WRIT 340 Blog

I chose the book The Wayfinders  by Wade Davis for my second book. In my first post, I wrote about how Davis structured his book in a way that is intriguing t o readers. I pointed out the Mahatma Gandhi quote that started chapter 1 and some chapter titles like   "Season of the Brown Hyena" and "Century of the Wind" as examples of book structure that made it interesting. As I read further, I found another interesting quote: " “In the West, time is like gold. You save it, you  lose it, you waste it, or you don’t have enough of it. In the Barasana  language there is no word for time.” In The Wayfinders , Wade Davis wants to highlight how different cultures around the world approach life differently. I found this quote profound because it tied to something I saw recently that is an entirely new addition to this context: AI. I recently saw a ChatGPT response to a command about creating a new language that highlighted a certain fictional language where there was no c...

For my second book, I chose The Wayfinders  by Wade Davis. I thought that Wade Davis' background as an Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society was interesting and led me to take a look at the book. The first page starts with a quote from Mahatma Gandhi: "I want all the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any." Davis uses that as starting point to delve deeper into what traveling provides as lessons about other cultures and how that can apply to individuals throughout the world. I enjoy travel a lot and so I think some of his thoughts on absorbing other cultures are insightful. I found it interesting how Davis starts each chapter with a quote from someone else about the topic he wants to cover and then explores it in detail. Many of the people he quotes are well-known, adding to the intrigue. The names of his chapters, such as "Season of the Brown Hyena" and "Century...