Becoming a Lambkin: How Odell and Skinner are Rebels

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In my essay, I try to demonstrate a common theme between the 2 novels that were written by Jenny Odell and B.F. Skinner. Skinner’s novel, Walden Two, brought about a story of a perfect society where everyone was happy and everyone just did what they wanted. There was a deeper theme in this story though. More specifically, a theme came about in Walden Two that involved sheep and how following the herd is not always the right thing to do. As I write, I try to exclaim that Jenny Odell is a sheep trying to escape out of the herd. With her writing, she is unlike the rest of her crowd and tries to do her own thing. She urges people to stop following the everyday rules of life and change their thinking. This theme can be seen in Walden Two.

Robert Martin

https://rmartin2001.medium.com/becoming-a-lambkin-how-odell-and-skinner-are-rebels-461cd4d95ad0

Writing 11: Gimme a Break

As a student going through some stressful times, just like the rest of the world, connecting with Jenny Odell was something relatively easy to do. In this writing, I write about the some of the main ways that I connect with Odell and her philosophies. By taking some of Odell’s passages and ideologies, I use the words that she says to line them up with things students like me are going through. More specifically, I connect Odell ad the stresses of today with students that are stuck at home doing their schoolwork. I talk about how Odell connects with us getting too carried away with our cell phones. And I connect Odell with the fact that every college student right now could use a break.

Odell writes about what the statement “What we will” in her novel and this was something that stuck out to me. She tries to define that statement in saying that the best way to define it is to not define it at all. She basically used this as a starting point to something deeper and something that students like me and the people reading this can use to give themselves a break, because after all, that is the key to happiness.

Link to Essay:

<a href=”https://medium.com/@rmart_52455/gimme-a-break-a66cfe175cbc”>https://medium.com/@rmart_52455/gimme-a-break-a66cfe175cbc</a>

View at Medium.com

Writing IV: Escapes

To open these chapters from Odell, she talks about this idea of “getting away”. She mentions how difficult it is to be able to set things aside and essentially “do nothing”. To emphasize this, she talks about communes and get-away retreats that have been brought up through the testament of time. She opens up chapter 2 by talking about her own experience with a technology retreat, in which she was not even prepared for, and continues to talk about the communes of Epicurus in the 4^th century BC (Odell 35), and even with the hippie movement of the 1960s (37). All these retreats, for the most part, include dropping all of technology, getting away from your work, and rejoicing with those around you. The communes were built for hose who were tired of their lives and needed an escape. Much of these communes were set up in mountains or valleys or other places remote from civilization. Sometimes, getting away was the only thing that people needed to turn their life around.

Seemingly, this goal of getting away from the drama was always unfortunate for the most part. From the beginning of time, the movements of getting away from society and doing your own thing was never stable enough to withstand the complications that came with it. Jenny Odell brings up a statement that Robert Houriet talks about when commenting on the reasons for the failure of these communes:

“Facing disorganization and frustration- unfinished geodesic domes, crops gone wrong, arguments over how to raise children, and ‘the phenomenon of the unlabeled jars’- the atmospheres of naive optimism eventually gave way in some places to a more rigid and less idealistic approach.” (44)

Conflicts arose in almost every commune over issues much like those stated by Houriet. “Politics” arose. The members of the communes could never seem to agree on how to go about day-today life. With that, people left the communes and they fell apart.

Inherently, people are all unique and not a single person has the same ideologies to another. The practices of these communes normally involve an individual to always get along and agree with the neighbor that is next to them. This was somewhat impossible through a long period of time, which is why they could never work out. For instance, when Woody Ransom tried bringing up his won commune with his friends, he originally let them all sit back and do their own thing. But, as time passed, the commune needed some type of productivity to stay alive, and when Woody looked towards those that were around him, they were not there (50). He then went on to start another commune, but this one brought him out as a dictator. More specifically, “members (then) lived in a modern house with regular appliances, worked 8 hours a day 6 days a week, and kept strict visiting hours” (51). This was no way to live, especially for one trying to escape reality. Based on what is seen, the theme that the communes turned into something that they were made to escape is pushed through the reading. For Odell, a subtle and short retreat away from work was good for her. However, the communes throughout time seemed to do the opposite.

              In a way, there is a parallel between this vision of the communes and the way schools are running right now. For a lot of people in America, school was used as an escape from some of their conflicts with themselves. Whether it came to kids with special needs, kids with a rough home life, or kids fighting depression, school was a major alternative. Unfortunately, schools are closed in a lot of places so that outlet is gone. Just as a lot of the communes fell apart as Odell talks about, this situation regarding schools can be seen as similar. Just as communes changed, schools are too. My hometown school just recently cut out its School Based Youth Services (SBYS) Program to cut down their finances. This school is home to over 1600 students and a large majority of them went to SBYS to cope with all their struggles. It is the only getaway that some students have. Much like how the communes became counterproductive to what they were trying to accomplish, schools like mine are following the same path. The escape that was supposed to be provided by the communes was not always successful and now the escape that school provides is falling apart as well.

Writing II: Unconventional Odell

            After reading the introduction and the Chapter One of How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, Jenny Odell’s method of thinking about the life is anything but conventional. However, it is not over the top. As a matter of fact, it is something relatable and inspirational. Her message is unlike most others in that it is a paradox. She turns the term “nothing” into doing something for yourself.

            Odell tends to make her claim, use other people’s writings/experiences as examples, and then sets up an example of her own. Her aim in all of this is to challenge the way that we look at the term “nothing”. For instance, Odell believes that having nothing to say is “a precursor of having something to say” (Odell 4). She writes this in 2016 and references an article from 1985 by Gilles Deleuze who says the same thing. This is how she came up with her topics that she would speak about at a keynote talk at EYEO. This is how she came up with her idea of “doing nothing”.  She spent most of her time at the Rose Garden in the Oakland doing nothing and came out with a New York Times Best Seller. Much like how Marine Flat Worms are gathered simply by placing a knife and letting the worm crawl on it (5), stories come to their own when people do “nothing”.

            Doing nothing can help you recover, listen, and grow. When people take a step back from things, they can take a break. People can “think, reflect, heal and sustain themselves” (22). Much like in a sport, a break here and there goes a long way. Two minutes can bring you back to full strength when the fourth quarter of a basketball game is coming up. “To do nothing is to hold yourself still so that you can perceive what is actually there” (23). Figuring out what, when, and where comes from doing nothing. When in a fight or in a stressful situation, taking a break and thinking opens the mind to a multitude of solutions. People grow in a way that is not measurable when they do nothing.

            The world can see these steps through the recent spike in social justice reform, especially in sports. To raise awareness to these issues, sports (basketball specifically) have stopped their play of games. This is the break they took and their way of “doing nothing”. That time was used to recover, listen, and grow. As the sports leagues took these breaks, they took the time to come up with ways to bring change to America’s social system, and in the end, growth was seen. Change is coming and Odell’s ideologies are being used to bring it.

            “Our very idea of productivity is premised on the idea of producing something new” (25). Jenny Odell challenges this idea, especially when talking about the growth aspect of doing nothing. Odell looks at the Rose Garden like it is her home, so when she sees people volunteering simply to maintain it, she sees that as productive. She does not use the term “productive” in a numbers or tangible way. The best example she uses of this is the Redwood Tree, known as Old Survivor. Old Survivor is an Old Growth Redwood that has survived over 500 years. He survived the logging era of the West Coast because he was simply not good enough. For that reason, he is still standing tall not only as a witness to the past 500 years of history, but also as a message to what is deemed useful and what is not. When the Redwoods were being cut down, Old Survivor was looked past for it was not deemed useful enough for the loggers. There it stands today as a testament to that. Odell asks: “Why is it that the modern idea of productivity is so often a frame for what is actually the destruction of the natural productivity of an ecosystem” (xix)?

Old Survivor was not deemed productive, but it stands today, and it is said that the Old Growth Redwood can provide shade for thousands of animals and bring life to that land. This would be a true example of productive. To continue that thought, Odell talks about her connection with the crows that live on her block. The crows are not attracted to people based on the “efficiency”, but instead are attracted to just the familiar face (21). She uses this argument to go against the ideas of capitalism. Rather than looking at a spreadsheet or “progress” to judge efficiency, Odell sees it as something deeper.

            Another aim that Odell possesses is the idea of defending her home and free time from being occupied by work. She argues against those that work from home or those that do not need to go into the office as long as they get their work done (16), because she sees that as turning her home into a permanent work zone. This is especially relatable to college students as they begin their online classes in their homes. From now on, students see their room as their office and cannot avoid that weight on their shoulders anymore.

            Odell challenges the obvious ways of thinking in her book and gives readers something they can relate to. Some of the writings that Odell brings up are older than our very own country and she still finds a way to use these readings to progress her train of thought. More importantly, Odell talks in a way that she is not trying to convince readers, but rather get readers to understand.