Hello to everyone. I am a beginner in the writing sphere and I need some advise. I decided to write a book and wrote an introduction to it. I am non English speaker, so there may be some errors. Here it is Introduction Human beings, such an astonishing, mysterious and stupid creations, which are used to live following emotions and feelings, consequently be slaves of their own consciousness. Surrounded by illusions since the very beginning most part of us even do not notice how miserable, senseless and raffish is the process which we call "life", with all it's aspects. All starts in the day when we born, the day, when all around us are smiling, and only we are crying. Have you ever though about this phenomenon, why are children are crying in the day of their birth. Maybe they understand in which world they are going to live, they know that the jealousy, violence and brutality are dominant here, and there is no excuse for weakness, feebleness and mercy. The world where the optimism is so misleading and the pessimism is so discouraging. Why are others smiling? How can the doctors smile or be happy in the case that they know what kind of world it is, and how the baby will live in this world? Are they happy to have another victim of the national propaganda, the zombie without ability to draw conclusions objectively, judging from the stereotypes and "own" thoughts, which are not "own", simply because somebody needs us to think in that way, someone is teaching us to act in that way. The great Russian writer Vladimir Mayakovsky has a poem describing very mentioned Please Listen! If stars are lit, it is something that somebody needs? Someone wants them To be and to last.... ......If stars are lit, it is something that somebody needs. 'Cause for someone it is so essential that every evening above the roofs there should be lit at least one star. That innocent baby will become a robot , thinking that he is free to act, feel and think. We all think so, and we are all deeply mistaken. Which concerns new-born child, he will grow, formulate attitude and world outlook. The influence of parents or guardians will be decisive, as they nurture the baby "right" manners of acting. But who said that especially that way of acting is good, in the case that we even cannot imagine what is good and what is bad. The philosophers describe bad as an absence of good. But what do we know about good? Many people think that good is that case, when everyone who is involved in the acting will gain profit without negative effects. By saying profit I mean not only material, but also emotional. But if you take profit from something, it means that you are taking it from other one. Namely, we cannot create a new "resource" for profit, we just borrow it from somebody. Briefly, if you are happy, somebody is sad. So, the child will become a teenager, attending school. School, another place, where your brain is going through the "cleanup". Just remember, how much time teachers imposed their own opinion to you. And now he is fully agree with them. How could he be so blind to think that he is right? Twelve years of the "truth's" injection and he is ready for the higher education, congratulations, he will spend other 4-10 years of his life to no purpose. How otherwise? After all , he cannot find high-paid job to provide his insignificant existence. The years will pass, he will have a lovely family, good job and friends, and soon he will realize that all that he wanted, reached and created is NOTHING. He will afraid of death, trying to find shelter in religion, Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam or other one, it doesn't matter, he will try escape from himself, as we all do. What after it all? He is dead. Funerals, people are crying, as he was a great person, loyal, tolerant, virtuous. His sons and daughters will remember him till the end of days, maybe his grandchildren will know his name but after them only the engraving of his name and eight numbers with the dash between will be the only things reminding about him. And who did need all these, what did cost his life, his achievements, rises and falls? Who was he, another dot in the picture?.... And if you think that all above mentioned do not concern you, because you lead another life, either you are an idiot, nor you are just afraid to confess it yourself.
Hi Zavet. I don't think your post will last very long, it may be deleted before you even read this post. What you are asking for is critique, which is not allowed until you have at least 2 weeks of membership, at least 20 posts, and 2 critiques on someone else's work. You can ask questions, but you can't post bodies of text from your work and ask people to tell you what they think. Post an introduction of yourself in the new member area! I'd love to get to know you better, but I don't think this thread will last long enough for us to have much of a conversation.
1/ As @Lyrical says, this may be taken down before long. 2/ I've pointed out some of the grammatical errors that you need to get fixed. 3/ From a reader's viewpoint, I have to say that there's nothing in this introduction to make me want to read more. You've filled the first page with a rant about the futility of the human condition that wouldn't be out of place in the communist manifesto, and which does nothing to introduce a plot or a hero whom I could care about. There is no sense of "ooh, I wonder how this is going to play out, I'd better read on to find out." I also had to Google Mayakovsky to find out who he was, so your poem isn't going to be accessible to an English-speaking audience, at least without a STUNNINGLY good translation, which can take words which (presumably) are telling when in Russian. I was amused to find that "Joseph Stalin posthumously declared Mayakovsky, "the best and the most talented poet of our Soviet epoch."[4]".
