your pumpkin spice latte for survival.
Isn’t it called like the Pavlov’s pyramid or something like that?
Pavlov was the one with the dog. I’m pretty sure now the pyramid was Maslow’s Pyramid.
Well, whatever the pyramid is called, you know what I mean? Do you?
Yeah, of course.
But realistically, do you think you could live without like, even if you just have the survival part of your life, do you think you’d be happy?
I’d say Happiness is something that is achieved when you don’t have to worry about your survival. So if you need to survive, you’ll constantly worry about what you need to do to survive. So happiness and like personal fulfillment isn’t even one of the things you think about.
Personally, I think it probably does because if you have something to live for, then I think your body would have a goal to achieve. So you would naturally live longer. I don’t know if that doesn’t make any sense, but I think there’s been, like, experiments and studies conducted around disproving this kind of behavior. Well, I’d say what one ask needs to consider is age. And when it comes to us, we are pretty young compared to some people who’ve lived for 80, 90 years. And so, dear listeners, I want to hear one of your experiences. What makes you happy? So we’re going to open all our lines now, and if you’re lucky, you can tell us what makes you happy.
Call with a listener
Well, this was a definitely interesting episode with a definitely interesting call at the end. But we don’t cut calls, even if they’re awkward, because on The Mark Moron SHOEw, we are true to everybody. And John, not the caller John, but John in the studio. Do you want to summarize today’s podcast episode?
So we’ve talked about the book The Giver. We’ve learned that Jonas left his community because he was unhappy, and that was due to not having feelings and emotions and real love and affection. We’ve concluded personally that the most important aspects to happiness are social environment, so friends and family and personal fulfillment so hobbies and doing things you enjoy, as Mr. John said. And yeah, well, that sums up pretty well.
That was indeed nice summary. Thank you, John.
Well, thanks for listening to this episode of the Mark Moron SHOEw. Next episode will feature another guest and probably another interesting topic. So stay tuned and see you next time!