What's Yours

                How do we decide what is ours in today’s society? If I buy something it is said to be mine. If I give someone a something, then it becomes theirs. Our society is based on freedom. Ownership is transferred by a person willing giving over a possession in exchange for something else or as a gift.

                In the case of Vern’s Volvo he buys a car, and repairs it whenever it gets damaged. He pays Grace each time to replace the damaged parts. Each and every time there is a business contract between them. He pays her in exchange for her work on his car. This work includes the exchange of the old parts for the new. He pays for the new parts, while he willingly allows her to keep the damaged parts to do with as she wants. It is as if I go to the dump to throw away some scraps. Whatever those scraps may be, they become public property as soon as I go home. It was a conscious choice to leave them behind to be the possession of whoever should decide to find them and take them home. The same logic applies to Vern and Grace. Vern left those parts at the dump, and Grace picked them up. It wouldn’t matter if Grace decided to put the parts back together into Vern’s original car because each piece becomes her each time he leaves them behind. The parts are hers to do with whatever she wishes.

                The damaged pieces of a Volvo can’t be Vern’s any more than the new one can be Grace’s. Vern bought each and every piece of this new Volvo, when he contracted Grace to repair his car. Vern didn’t have the skills to do the job himself, so he trusted Grace to do whatever was necessary to fix his car. Grace was merely the “middle-man” in the transaction. She bought the parts, and Vern bought them from her. These parts that eventually would make up what is now Vern’s car are not hers because she has sold them to Vern. In the same way, the damaged parts are not Vern’s because he left them as trash that became Grace’s treasure. He relinquished any right to them that he may have had in his contract with Grace.

Knowing I

It’s human nature for humans to beat themselves up when they make a mistake and be full of themselves after a great accomplishment. Our opinions of ourselves are constantly changing moment to moment, but it’s important to be able to step back and look at ourselves objectively every once and a while. We need to be able to see ourselves as a whole, and understand our strengths and our faults.

True self-knowledge can be the key to success. The first step to making anything better is recognizing its deficiencies. It is important to know what needs working on and what doesn’t. As humans, none of us are perfect, but we are continuously working throughout our lives to be the best that we can be. To achieve one’s full potential he or she must know themselves completely and honestly. Once you know yourself you will know what you truly want and the path you have to take to get there.

I’ve been told things like, ‘You talk loud,” which I’ve tried to work on, but I don’t think could be my worst trait. If that were it, I’d be in pretty good shape. It took me a little longer than it should have, but I think my worst quality may be my ego and competitiveness. I have a tendency to take every friendly game as a serious competition. I get lost in my efforts to win, and I hurt those who are closest to me. In my efforts to “trash talk” I may say things that I don’t mean. The truth is, I’m not the best winner and I can be a sore loser. I honestly believe I have made progress in this department, but I still have a lot of work to do, and the thrill of a healthy competition can still bring out the worst in me.

  My best quality to me is my ability to listen. When my friends are going through a hard time in their lives, I can sit there on the phone for over an hour just listening to what went wrong that day and comfort them. I know at least one person for sure who would agree. It may not be my favorite thing to do, but they are my friends and I hope that they would do the same thing. I won’t name names, but I know someone who had a particularly difficult time getting through high school with issues at home, problems with classes, and all the extra stress she put on herself. I’d like to think that I contributed in keeping her head up. This person is now going off to the college she wanted and I think looking forward to her life to come.

To be honest I’ve never really thought about what my best and worst qualities may be. Everyone has been insulted in their life or been given some constructed criticism, and I guess that’s where my mind first went to find my worst quality. I tried to remember all those instances and any annoying habits I may have that friends, family, or acquaintances have pointed out. It took me considerably less time to think of my best quality. I don’t mean to sound egotistical, I just think finding the good in oneself is easier to find because you want to know. Finding your faults can be a sore topic and something that subconsciously you don’t want to find. Even when it comes to finding my best quality, I was wary about how to write it without sounding full of myself. I guess most people, myself included, are always worried about how others see us, and we forget to look at the importance of how we see ourselves.

I have to say when I first read the assignment, I wasn’t thrilled. Writing about myself is always harder, not knowing how to say things, and how I will “come off” to readers. It was a tough subject to start off, but once I started thinking, it was a real eye-opener. I think this essay has actually made me look at myself in a different light. Not better or worse, just different. I can’t say I know myself completely quite yet, but it’s something else I can work on. I was able to look back on what I’ve done so far in my life. I found some good things, and I also found a few things I’m ashamed of, but I think that’s just what makes me human.

Everyone has to "saunter"

"Eden is that old-fashioned House." Adam and Eve had the honor of living in that House. The Garden of Eden was perfect, but they couldn’t see that. In Emily Dickinson's poem, "Eden is that old-fashioned House," the "old-fashioned House" is a symbol of tradition and your home. The Garden was all Adam and Eve knew. It was their home. They didn't "suspect... [their] abode" because they didn't know any better. Adam and Eve had complete innocence. They didn't know good and evil or that there even was such a thing. I think "[not] suspecting our abode" has to do with thinking that your "old-fashioned House" will never change. Their entire world was perfect, and they had no reason to believe that they could ever lose it. But it is curious that in her poem Dickinson would use a word such as "sauntered" to describe leaving the "Door", which no doubtedly represents the "old-fashioned House", when it seems God banished Adam and Eve. The word "sauntered" connotes a casual tone that could describe how Adam and Eve take the serpents word without questions. The act of “[seeing] that the tree [was] good food” (Genesis 3:6) and leisurely eating the apple was them “saunter…[ing] from the Door”.

I think everyone goes through this experience. We all have our “old-fashioned House”, that place where we feel safe, comfortable, and, most importantly, at home. It’s not about a physical house. It’s about the environment we feel safe in. Soon, I will have to make the big step, I will have to “saunter… from the door”. I, like Adam and Eve, didn’t appreciate all that I had, and even as I type this up and am trying to appreciate it, I doubt I could ever truly see all that I have. I never once thought about how the fridge was always full, how the house was always warm, or how I was going to pay for college. Getting a “B” on my report card was my biggest problem. I never saw how good I had it and thought “the grass was always greener on the other side.” As I look forward to college, I hope that I will still be able to come back and fit right back in during the summer and see all my friends, but in truth, many of them may not be back and there won’t be any returning to my “old-fashioned House”. But like Adam and Eve, I believe that it is necessary for everyone to “saunter… from the door”. Parents help you create your “House”, but there comes a time that you have to experience the world and create your own “House” for yourself and maybe a family of your own, eventually. As I “drive away” I realize this, and that I need to make an “old-fashioned House” so that one day my children can “dwell in [it]” and “saunter… from the Door” I made.

My biggest fear is not that things will change because that is unavoidable, but that I won’t be important to people when I return. My parents always told me that my brother looked up to me, and I know it’s true. I used to complain about not being able to do things because it didn’t set the right example, but now I find myself worrying that I won’t mean the same to my brother when I come back. The closer I get to leaving, I realize how much I love meaning something to someone, and I don’t want to come back to a brother who looks up to someone else. In a way I am experiencing the empty nest syndrome that parents get when their last child leaves the house. Eventually my brother will grow up just as I am growing up and won’t need me to lead him anymore. There comes a point where I will have to turn my head on the old-fashioned House” completely and make room for my old family in my new home.

"Comfortably Uncomfortable"

            “Just breath.” No breath came. I was gasping for air, but it no longer helped. “It can’t be that much farther,” I told myself with my legs screaming in agony. I wanted to stop running. I wasn’t going to quit. I kept on with the wind in my face. I looked down at my watch. It said I had been running for thirty minutes, so I thought to myself that’s about four miles at a seven thirty pace. I had set out on a five mile course, so that meant only one mile left, but in my head I knew I hadn’t actually run fast enough to do four miles in thirty minutes. This was just one of the small lies I tell myself to keep me going. “Ooh, there’s a house I recognize,” we must be getting close to the school, again talking my way into proceeding. “I can see the entrance, this is the final leg,” and all of a sudden I conjured up the strength to lengthen my strides and finish off strong.

This was a day like any other of track and field practice. No run was ever suppose to be just a stroll. If there was no pain then it wasn’t helping. Every day before the team split up into their events the head coach, Thomas Jacobs, would give his speech to the entire team. There were the weekly events, what each event would do that day, and some kind of inspirational words, whether they applied to track and field or just real life in general. His famous words that I’ll never forget were “comfortably uncomfortable.” Nothing was ever suppose to be easy. “If something wasn’t worth working for it wasn’t worth doing.”

These words applied to track and field, but they can be applied to basically anything. If something is easy then you can already do it. It’s all about pushing yourself to do things that you don’t think you can. At the same time, there is a limit to anyone’s abilities and you don’t want to hurt yourself. Life is all about balance, and finding that point that requires all your focus and effort, but isn’t damaging to you physically or mentally. In the case of track and field, I was a long distance runner and I had to find that distance and speed each day that would push me to the limit each day.

Testing ourselves is what helps us learn and get better. Being comfortable is overrated because with comfort comes stagnancy.  We didn’t learn how to walk from crawling and we didn’t learn to run from walking. Of course we did one before the other, but it was the fact that one day we tried to walk or we tried to run. We don’t get new from the old. We choose to be new and get rid of the old. The world evolves from people who are “comfortably uncomfortable.”

We Live because we Die

“Only I can live forever.” Well unfortunately you can’t Voldemort. A wise man once said “the only two certainties in life are death and taxes” (Mark Twain) and he was right, although these days he may have only been right about the death part. After Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh sets himself on the ultimate quest to find Utnapishtim, the one human to succeed in finding immortality. When he arrives, Utnapishtim tells him “there is no permanence” (106), and that eventually everyone’s journey comes to an end and they become one with the earth. It became clear to Gilgamesh that immortality was out of his reach, at least in the physical sense. Utnapishtim tells him that humanity has permanence but no single human will live forever. It’s the circle of life, that some shall die so that others can be born. This cycle allows for an ever changing world that adapts to each new situation. With permanence comes a stagnant life that never leads to happiness. Irregularity allows a society to flourish.

But then there’s the great question, “what is the meaning of life?” Everyone answers this question in a different way. Some people have their own “bucket lists” of what they want to do before they die, but few people ever actually fulfill everything on their lists. But to me it’s not about doing everything, it’s about the journey and not about the end result. If people got up in the morning knowing they would never do everything they wanted they might just lay back in bed and never go on that journey.  I believe that people get up in the morning because of the sense of optimism that lives in all of us. We all like to believe in happy ever after’s and the knowledge of our mortality just gives us a deadline. We get up in the morning with that sense of urgency to do everything in the short time we have on this earth. Without a deadline, what is the point of work. It’s like any procrastinator in high school. In the end, the only thing that gets them to do the work is the fear of that goose egg they’ll get the next day, or in some cases that afternoon. Without deadlines, people lack the will to get things done. Instead of taking away people’s incentives to survive, it gives them even more reason to “live life to the fullest” because in the end its hope that their life can mean something that keeps people going.

People want to be remembered after they’re gone, and I think this is the number one goal on everyone’s list. All these famous quotes that I’ve used just in this one article are examples of people who were remembered. They eternalized themselves by making a difference and saying something that had never been said before. When Gilgamesh was told he could not live forever, he realized that his story could still live forever, and it does. We still read Gilgamesh’s story today, so he has succeeded and his name has survived the passing of time. It’s everyone’s goal to be part of history and to have people talk about them long after they are gone. We write things down, and before that, we told tales. This is how we humans live forever.

But we don’t all have to make a great invention or discover a new land like the few great people in history. To me being remembered just means that your friends and children still tell stories about you once you’re gone. The whole world doesn’t have to remember me as long as those who are important to me do. I will have led a successful life if I am able to touch those people around me for the better and be remembered for the little things. I want my ancestors to be able to sit around the dining room table and laugh about a joke I made, the awkward thing I said, or the stupid thing I did that my friends never let me forget. To me a successful life is one where someone remembers that you were there when the time comes that you aren’t.

What is a Hero?

Films like Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and The Lord of the Rings, and books like Beowulf, The Odyssey, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn all have “heroes”. The protagonists of these pieces of literature all have similar traits. Beowulf puts himself in danger when he chooses to fight Grendel, and though he may have other reasons for doing it, this selfless act will save the Danes from endless attacks from this beast. Huck saved Jim by deciding to hide him from the southerners who would enslave and torture him even when Huck would be severely punished for this crime and all of society at the time told him that blacks were less than equals. Luke is a perfect example of someone who could have sat at home and never chose to become Jedi or the on the empire. He was born on a desolate planet where he would have never been noticed. Other protagonists also showed similar characteristics or actions.

 The reason they can be considered heroes is because of their actions and the fact that all of them put their life in some kind of jeopardy to help others. These characters could have just stayed home and blended in. They would have probably never been bothered, but they chose to rise up and fight against what they knew was wrong and help others despite the danger. A hero is any courageous person that despite possible dangers to his or her well-being, rises up to create positive change against an oppressing force.

Clearly that definition includes woman. At no point are woman excluded from being heroes or heroine, but in the case of most famous literature it seems that too often heroes are portrayed as males. This is because of the time period that most of the literature was written or produced. These were times where the women of society were seen as less than men and just meant to be obedient. The time had put stereotypes on women like: they were meant in the kitchen, they took care of the children, or they were the damsels in distress. These stereotypes were carried over into the literature which didn’t allow women to be the one who stood out and fought for change. But just because the times sexist view of the world doesn’t mean that a women can’t conduct themselves in a heroic manner.

But what is heroic conduct. One major aspect is how they put others before themselves, and they are willing to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of others. A hero must also conquer evil and not fall to its level. Like in the case of Star Wars, Luke can be considered the protagonist hero that conquers evil, but Anakin falls short of this title because in the end he can’t help but to turn to the dark side and become the very evil he fought to defeat.

Heroes like Luke are what create change. That is there purpose in the world. When a way of life has become obsolete or a ruler has become power hungry, someone always rises up from the oppressed people and overthrows the evil force. Large empires are all toppled at one point, and there is always a hero who rises up to defeat them. We may not always no their name but every movement starts with one idea from one person who was killed for his beliefs or survived long enough to see them achieved. The world needs these people because a world without heroes is a world without change and a world without change is a world that never evolves from its primitive state to the height of its history.

Bertolt Brecht once said, “Unhappy the land that needs heroes”, because a land that needs heroes has some evil to be defeated. Heroes rise up to right wrongs and change society for the better. A nation that needs no heroes is perfect. But in truth I a land with no need for heroes will never exist because there always changes to be made.