CTY: Bristol, RI
CRAFTING
THE
July 8, 2016
ESSAY
From the Instructor’s Desk: This week we expanded our skills to include satire, a special focus on juxtaposition and punctuation. We explored a question through interviews, personal anecdotes and research. We personified abstractions in prose poems. More importantly than this, we shared, celebrated and helped each other as we crafted our ideas and our words.
CELEBRATION
HUMILITY
GRATITUDE
C
H
G
We celebrate each other everyday for each of our unique gifts.
We acknowledge our limitations as a place of growth.
We express the role that others play in our journey.
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Table of Contents PATRICK
3
MICHAEL
6
LUCY
7
JON
8
CHARLES
10
AMEIKA
13
IACOB
13
YASSINE
14
NEYDA
15
ANGELA
17
GABY
18
MIKEY
20
MARIOLA
21
LYNN
23
LEILANIE
24
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PATRICK
A Brief, Biased Discussion on Religion…and the power behind it
“Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light”, and there was light.” (Genesis 1:2-Genesis 1:3) And that was how our universe came to be; There was nothing, and then by the will of God, there came light. This is, of course, the Biblical version of events; this was the creation story that people have believed in for millenniums; the Bible was the truth; the preachers were the scientists. But now, with decades of scientific knowledge behind us, many find it increasingly difficult to both be devout and rational at the same time. And yet people, even now, every day, are still dying for their faiths, for their religion: Ugly and beautiful, righteous and wrong, religion is an incomprehensible force that might be slowly diminishing, but definitely not dismissible. So where does this power come from?
To understand religion, a vast concept and an abstract idea, you have to have a definition of it. When one says “religion”, they usually imagine Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and other gigantic religions with hundreds of millions of followers with organized events, an ancient history, and strong roots, powerful, sacred, untouchable. Yet have you heard of Cheondoism, Builders of the Adytum, or Falun Gong, a Chinese cult that has been the victim of a recent religious crackdown? Religion is, in fact, any faith, any belief that people hold as true, if I want to crown a coconut with a flower necklace and proclaim it the “Hawaiian god”, would that be a religion? If I convinced my friends that we lived
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in a god’s snowball globe, would that be a religion? If my class burnt squirrels into crispy pieces of charcoal to appease the “Sacred Tool Book”, would that be a religion?
Why, yes, of course they would.
Sure, call us a “cult”, and list us as delusional psychopaths or attention hogs trying to become famous, but a “cult” is just a smaller, less typical religion. A religion doesn’t have to be organized; A religion doesn’t have to be big; A religion doesn’t have to be bad, or good, or rational or sane. A religion doesn’t have too many requirements—in fact, I think it only needs two: one, that you have a belief, and two, that you and its other followers are devout enough to proclaim your religion “the one and only truth”. And that is one reason religion is so powerful: a religion is flexible, it can be created and organized in any form or shape, it has no natural exclusions except those which are self imposed. To be short, it can make anyone believe in anything. (I’m not saying religion isn’t real or important; I’m a Protestant myself, ever since first grade) Religion is, like nations and families, one thing that binds dissimilar people unconditionally to a common cause.
But enough of that. Now that you have a slightly less abstract idea on religion, we can start thinking about the power behind it. ISIS spreads terror across the globe. Middle Eastern countries face civil unrest. Trump is on the rise. Gays struggle for their rights. Israel vs. Palestine. Syrian Civil War. Xin-Jiang. Somalia. All these unfortunate events can trace their origins to outdated beliefs decreed by religions across the globe, or are simply a modern outburst of newly highlighted religious tension. Even as a Protestant myself, though how devout I cannot claim, the fact that even in this 3
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modern world there are people who would be willingly to die for their religion, for their unseen presence who they knew was out there, amazes me: The Shia Muslims who’d rather die than convert to Sunni ISIS, Mathew Ayairga the ISIS prisoner who converted to Christianity in the face of a knife, or Thích Quảng Đức, the monk who protested South Vietnam's oppression of Buddhism—by lighting himself up and apparently “sitting calmly” as he withered away into charcoal. These acts of extreme religious faith have overcome my normal definition of humans as self-serving, down-to-earth beings with the only goal in life is as to protect one's own bloodline. And yet these sacrifices can also be ugly and vile: The jihadists who rammed a plane a building were definitely no less devout to their cause than Thích Quảng Đức was, maybe even more so— they knew for months that they were about to meet a fiery end in a suicidal plan, yet they held form and didn’t chicken out. They, too, overcome my normal definition of humans as self-serving, down-to-earth beings, but in a totally different way; after all, they were evil murderers, and Thích Quảng Đức was a holy saint who could withstand the pain of fire. Yet I might be being biased; fundamentally, they were all just people trying to further their religion one more step, albeit in very different ways—but when one is that extreme towards their own religion, anything they might do is unpredictable.
So it’s surprising what religion can make people do: it makes people both saints and monsters, or just normal people. Some see unbelievers as people to be educated; some see them as people to be eliminated; and most people, like me, just really don’t care. I wondered once how the same religion can breed famous humanitarians, normal, sore,
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everyday office workers, rural tractor-driving farmers, and Al’ Qaeda at the same place in the same decade.
Now I think I’m finally grasping onto something; my whole thought process was flipped.
To many, their religion—spreading their religion, teaching their religion, “purifying” their religion— is not their goal, but merely means to an end, excuses for brutality, a reason to hope. They well scarcely admit it; In fact, many who use their religion as a tool do not even recognize it. I always thought the Inquisitors burned heretics because they wanted to keep Christianity “clean”; looking at Trump, I think they might have had other reasons. In a Catholic-majority country, what easier way to power than turning the “majority rage” on? Expel the Arabs, expel the Jews, blame the Protestants—and if someone’s getting annoying, say he’s committing heresy and burn him at the stake. Look at ISIS; they own slaves, live off robbed money, have and abuse sex slaves from captured areas, and take out their anger against Christians and other “heretics” by beheading or simply shooting them. And yet the holy book of Islam of Qur’an has never told them to kill “heretics” or force conversion; instead Qur’an says that non-believers should pay special taxes. It is still a very backwards belief in modern society, but it is nowhere near the animal cruelty of the Islamic State. ISIS twisted the words of Qur’an to suit their own needs, like many scientists who were also religious tried to twist verses from the Bible and etc. to make them non-conflicted with science. When a human wants to be a beast, they will find a reason—racial superiority, said the Nazis in their concentration camps and the slavers with a ship full of human cargo; rightful revenge, said the Israeli army who marched 4
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into Gaza, and the 9/11 plane hijackers who flew into the heart of America; and of course, since the start of human civilization, religion. Religion has always been one of the best reasons, the best excuses for war and crime— and it will keep on working.
But religion can’t be all crucifixion and burnings and car bombings, right? To the everyday man, and to me, our own religion’s bloody past and for some, even its everyday action could not make them care less. They— and me—keep their faith with their own religion. It brings us hope, comfort, and feeling of belonging. Religion, with its wars and turmoil, is still looked upon as a holy thing. Religion, as I said earlier in my essay, “like nations and families, one thing that binds dissimilar people unconditionally to a common cause.” No matter how excluded you are, how unwanted or unpopular in the mortal world, you can still find a sense of belonging, however brief or even fake, as non-believers may call it, inside the church’s curve-shaped doors, in the house of God. Many different sociological and psychological experts have linked “religion” with “the sense of belonging” together in a positive correlation. Religion also gives us much needed hope. Has anyone in this room been through anything that seemed hopeless? If you have, I hope that you’re religious. Dying cancer patients, HIV-positive children, people with relatives in a coma and soon to die—God, whatever god or gods you believe in, give you hope. Death is answered; life is answered; the void soon to be met is no longer shapeless. The murderers who got away from the police will still be punished in the pits of Hell; the victims wrathing in their own pool of blood may yet ascend to Heaven. Is it real? Yes, I say. How do I know? Because it’s the only way I can go to sleep at night, knowing one day
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everyone alive now will be dead; if there is no Heaven, and there is no God, then there is no hope, no reason for being good or bad, for being nice or mean, for having guilt or shame. I don't get how Atheists go to bed, knowing that everything will be over one day, and that there is no justice but what our own feeble, loophole riddled laws can serve; I don’t want to believe in that, so I believe in God.
And yet, that hope for justice, for an afterlife, for survival may yet be crushed, soon.
We live in an age of science, of logic, of rational thinking, of “a=b and b=c so a=c.” And that science, that uncompromising logic, that stubborn, rigid and yet flawless rational thinking is threatening to shatter the hopes and faiths of believers, who wish for miracles, for God to lay a healing hand onto their children burning in fever, for Allah to magically protect them through the raging battlefield, for Buddha to enlighten them with a holy whisper.Yet now we think we know it all: mass doesn’t appear from thin air, viruses don’t die off magically, and if a bullet is coming for you, it’s going to hit you. New generations, with their head full of our modern day knowledge, striding big confident steps out onto the streets—they think they know it all, and what they know now laughs in the face of an unseeable, undetectable force. Religion, especially in developed countries, is starting to crumble. Fathers no longer pray for dying daughters, mothers no longer pray for missing sons. The only thing they had before was hope—feeble, desperate hope—but now even that is gone. The laws of the universe have been found, dug up through thousands of years of advancements in science; and the hopes mankind had feebly believed in has been buried in the same hole.
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Yet religious people like me, many of us still believe; call it stubborn, rigid, backwards, but there are always more laws yet to be found, questions yet to be answered. What if God did the Big Bang, and knew what was going to happen all the way after? He didn’t interfere with us, he just created us and knew that one day, somewhere in the Middle East, humanity would rediscover him. Or maybe he’s always been secretly manipulating things, changing details so small that even the best microscope can’t detect it, but accumulates to the falling of empires over the centuries? I don’t know, and to be honest, these hopes may not be all that realistic; what I do know is the day I stop believing in God, the blessed afterlife, the just trial for the good and the wicked, is the day that I’ll be damned, Hell or not; I’ll never be able to face death without the faith that I will live on. A false faith? As if my opinion or your opinion matters. What is going to happen is going to happen. And believing in religion means believing in a better outcome. No amount of science, knowledge or pure algebra can make me un-believe what I want to believe.
And that, maybe, is why religion has always been powerful.
MICHAEL
Eighty-four percent of the world population has a faith in a religion. Religion is such a significant aspect around the world, providing people with a sense of belonging, a set of values, and a motivation to make sense of the world. People often feel more safe and secure when having faith in something. However, at the very same time, throughout history, individuals have perpetrated intense acts of violence in the name of religion, damaging the
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deep meanings behind the word, “faith”. The amount of faith put into something is crucial, so it is essential to know how much faith is too much faith.
Christianity is the religion that dominates the face of the planet with more than two billion individuals following the faith of Jesus. Separated into multiple denominations that believe in similar but different things, Christianity has brought various groups of people together over the years. It has created and given people morals and ethics to stand by. These values have inspired the young children and motivated them as they grow into their adulthoods. Christianity is obviously not the only instance of where faith in a religion has had positive effects on a group of people, with many other religions having similar impacts.
I have a Canadian Jewish father, who taught the Jewish set of values thoroughly from a young age, so I knew quite a bit of Judaism by the first time I visited the synagogue. At age five, my Japanese Atheist mother began the process of converting to a Jew. She would be practicing Hebrew when I returned from Kindergarten; while at the dinner table, she would rehearse the Jewish prayers, gratifying those who prepared the meal. The values of Judaism, such as being warm to strangers— from Abraham—would be apparent throughout the family. It was such a strenuous job for my mother, who could barely speak English at the time—nevertheless, she was still up for it. Converting from an Atheist to another religion was a rather demanding task, and I was proud of my mother when she officially became a Jew, in which she received her own Hebrew name. Anyhow, this event changed me: I was able to learn the values of my religion, to which I was very captivated. My mother was willing to sacrifice all of her time and effort, just so that 6
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she could teach me and my sister the important ethics, as well as gain a sense of belonging in my father’s family.
What did my mother’s inspiring acts display? I feel that she portrayed the importance of understanding something before believing in it. She spent so much time studying the religion that after her conversion to Judaism, she knew the religion inside out, and she knew exactly how much faith she would put into it. She knew the depth behind the religion, which was why my mother was able to understand the amount of faith to have in Judaism.
While an individual scenario like my mother was fine, religious differences between faiths frequently resulted in conflicts, that can be seen with the countless wars that have occurred throughout history. The Jewish ethnicity has been the center of prejudice for centuries, and the Holocaust marks the darkest period for the Jewish people. Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany led a genocide upon all civilians who believed in Judaism, where an immense six million Jews were murdered. The Holocaust was a case where Germans who had faith in Hitler’s regime were mostly ‘brainwashed’ and joined the movement of eliminating Jews from the society. People started to hate Jews. People started to kill fellow civilians who they have been living with for generations. People started to think irrationally like mad animals.
And the spark of the entire movement? A false belief of faith.
The Holocaust was one of the few times in history that “faith” led to a massive tragedy— other examples such as the Spanish inquisition, the KKK—all incidents where religious purposes led to cruel, inhumane-like conduct. The most recent case is the Islamic
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State of Iraq and Levant, shortly known as ISIL or ISIS who have used the name of Islam to conduct brutal acts. The group follows an extremist interpretation of Islam, promotes religious violence and regards Muslims who do not agree with their interpretations as an Infidel. Everything in ISIL is about faith and it is clear that the people have lost their own self in the core values of faith. Believers of the Islamic State bow down to the main faith, and there is almost no room for one’s own perspectives to be introduced in the system. One’s self should always come before having faith in something else and so it is clear that extreme faith like this case can only lead to negative outcomes.
So the question is, “How much faith is too much faith?”
It is up to a person when it comes to how much faith they want to put into something, like a religion. It has its unique positives such as giving a set of values, a sense of belonging, and a motivation. What you get out of it really comes down to how much faith you put into it; enough, but not too much. My personal experiences have taught me the importance and benefits of having faith in things while staying open-minded. When one has excessive faith in something, drawbacks will become clear; there are little advantages from exceedingly believing something. It is having the exact amount of faith in something that brings out the true colors from something.
LUCY
FAITH is short, but has a voice as loud as thunder. She is flawless, clear skin, long flowing hair, eyes that sparkle in the moonlight, and a small button nose. Perfect, except for 7
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huge red scars on her back, one for each person who has abandoned her. She walks around barefoot, and wears a long, flowing, white dress, stained with tears of those she couldn’t help. She is forgiving, and no matter what you do, she will always let you back into her warm and comfortable embrace. Sometimes she isn’t fair, but she does everything for a reason. People who don’t even know her follow her blindly. Faith will always be lingering in the back of your mind, telling you what to do. If you leave her behind, you will have left behind a part of yourself.
To some she is huge, but to others she is tiny. And to some she does not exist. She looks different to everyone, the only common thing being the dress, beauty, and scars. To get to her, one must open themselves up to her. Let her in. Cling on to her, so in times of trouble she can guide you. If you begin to lose her, simply remember why you found her in the first place. Tread lightly, and never forget her. Sometimes it may seem like she is working against you, but Faith will always stay with you, whether you stay with her or not.
JON
A man dies when hit by an ambulance. At this time, the ambulance is carrying a patient in critical condition. He needs a new heart to continue living; coincidentally, the person hit by the ambulance is an organ donor. His heart is given to the man in critical condition. It saves him and he goes on to live a wonderful life. He marries a perfect wife— beautiful, smart, kind—anything a man could want. He has children, a job, and happiness. In contrast, the heart donor was divorced, depressed, and jobless. His frail mental CRAFTING THE ESSAY
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condition eventually caused him to commit suicide; which he did by jumping in front of the ambulance.
In this scenario, the value of the first man’s life was very small; the value of the second man’s life was great. So then, what is the value of the single heart in this situation? For the first guy, it was nearly worthless, whereas for the second guy, it was priceless.
This brings up an interesting question: how can a heart (or an object) have an inherent value if it is so differently valued? Inherent value does not exist. No “thing” has a set value. No “thing” means the same to everyone. No “thing” is considered to be universally valuable.
That’s why people say, “one man’s trash in another man’s treasure.”
A couple months ago, my mom was cleaning up the house and came across my safety deposit box—where I kept all the items that meant something to me. As my mom was about to throw out my valuables, I stopped her.
Although my “junk” was useless to her, they meant the world to me. Inside lay three items: a silver movie ticket, a silver whistle, and a silver necklace.
The silver movie ticket represents where I had my first kiss. It reminds me that someone loves me. The silver whistle was presented to me by my friends, in the middle school play with me. It reminds me that someone loves me. The silver necklace was a gift from my dad when he divorced my mom, to show he would always be there for me. It reminds me that someone loves me.
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For example, if I ever experienced feelings of suicide, I would feel much better once I saw these three items. They exemplify how others feel about me. They exemplify others’ love toward me. They exemplify how the world cares about me. With that being said, if these three items could stop suicidal thoughts, how much are they actually worth?
Money-wise, they add up to about $60. In this hypothetical situation, they saved my life. Does that mean my life is worth a mere $60?
No; there is no set value for anything.
Jonathan Toews, a hockey player, of the Chicago Blackhawks is being paid $10.5 million dollars per year. His stats on paper include 28 goals and 30 assists. His teammate, Artemi Panarin, is paid around $800k and he produced 30 goals and 47 assists last season. Why is it that the player who produces more is paid more than the player who produces less?
Toews is paid nearly $10 million more for the intangibles he offers to the table: leadership, clutch-ness, and determination. Although Panarin had more offense than Toews, offense is not everything in a hockey game, just like money is not everything that contributes to value. When Omar N. Bradley described leadership as untouchable, he also claimed that “[nothing] ever designed can replace it.” Not everyone can be like Toews; you cannot coach someone to be like Toews; you cannot have a player that plays like Toews. He displays traits that are unteachable, which bolsters his value due to his uniqueness.
Uniqueness creates value.
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When Picasso’s Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust was sold for $106.5 million, it was not purchased because it is common; it was purchased because it is one-of-a-kind. Picasso’s view on art was truly unique and special: his blending of colors, use of shapes, and hidden meanings. Each stroke paints an important part of his work. The shape of the eyes and the length of the green leaves gives this painting singularity. Because of its originality, this painting is one of the most valuable in the world. But if there were millions of duplicates of this work of art, its value would be close to nothing.
The value of items change over time. Things like watermelon, rollercoaster tickets, and cars all have fluctuating values. When I go to Six Flags, I have the same experience whether the price of the ticket is $100 or $200. Logically, this mean the value of ticket is doubled even though the experience to me is the same. This is caused by an effect known as supply and demand. When more people want to do something, it costs more, even though what what you pay for is the same. Because a lot of people like something, its value goes up —despite the fact that it means the same to you. So does the value of something heavily depend on others? No. David Ricardo says that “value is estimated [and] price [is] expressed.” The set prices of specific items is merely a mean of what everyone values it at. This is why a price tag determines nothing about the value of something. Each item is valued differently based on who you are asking.
This makes you question what value really is.
Value is subjective, not objective. Value is based upon what you view an object as, not what a price tag says. Value is created, not set. 9
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Stanford’s “value theory” states that there are two types of value: instrumental and intrinsic. If an item has instrumental value, it is said to be good only because it leads to other good items. For example, money has instrumental value, because it can buy things, such as HD TVs or expensive houses in desirable school districts. Although many things have instrumental value, eventually the things lead to an item with intrinsic value. When something is good, just because it is good, it has achieved intrinsic value. Many philosophers have had controversial debates about intrinsic value: whether it exists or not. Michael J. Zimmerman of Stanford University noted that “most philosophers presupposed that the intrinsic goodness of something is the genuine property of that thing.” Once you achieve that genuine goodness, you have destroyed set value and created true value.
Value is what one makes out of an item. One item may have high value to someone and low value to someone else. To find out what the value of something really is, you have to find out what it means to you. To me, value is the three silver items in my safety deposit box.
CHARLES A Comparison Essay: From Miss America to the KKK
The light shone lightly onto the stage, purple, pink, and yellow. The air was suffocating, filled with tension. Millions of eyes, inside the hall and in front of the television, stared intensely at the contestants in anticipation. All waited for CRAFTING THE ESSAY
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the judges’ decision. The contestants were nervous. They were all female, wearing designer dresses, red, white, black, and some glittering, all very generic. They had worked so hard for this. They couldn’t lose now. Not in the final round. Not when the title was so close, just barely beyond their grasp. Not now.
The representative of the judges stood up. All of the attention shifted to her. She spoke with suspense, not revealing the name of the winner. The audience leaned forward. The contestants’ hearts pounded. The judge’s mouth changed in shape with each syllable, projecting voice, but all that mattered to everyone was the name. Finally, she announced, “the 20XX Miss America winner is _______________.” The crowd erupted, and the winner was in tears, with the other contestants begrudgingly giving their congratulations. A flood of emotions came over everyone, whether it be sadness, happiness, or disappointment at oneself for watching something so pointless.
Thus ended the 20XX Miss America competition, which elected a symbol of beauty in America based on looks and other talents. It was a systematic comparison to find the “most beautiful,” something so intangible.
If everyone looks the same, would there be an idea of beauty in human faces?
Of course not. We define beauty through comparisons. Without something uglier, there is no “more beautiful,” or “most beautiful,” in Miss America’s case. As humans, we compare everything; intelligence through tests, height through measuring, cars through speed, athletic ability through sports events, military strength through wars, technology through space races, foot sizes, degrees of success…
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and the list goes on and on. Sometimes it results in something pretty useless, such as Miss America, but often we have to use it to judge our own abilities. It can be quite useful for specialization, like a person good at engineering becoming an engineer, or it can be a motivation to improve oneself.
I would say that I’m a pretty good artist. As you might’ve already guessed, I concluded this through comparing the skills of my peers in my art class to mine and winning an award. During art class, I would often walk around the circle formed by the metal stands, which each held the paper the students were using, either the cheap gray newsprint papers or the expensive white charcoal papers, depending on the skills we were learning. The students would be focused on their artwork; some racing across the paper in broad strokes, arms waving back and forth; some obsessing meticulously over the most inconspicuous of details, hands as if stationary; some simply stare into their artwork at some distance away. Whatever they were doing, I would compare their artwork to mine.
Hmm… This one’s technical skills aren’t as good as mine, her proportions are a little off. Hmm… This one’s idea is quite unimaginative — thank goodness I have something original. Hmm… This one… Oh it’s not bad! Mine’s still pretty good though…. Hmm… This one…. This one….
“What do you think is causing the problem in my drawing?” I would often get asked.
“Hmm… I don’t know…” I would give a vague automatic response.
Then I would actually seriously think about it, “Let’s see.”
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My primary reason for believing that I’m good at art comes from the awards that I have won at the national level. Just like Miss America, it is a systematic comparison of its subjects throughout the United States. In this case, it judges hundreds of thousands of artwork, something so subjective. People still struggle to define “art” and differentiate between creativity and madness, yet here we are: comparing art. Perhaps this is the only way we can do so — we can only grasp straws at some of the few objective parts of art, such as technical skills and originality. Did the artist try to represent an object realistically and succeed? Did the hand resemble a hand? Did the artist accomplish what he or she tries to do? Did the artist think of something unique?
I had never thought of myself as a good artist until I entered this art with more than ten people of the same age as me. Before, I had been comparing myself with my sister, a terrific artist, drawing since the age of seven. She has excellent technical skills, something she labored over, and she consistently produced stunning paintings. I wasn’t very interested in drawing, and mine pales in comparison. Therefore, through this epic comparison between an astronomical figure of two people, I deemed myself as “not that good.”
So why do I compare so much?
Before I jump into that, let’s look at how other people compare as a collective. On a global level, people compare by using countries. Countries, throughout history and even to this day, constantly competed against each other in terms of military and economic strength. A country is a massive group of people, and people jointly rival against each other as groups. The larger a group becomes, the probability of people who don’t contribute but 11
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share a sense of competition rises. The idea of being better leads to a boost in self esteem. Sometimes, unfortunately, people project themselves onto others simply by some shallow connection. That’s quite unproductive. Every year sports events are held, whether it be NFL, NBA, or this year’s UEFA Euro. Fans project themselves onto teams. When their team wins, they “win.” When their team lose, they “lose.” They are certainly comparing, but the subjects don’t relate to them at all. The closest distance between a fan and a player is the distance between the player, running with sweat, with skills he or she acquired over the years, scoring a goal near the goal post and the seat the fan sits in. Even if they share a nationality, such intangible and vague bond is as meaningless as something like Miss America.
Such group consciousness can be quite dangerous, especially when someone wants to boost self esteem while doing nothing except being included in a group, such as a group of white supremacists. In the 1960s, the AfricanAmerican movement was in full motion. Hundreds of thousands of people participated in speech rallies, marches, boycotts, freedom rides, etc. With the rising voice of the people to end segregation, there was also fierce opposition from white supremacists, such as members of the KKK. During the Freedom Rides in 1961, Public Safety Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor gave the KKK in Birmingham, Alabama a heads up and fifteen minutes until police protection for an incoming freedom riders group. All of the riders were savagely beaten and ravaged. One of the white freedom rider, James Peck, required fifty stitches to his head, a mix of surgical lines and red flesh. They desperately wanted to hold on to the belief that the group they were in, White
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Americans, was superior. Parts of their self esteem relied on it, especially for the underachievers. If all races were equal, then what’s below them? Nothing. They terrorized a group they deemed “inferior” to feel better about themselves. And that was being taken away.
These are the hazards of comparisons: if one’s self esteem is related to some intangible bond with other people’s success or “superiority”, and when that fails, one crashes; and in the case of racism, it creates violence and inequality. For racists, they need a group to marginalize and ridicule. On the other hand, Miss America compares a very superficial quality, and yet, they have one winner and a lot of losers to support the “most beautiful” from underneath. When comparison results in a winner and loser who has to suffer, then it becomes a problem, and this has plagued us for centuries. When there are no obvious winners and one is comparing oneself with others secretly, one also needs to be cautious.
I have a rough — but pretty good — idea of how good I am as an artist. The result gave me confidence. I had overlooked my skills when I only had my sister to compare, but now I’m enjoying every process of art. However, if my entire self-worth relies on being better than others, I’ll break if someone surpass me. For me, comparison is a double edged sword. If I rely my entire self-esteem on it, I would be slayed. But if I use it for the improvement of myself, I would slay apart obstacles.
I compare to see what shortcoming I need to overcome. I compare to understand what is better and what is worse. I compare to find my place among my peers. And as humans, we compare to find meaning and purpose.
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AMEIKA
Commitment wears dirty, busted up sneakers. He is always on the move--like a jackrabbit. He feels the need to place himself in the position to be and do everything at once; he can never say no. He possesses a set schedule, which can change in a flash. Often times he finds himself juggling many tasks;he is easily overwhelmed. He finds himself, often times, on decoration and clean up teams for events. He is always the first to arrive and last to leave. He is very friendly and needs to be available for everyone he encounters. If you ever meet Commitment, know that he lives off of positive feedback—which is the purpose of his existence. Even with no reassurance he will never leave. Commitment teams up with Responsibility to encourage us to do tasks set in front of us in its entirety. Everyone does not want Commitment even though he is ready are waiting for them.
IACOB
The imagination is strange. It makes up a mental image, and plays out a mental scene as if it were a video clip. People generally think that this is the imagination’s full potential. But that is untrue, for the imagination is so much more than just a mental image viewer/video player. Our imagination also plays a role in experiencing your perspective of reality.
People express their imagination in a few ways. They could express it through art, music and literature. Sometimes I look, listen, or read at the creations; I see, or hear the pieces all have their own imagination from their creators; I can see that their creativeness has something
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to do with how the creators behave in their normal lives.
The realization has ironically given me a question that I found rather interesting: How can the imagination tell how a person thinks, sees, hears, and feels? Apparently, according to Psychology Today, imagination can affect someone’s perception of reality. It can throw you off with tricks played right inside your head, in your mind. The term for this curious trickery has been given the name, illusion. Because of this evil mind trickster, my sister “sees” infamous internet monsters/killers while in the dark. Because of this evil mind trickster, my sister once threw a pillow at me very hard, for I turned off the lights in the living room, and she told me “I thought you were a fat monster”. “Ouch.” I reply... It wasn’t a very good night.
I think that the imagination is a very weird phenomenon that just so happens to exist; It’s like that guy in the party that’s just there, standing, watching from the corner.
The imagination could probably give an insight of the person’s personality. For example, my sister tends to read too much horror online, which made her pretty fearful of the dark, but it isn’t so bad anymore—thank god. People can also vent out what’s going on in their mind. Venting is to creatively get something off your chest. That would mean that it would require their imagination to help out on how to explain what’s going on in their life. People can vent about something happy or sad, but people usually vent more about the sad stuff.
The imagination can also take advantage of a person’s mind. It can make people see or hear what really isn’t there. As freaky as that sounds, it is quite normal. It’s considered bad when a person has some kind of mental
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disorder like schizophrenia, where you hear voices out of nowhere. The imagination could also betray its host by also “showing” a hallucination. It’s sad that the imagination is capable of such horrible things. You could probably see a ghost, a stranger, a buff unicorn queen, and all of that would be anything but real; it would all just be a blank wall for all I know! Even so, I must, must, must state that the imagination makes a very good distraction.
Imagine a cloud. I meant it, I actually want you to imagine a cloud. Have you done it? Well, that’s your imagination right there. Some would imagine a cloud like bumpy white circles on a sky blue background. Others could imagine an actual realistic cloud you’d see outside. And some would probably be imagining something else other than a cloud. This could mean something.
If you imagined a simple cloud, you could be a simplistic person, who finds no need to add lots of detail to something little. If you imagined a more realistic cloud, you could be a person who likes to add detail to the smallest of things. If you imagined something else, you could probably be creative, or have some knowledge of video games because there’s a character named Cloud in a game. Maybe it’s backwards, and maybe it could be something else. Maybe simple or realism means something else to you. Maybe the cloud has got nothing to do with what you think. I don’t know! The imagination is so bizarre, so what I said could literally either mean something or nothing!!
The imagination is so bizarre because imagination is unique to everyone! That would mean that my statement could be accurate to someone, and maybe it could be inaccurate to the other someone. The imagination affects our CRAFTING THE ESSAY
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perspective, and it can be different. That would mean that our perspective of reality would be all unique. If the imagination is unique, then that would mean that our perspectives of reality would be unique as well.
Albert Einstein once said that “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions.” What that would mean to me is that with imagination, you’re able to “preview” somebody’s way of thinking. The fact that “imagination is everything” also tells me that imagination could also have something to do with the mind. It’s “coming attractions” in this case would be the way people see, hear, feel, and think about life. Now I ask myself, I ask myself a question that will be answered in just a moment, and I ask myself this: What would be the answer to my question?
The imagination is unique to everyone, and depending on your imagination and how it’s used, it could tell how you see your own reality right through your very eyes. Anything you imagine could tell how you see the world. For example, you could imagine the world as a dark, grey, grim place, and that would probably be how you see it in your reality. It could probably also tell you how you’ll be when you get older, or maybe it won’t mean anything, or maybe it would be everything in between. Your imagination could probably mean your own world. Sometimes you could imagine things that wouldn’t really affect you, and sometimes they could affect you in some way.
YASSINE
Waking up, my voice is gone. I croak a raspy “saah dude”, and with much effort, I blink. My first blink of the day loosens some of 14
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the crust in my eyes. In response to my first greeting, three heads pop up, four of us crammed into an already cramped two person bedroom, two messily sheeted mattresses taking up 90% of the available floor space. I was sore all over, especially my feet, and so were my peers. Physically we were exhausted, but mentally we felt amazing and happy.
It took us five minutes to successfully get up, our bodies stiff and sore from the dance the previous night, and look at the room. It looked like an air-bender had gotten mad and decided to rearrange the room. In this boy's dorm room, i counted 4 shirts, 3 pants, one pair of shorts, a few sheets and blankets, a pair of underwear, one circular purple and red headpiece with feathers and a bird, a few empty or half empty snack bags, and 2 lanyards on the floor, one of the doorknob, and one still around a neck.
It was 7:45 am, our room was a mess, and we were sore, crusty, voiceless, and extremely exhausted. And yet we were up and excited at 7:45 am. And there is the difference between a normal weekend and a CTY weekend. On a normal weekend, I wouldn't have even considered it possible.
NEYDA
Why do we have fears?
“ Nothing in life is to be feared.
It is only to be understood.”
-Marie Cune
Imagine yourself on top of the roof from the highest building in the world. What would CRAFTING THE ESSAY
come to your mind when you get to the edge: would you be afraid of the height or be worried of falling? For this situation, there are two options: as you head to the edge your phobia of heights takes control of your body and you begin to panic or, you enjoy the view of the height but are still concerned that being so close to the edge brings the probability of falling. As you may have noticed, the emotion of fear can be for our own good--as a warning or caution signal for us to be careful--but bad for our minds and bodies--of not letting enjoy the moment.
Walking through the old sidewalk--full of cracks and holes--with her friends, Jennifer suddenly sees a nasty, dirty rat. Without her realizing, she began to scream and jump while pointing at the mammal. Laughing, her friends asked her if she was scared of the inoffensive creature. But what they didn’t know was that she had no fear against rats; she disliked things that were dirty. So she has always said that rats go everywhere: between the garbage cans, inside dirty tubes, into our houses, or between the sewer system; carrying many germs on their fur. For that she has always avoided being in contact or near a animal like that. Of course her friends didn’t believe her, for them she was scared of rats even she denied it. After this incident, Jennifer started to question herself,” Am I afraid of rats--and I don’t want to admit it--or is it just me and my exaggeration of clean?’’
According to the website” How Stuff Works” studies show people have fears because it is an emotion that we need in order to survive. When we are born, we have two natural inbuilt fears: fear of falling and fear of loud noises. On our few days of birth, all we do is sleep in our cozy and warm beds, but suddenly a loud noise wakes us up, and we 15
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panic wondering--what is happening in this new world that woke me up? As we grow older, smaller fears start to be overcome, but new ones start to show up. Fear of being alone, and not being able to hug our mother. Fear of strangers while offering us a lollipop, thinking they are all bad. Fear of getting old and getting closer to death. Fear that helps us being safe and alive but also the fear that stops us from living and damages ourselves.
it's poisonous or not. Long time ago, cavemen were scared of new things; new things meant danger or death. This is why fear is an emotion that affects the human mind in a positive way-as in a warning--or in a negative way--as in phobias. For these reasons, not everyone have fear against something they don’t want to interact with, but are concerned that they don’t know all the information needed and are warned of danger.
The emotion of fear will always be with us, even if we aren’t scared of something-because fear is what we need for us to live a safe life.
People will always show fear. Fear of worms, spiders, strangers, bugs, or insects. Fear of escalating the highest mountain, seeing a dog, or maybe being left alone. But in order to live, we need this emotion. The emotion that protect us. The emotion that damages us. The emotion that kills us. The emotion that saves us. The emotion that no matter how much we try to hide from, will always know what our next step heads to.
Some years before today, we, humans, feared that in any moment the life on earth will end. But today, we are afraid of more recent problems like: global warming, terrorism, financial meltdown, street crime, or the chance of cancer-causing chemicals in our foods. Ironically, now than any time in history, we are healthier and safer. According to Lars Svendsen, a Norwegian philosopher,” Fear is a powerful emotion. It can save lives.” But also fear undermines the essential social glue-which is trust. He believes that we need to replace the risk in society with a culture of hope and trust. Philosopher Thomas Hobbes thought that society itself is found on fear. He claimed that fear is a good thing because it is the glue that bonds people together.
Everyone is afraid of something. But that fear is not always because we are scared of it, mostly because we don’t know much information about it. Take Jennifer as an example, she was not scared of the dirty and furry rat, but of all the diseases it might carry with it. As you see a spider--you may not be scared of it-- you just don’t want to get close or in contact with it--because you don’t know if CRAFTING THE ESSAY
After all said, every human has fears, because this emotion is the shield that protects us from danger. Sometimes it is not fear what we have, but a sense of danger that pulls us back of coming in contact with an object or feeling. For other people, it ,may seem, that we don’t admit our fear. But just tell them this: people don’t fear death, they question themselves what happens after it; others are not scared of the sea but was it is under it-animals that may be dangerous, maybe.
Most important of all, fear is an important emotion that we all need to keep ourselves alive.
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ANGELA
is: Do we really have the power to force change within ourselves?
People can change over the course of months, years, decades — sometimes never at all. Change in a person can also occur in weeks, days, hours, minutes — seconds even. A bullet only takes a few seconds to rip through the flesh after all.
You wake up and you are tired. Getting out of bed is a struggle. It is early in the morning, 6:00 A.M. As you roll out of bed, you realize that it still isn’t entirely light outside. “It’s too early for this,” you think. But still you walk outside where you can smell the soil in the air, where the colors are still faded and not yet saturated by the sun’s rays, where the early birds will watch over your morning run.
Can We Force Change Within Ourselves?
Murder is when one life form purposely ends another life form. It is one of the most powerful physical acts one can commit. Surely, watching this would greatly impact how you view the world. A classic example is young Bruce Wayne who went out to the theater with his parents one night. Upon leaving the theater, his parents are suddenly attacked and shot by a mugger. Bruce’s innocent eyes are witness to his own life tragedy. Instilled in him that night was a grim view of the broken world along with a need for justice in the city of Gotham. And so, he turned into the ever-frowning Batman that we all know and love.
Bruce’s change in demeanor was not something he had control over. Bruce did not ask to witness his own parent’s murder or to become a bitter superhero. Fate was the one who changed him.
Change is controversial, especially in people. Many feel betrayal among friends and family members that suddenly change. They are people that we know and trust, or at least, thought we knew and trusted. If you are a quiet person, is it right to force yourself to parties to be more social? If you feel like you are too talkative, should you train yourself to be quieter? If you feel uncultured, should you go out and explore the world? Change is everywhere — we created a whole political party that revolves around it. The real question CRAFTING THE ESSAY
There are millions of other people in the world that don’t enjoy exercise, but feel obligated to do so in order to remain healthy. Exercise is the forced change of oneself physically, but what we question is the forced change of oneself internally. Oftentimes, we force ourselves to do things we don’t want to do when we’re unsatisfied with ourselves. In fact, a majority of people would like to modify some part of their personality.
In the early winter months, gyms are feverishly filled up. In perspective of the whole year, the winter months are the ones with the most gym memberships. However by spring, more than half will disappear along with the melted snow. It’s an odd sight to witness, but it’s expected every year — every New Year. Annually, we make promises to ourselves in the form of New Year’s resolutions. The most popular resolution being weight loss, the reason that so many sign up for gym memberships.
But none of us really keep our New Year’s resolutions.
People love to think that they have control, but control is a slippery thing that even geniuses like Napoleon have lost grip of. Self-imposed
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change in ourselves may be the most difficult — perhaps not even possible.
change, we must shed every part of our past selves. Butterflies aren’t caterpillars after all.
But what if that change in yourself meant life or death?
And that’s exactly what Roderick did to get his life back.
Drugs. They turn us into different people. It’s an easy way to change who you are. Feel sad? Take a pill! Too shy? Drink up! Stressed? Smoke weed! There’s a variety of drugs out there to solve all types of problems: heroine, opium, nicotine, marijuana, cocaine, the list goes on and on. Now this sounds great, but battles are not won so easily in life. The real problem happens when you’re off the drug, hazy-eyed and cranky, hair stuck to the back of your neck with a hint of vomit in your breath. At a certain point, even though you’re off the drug, you’re not who you used to be anymore and you’re not who you want to be either.
Society tells us to be happy with who we are but also tells us to constantly improve ourselves. So which is it?
This was the case with Roderick, a man addicted to cocaine. The drug caused him to become delusional and bad-tempered, but even worse was that he lost his sense of morals, stealing from his own son and wife to make money. With his life crumbling around him and his wife threatening to leave, Roderick was faced with an ultimatum: to continue or to change.
Roderick realized that he did not like the person he had become.
And so, the long and difficult path of rehab loomed before him. Some glance at an addict and go, “Hey, if you want to quit, just stop taking them.” Unlike the road there, the road away from drugs is like constantly fighting against the ocean’s current. Metamorphosis is ugly. If you crack open a cocoon, what leaks out is a half-formed larvae with various other liquids. Change is easier said than done. To
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In biology, the cell membrane is in charge of transferring nutrients in and out of the cell. There are two types of transport: passive and active. Passive transport does not require energy, molecules flow naturally from an area of higher concentration to lower concentration, like how water flows out of a punctured bag. However, active transport is different. It requires energy in the form of ATP. The molecules have to go from an area of lower concentration to an area of higher concentration, like trying to stuff an already filled bag. Active transport may sound like an abnormal process, but it is essential to the body. Unlike a bullet, forced change is not quick or easy. Forced change is not passive transport. Forcing change means transforming something that is literally implanted in our brain. Forced change is a choice. Forced change in ourselves is something that takes both time and constant effort, until we climb the entire uphill path from point A to point B and emerge victorious but unfamiliar with our new selves.
GABY
Forgiveness
There’s something deep inside human beings that might be difficult to explain. It’s like we have a box filled with dark gray clouds 18
CTY: Bristol, RI
labeled “anger”. We use this feeling to retaliate on others: our friends, our loved ones, our family. It’s a natural expression that we hold onto; when the top of the box opens, we explode. We throw our anger— our frustrations — to people who sometimes don’t deserve it. But “forgiving those who don’t deserve it, is a key success factor for any leader.”
It was 7:45 a.m. on a Wednesday morning. Khakis, white polo with the Aero logo, dark blue Jansport, brown-gold loose hair flowing in the wind. 14-year old girl. There I was. Waiting anxiously to grab my daily 8th grade middle school schedule. I stood quietly; noticed there were groups. Like in the movies: the popular, the nerds, the ‘too cool for school”, and the “i’m too fabulous for you.”
Why should we always forgive those who don’t deserve our forgiveness? Why does forgiveness even exist? Leonard Buhler once mentioned, “it’s hard to forgive someone when you have the resources to get even.” We are human beings, we love. We laugh. We cry. We get angry, and we forgive. Sometimes our brain doesn’t observe the fact that instead of forgiving we retaliate. Why do we make that happen? Perhaps we’ve been raised that way, or we think it’s for the best. We are all humans. We are full of errors. We are full of mistakes. We are full of forgiveness.
My mom would always sit next to me, pretending she was my therapist, glance at my glasses fill up with tears and explain how “forgiveness isn’t something you do for the person who wronged you, it’s something you do for yourself.” I was at a young age, my brain never understood that phrase.
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People my eyes never saw, would hide behind a bright telephone size screen and chit-chat secrets I never thought would go school-wide.
My mind was full with questions about the friendship of me and him. “Did he tell everyone my secrets? The secrets he only knew? Why do I deserve this? Why do these people who were once my “friends” believe all these rumors?
Lost, confused, miserable, embarrassed. There I was. A sorrowful girl sitting in the corner. I couldn’t blame him. I couldn’t go up to him and let out my anger on him. I couldn’t be that girl who would defend herself. I couldn’t go up to those people who were my “friends” and tell them to stop. I couldn’t face the fact that the commencement of these rumors, was my best friend. The only person I trusted.
Our friendship thrived day by day, but by the moment I never noticed it was actually dying. I was stuck in this world where friendships last forever. Minute by minute, rumors grew and spread. I would ask myself, “should I believe them?”, but the real question should've been “are they true?” Our friendship died like a rose without water. It felt like it had no meaning.
Sometimes it’s easier to forgive and forget. Sometimes forgiving people improves our leadership.
Forgivingness doesn’t mean excusing the other person’s actions. Forgiveness doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have any feelings about the situation. Forgivingness doesn’t mean you should forget everything that occurred in that moment. Forgiveness doesn’t mean you should have that person in your life. Forgiveness doesn’t mean you should do it for the other person.
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And at the end it was just me forgiving him.
Yes, it hurt me like hell, but sometimes forgiving others can make our lives easier and powerful.
It wasn’t just a “you’re forgiven for creating rumors about my secrets.” nor a “I’m okay. It’s all good.” Our friendship that I imagined lasting forever, was dead—Just dead.
Leonard Buhler once mentioned, “Jesus helped me find that faith in knowing how to forgive others when they don’t deserve it and how to forgive myself.” I found that faith inside me. I forgave myself. I forgave him.
MIKEY
What effects can music have upon us?
“Music was an outlet”(Angela Murphy) ”Music is my escape”(Lucy Joseph) “Music makes me feel, what I want to feel” (Michael Singer).Music helped all these people. It helped them Stay alive, stay human, stay sane. It helped them find their personality, it helped them find their path, their core, it helped them find out who they really are. It was their therapy — it was my therapy
If we never created the thought of music, I don't think i could survive. I picture music as door, a door which could lead me to different places, a door which could lead me to a memory where I laugh hysterically, and cry a river of tears of joy; as a door that leads me to my grandpas funeral where army soldiers folded the american flag, as they played the trumpets, as a door that leads me to my 8th grade promotion dance dance—first place I ever danced, as a door to escape the CRAFTING THE ESSAY
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world.Sometimes it's harder to say what we really want to say than to express it in art. And sometimes the words we want to say are already said for us. Speaking from experience, it's hard to talk about what I feel or what happening; and I also know it's bad to keep everything bottled up, so I express my feelings in music and art. If I didn't have music to keep me sane, if I didn't have music to explain what I feel, if i didn't have music to music to remind me of the good times. if I didn't have music…. I wouldn't have survived.
As you know, they’re the bad in the good and the good in the bad. So you know there's negative emotions human beings have. Hearing music can regulate our moods(MMR), our negative moods, Psychology today classified 3 categories that regulate our negative moods: Solace, Diversion, Discharge. Solace is when you’re sad and you hear a sad song. For example if someone with depression hears a sad song then he can find comfort in the illness. Diversion: diversion is when they hear a song to distract them from their bad mood. For instance an anxious person might sing a happy song to distract them. Discharge: discharge is when we sing to get rid of a negative emotion. For example, is someone is mad, angry or frustrated; they dance and sing along metal as an outlet to get rid of the negative emotion.
“Music not only changes our moods, but it also changes the way we think and our perception of the world.”(anonymous).
Music can also help treat specific illnesses. “There is strong scientific evidence supporting the use of music therapy for mood enhancements and anxiety/ stress relief, according to natural standard research.” (Psychology today).First, Autism is a 20
CTY: Bristol, RI
brain disorder that is connected to the development problems, mostly in communicating and social interactions. People who have Autism often show a heightened interest and response to music; this can help teachers communicate with certain students with autism.Second, one of the most common disorders is depression. Depression can affect one's way they feel about themselves, and how they think of life situations. They can have mood swings of sadness, or passing mood states. Depressive disorders affect approximately 9.5% of the US population age 18 and older. There is evidence that music therapy may increase responsive to antidepressant medication. Music therapy may lead to reductions in: Heart rate, blood pressure , and depressed moods. There are clinics which use music therapy to help treat patients such as the “luxury San Diego Rehab clinic uses music therapy. Music therapy are music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship by a credentialed professional who has completed an approved music therapy program (google). Such as a furious biker listening to kill em with kindness by Selena Gomez. This might seem strange but, it's not, this is the reason we use music therapy. The furious biker with anger issues will need to calm down the urge to use his fist so he could hear Kill em with kindness to stop the urge.
Music surprisingly can make you a better person. There was a year long study of 8-11 year old kids who played music together aren't just having fun: they’re absorbing a key component of emotional intelligence — a study done in the university of Cambridge.
“If I were not a physicist, i would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of CRAFTING THE ESSAY
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music…. I cannot tell if I would have done any creative work of importance in music,but I do know that I get most joy in life out of my violin.”( Albert Einstein)
Music is a wonderful thing in life. It helps us in so many ways. Music can speak to our brains —the words we can't say. Music is like a spell to help in our everyday life. Music is here — to help us.After writing this paper my question was “what effects can music have upon us?”but now I had to change this question to “how can music benefits us” because music helps us unlike other things that have a cost music is here to benefit the world.
MARIOLA
Necessary Consequence
Imagine yourself the owner of Google: billionaire, influential, wielding world power. Would you do anything to preserve your authority, to expand your dominion? I’m sure that most of you are answering with yes. In this case yes is extortion. Yes is guaranteed vice. Yes is—venality, and often death. However, yes is human.
Those who wield power, must face a mortal enemy. Corruption truly is a grand adversary to face, and has brought down many men with its sword, vice. The only way to beat corruption is with: transparency, a strong sense of moral identity, and character. However, when given the dominance, and influence to get away unscathed for doing, well, just about anything, most of us lose our moral compass. After all, why trudge slowly along the lengthy path guided by a moral compass; when we can take 21
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ethical shortcuts, and obtain power along the way. None of us are truly safe from the strong cold grasp of corruption.
“Power tends to corrupt”, said Lord Acton the 19th century British historian,”absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It is awe-inspiring to see how such a simple sentence can capture such a profound truth; an essential reality to accept when observing the relationship between power, and corruption which are interdependent. One can’t subsist without the other. Together, as a single parasite they feed off of our nature, our benevolence, and our moral authority.
Lord Acton’s axiom has been vividly illustrated in psychological studies, notably the 1971, Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted by Philip G. Zimbardo. Students were placed in a sinful place, to test whether humanity could triumph. Young men divided into the roles of guard and prisoner to investigate how readily people would conform to their assigned roles. Zimbardo’s interest relied on finding out, “whether the brutality reported in prison from guards to prisoners was due to their sadistic personalities, or had more to do with the prison environment.” The experiment was meant to last a duration of two weeks, but due to the brutality of the guards, and the intense suffering of the prisoners, it was terminated in six days.
This study can be used as an illustration of how power shapes the behavior of individuals; we all conform blindly to the corruption power brings.
A nation is deteriorating, and the corruption of one man is responsible. Robert Mugabe has mis governed Zimbabwe for 29 years, and simply oversees its deterioration with delight.
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Long ago, the name Robert Mugabe carried reverence, and respect like Nelson Mandela's name. Now, to mention their names in the same sentence can only be to point out difference. The contrast among a leader that used his power for the good of the people he ruled, and a corrupt old man that has sent Zimbabwe's economy into a free fall. Andrew Meldrum said that, “ What he has done with the land is further consolidate his power.” Meldrum is a Guardian Correspondent, and a Progressive contributor, and lived in Zimbabwe for 23 years before being kicked out. “ He evicted the white farmers, and turned over land to his influential support judges, army officers, and other people he wants to keep happy. Most importantly, he has shown that he has the power to bestow people with land, and even when they get land, they are at his behest.”
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character give him power”, said Abraham Lincoln. K Keener, English teacher in four different continents, and inhabitant of Zimbabwe for two years, was asked about her experience in Zimbabwe. She explained that being paid every two weeks 70,000 Zimbabwean dollars, to say a number, she would have to spend the most she could in her payday. Living in a country where the inflation rate raises 25% each two weeks, the 70,000 dollars would only be of that value for that day. By the end of that week the 70,000 would have a value of 52,500. On payday she would restock on pasta, dried beans, and jars for the next two weeks. “I would buy food as if i was saving up for an emergency, but in my case the emergency was guaranteed.”
Puerto Rico is an island that as two years ago had a daily death rate of 10 people per day , and has only gotten worse; living under the shadows of corruption is nothing new. Puerto 22
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Rico has an undeniable culture of corruption. I am 15 years old, and I am sure that my “fair share” of experience with corruption is only the start. Through this exploration, I have noticed that corruption is not an immediate consequence of power. Great leaders such as Nelson Mandela, who used power as a tool to become the philanthropist, renowned revolutionary leader, and champion of freedom that he was. In the future, I plan to be a doctor, undoubtedly a prominent job where I will be given the greatest power available; the power of having lives in my hands. I am promising myself that for the future, I will not give in to letting corruption eat away at my character. I herten you to break the chain of corruption, and become part of the solution. Avoid letting corruption be the necessary consequence of power.
LYNN
Where Does Confidence Come From?
“The best accessory a girl can own is confidence.”, says Unknown. Confidence works wonders on people and is said to be the best look on anyone can wear. Dove America— a soap product company—composed an experiment in which a person was asked to describe themselves for an artist who was prevented from seeing them. After the drawing was complete, the artist drew another picture of the same person, this time described a friend. In the end, comparing the pictures made it obvious that the friend’s description had not only been better looking, but more accurate. The experiment proved that people should
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have more self confidence. Accessories that are easily accessible, we know exactly where to get them. But accessories like confidence— where do they come from?
Looking back on my life, the experience I can answer the question was when I was in seventh grade. It had about 8 months since my first traditional dance performance, and the team had performed about 20 times after that. It took a lot to make me nervous, but on February 22, 2015, it was a different case. The Bergen Performing Arts Center was as huge of a stage as it was a deal. Two dances I could probably complete with my eyes closed, but suddenly, I was imagining all the things that could go wrong.
“Keep a confident smile on your face and no one will notice even if you mess up,” my mother reminded me as I waited on standby. In the beginning, I was more acting than dancing. It took 30 seconds before my fake smile turned into a real one as I remembered why I loved stages. Something that had not been there seconds ago had grown alive. It was the confidence that I wouldn’t fall, that I wouldn’t forget what came next. And before I knew it, it was all over.
The confidence had grown from my mom’s advice, the excitement, the audience. What had begun fake turned real. A comparison was found in Harvard Social Psychologist Amy Cuddy’s experiment on the power of posture. In her article “Power Posing”, she explains the experiment she composed on people’s body language and its connection to self esteem. The forty-two participants who were students were asked to fake an interview for their dream job. The 26 females and 16 males participating were randomly assigned one of two poses, one a 23
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high-power-pose, the other a low-power-pose. They were instructed to keep the certain pose before their interview, and to measure their testosterone level and confidence, they were connected to electrodes for evidence along with saliva samples. The results proved that the students with the high-power-pose performed better in the interview and had a higher testosterone level. The fake poses they were assigned gave them the ability to turn the fake confidence into real confidence. This poses another question: Does confidence work when it starts out fake? It’s another theory that confidence could be something that starts out fake, working like a disease—contagious to the point it becomes real.
Confidence, once found, can work in magical ways. From where it comes from, it doesn’t matter as long as it is gained. It gives you courage, joy, and success. Although too much of it can be bad, confidence is important to have. Confidence is the slight strut in the girl’s walk as she makes her way down the hallway in her favorite outfit. Confidence is the relaxed smile on the actor’s face before the curtains open. Confidence is the stance of the first student to hand in his algebra test. Confidence is key.
LEILANIE Forgiveness
Forgiveness is leaving resentment behind and handing it to the past. Everyone deserves a second chance to clean up there mistakes. In fact, forgiving people is a way of relieving your stress. It has been proven by scientists that if you forgive, you consciously decide to let go of vengeance towards someone who has harmed CRAFTING THE ESSAY
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you in some way or another, whether or not they deserve that forgiveness. There are cases where you just forgive people because you simply love them. People full of pride keep that rencor to themselves, which can lead to an end of a friendship or relationship. It’s easier to forgive and say sorry than to stay mad, even though when it wasn’t you the one who caused the problem or had culpability.
You forgive for yourself, not for the benefit of the one who wronged you. When you withhold forgiveness only you are hurt. “Everyone makes mistakes, if you cant forgive others don’t expect others to forgive you. Forgiving people gets you out of that angry mode. If you are angry, this can have effects on blood pressure, heart rate, as well as your mental health. It’s incredible how forgiving people’s mistakes can lead to a decreased stress; which calms anger down.
By forgiving others, you allow that person to work on themselves. If we show others compassion, we learn how to develop it for ourselves. It also makes us a better person and more spiritual. Forgiving people just talks a lot about how you are and the character traits that shape us as a person. Sometimes; when it comes to forgiving, the other person is not right. “But if we know better, we do better. Sooner or later it will get to the point where the other person realizes he was wrong and then thank you for giving him/she a second chance.” Mistakes don’t define you , they teach you.”
Life has taught me that, and many more lessons. I talk from personal experience; I remember it like if it was yesterday. I felt really bad after responding back to my mom and having a bad attitude towards her. For that she grounded me for a month. It was a long and 24
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hard month, in which every single day I would say sorry to my mom and she just responded with a “ don’t worry, you’re paying your consequences now.” That response didn’t please me, day after day I felt bad for how I acted towards my mom, because I had never answered back to her. After the month was over, she saw me one day crying after school laying on my bed. Our daughter- mother relationship wasn’t the same. She came up to me and forgave me with a hug, I immediately knew I had her pardon. I tightly hugged her as she rapped her arms around my body. It was then, when my mom taught me one more of her life lessons and just wanted me to learn a lesson, so I wouldn’t do it again. These are the kind of moments that I take with me and never forget, because for those reasons I am who I
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am. Someone who demonstrates compassion for others and forgives people when they deserve it or just made a mistake. Those kinds of mistakes not just help me, but they also help the person who is being forgiven.
Sometimes we forgive people every day without noticing. For example when someone steps on you accidentally and say there sorry. What do we all normally say? “Oh it’s ok, don’t worry”. Little things like these show forgiveness, but we sometimes are too busy to even notice this.
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