Writing Topic #1 pg. 655

I chose this topic due to its subject matter and the tone of it. Its tone is not one of despair or loss, it is one of hope and the belief that nothing is ever lost only remade in a more beautiful image. Even the title itself “All Shall Be Restored” gives you the idea and belief that in the end the individual and all his mistakes will be wiped clean. Whatever bad we have seen or done will not matter anymore. Parts of this poem seem to rest in the religious belief in human beings as the flock and a higher power as the Sheppard, as shown in “The grain shall be collected / from the thousand shores” it seems that the majority of cultures and countries do believe in life after death, indeed for the most part most cultures, ours included, believe that if you lead an honorable life you will be rewarded with peace and also restoration in the next life, as the poem alludes to. To a certain degree it would seem that this poem, as many religious teachings also, somewhat gives you something to, maybe not look forward to, but at least feel hopeful and peaceful about. The mistake that many practices make is to try to scare people into being “good” and in the end all that such practices accomplish is to make people turn away and lookdown upon them. Practices and works such as this one serve to promote the idea that in the end, death is just another chapter of life.
Specifically, American culture, at least popular culture stresses the same messages as this poem and its title. From a relatively young age the majority of us learn that life is a cycle where death is not an ending merely a new chapter of life. I do not know very much about other religions however, in Christian circles I have learned that as this poem stresses that we are small pieces of a larger puzzle and at the end of our lives we will be resorted in that more perfect image. Therefore, this poem is very much a comment on out culture and the hopeful way it looks not only at death but also life and the importance of making every moment count.
Although our culture mainly believes in and stresses hope and renewal in death it does seem that many in our culture do try to work against this eventually. For example, plastic surgery is one of the most popular and common medical practices that many people undergo. In many cases facelifts and Botox are the number one choice and obviously people undergo such procedures because they want to look younger but sometimes it also seems that many of them are not just fighting off the signs of aging but also death. I guess despite the lofty ideals of our culture and its major religion, many of us harbor fears not so much of death but the unknown nature of it.
However, I do think that despite to fears of the unknown it is comforting to believe that life is constant change and that “nothing / shall be lost”. More than restoration of the body this poem concerns the ultimate renewal of the soul and spirit, when the poem speaks of the “treasured” and the “bronzed horse” remounting the steps, the meaning seems to be that the spirit will reach where it was meant to be and even then it will continue ever on and renew itself.

I did not feel that it undermined her supposed “heroic act”. In the first place I would not exactly call her decision to leave heroic. Indeed it was sad that she felt that she had to leave her children behind but I understood her motivation. I felt that she took such a drastic action because she did not want to influence her children to be like her, she would not want them to live only to please another and never know who they were or what truly made them happy as individuals. It seemed that her decision to leave her marriage was based on the sudden disillusionment she felt when her husband did not instinctually react as she would have; he did not try to “take the bullet for her”, cared more for his reputation. Therefore, it seemed that her motivation was based on not only her disillusionment in terms of her husband but also her sudden lack of love for her husband. She had lived her life first for her father and later for her husband, she talked about how she adopted each ones opinions as her own and never questioned them. Until this pivotal moment when she realizes that Helmer’s devotion is not like hers does she understand that above being a mother and a wife she must first be a “reasonable human being”. Her believe that she was doing the right thing could, I suppose, make her seem heroic because she was willing to give up her comfortable life, and more importantly her children to not only find out who she was but to also prevent her children from becoming her.
An ending that would involve Nora not leaving not leaving her children would change the meaning of the story drastically, it would undermine it. The resonance and realization that is so central to this work would have been missing with a different ending. Situations in which sacrifice does not have to be made are somewhat pointless because it is the struggle that underlies interaction. Just because a story has a happier ending does not make it a better one. Going off of what Nora explains to Helmer, she needs to figure out who she is before she can help anyone else. Maybe one day she will find her way back to them but in the meantime realizing that she is not the mother she feels she should be has decided her fate in the story. She cannot understand a world in which a daughter cannot spare her dying father worry or save her husbands life and until she understands she feels that she is of no use to her family. It felt like more than trying to be heroic, Nora was just trying to save herself and spare her children. She realized that understanding herself and the world can only come about through reflection and through someone teaching her, yet she realizes that Helmer is not the one to reach her, he essentially already failed her. Therefore taking into account that much of the importance of the story would have been lost I feel that had Nora decided to stay with her family she would have failed herself. Every person deserves the right to know themselves and she is barely realizing this fact.

Writing Topic #1 pg. 371

In general most peoples tastes change with age, for example as children the majority of us played with toys and had imaginary friends. As teenagers most of us were more concerned with the things people around us thought were cool. We dressed, acted and were into things that seemed to be fun and popular at the time. We did all these things in accordance with the segment of high school society that we felt most comfortable and most interested in. As adults it seems that the majority of us have learned to follow our won paths and take part in the activities we are interested in.
For myself I have found that there are some tastes that have not changed with time. Most of my life has been spent in jeans a tee shirt and flip flops, Ive always loved country music, which I was raised on, and I have always preferred a good comedy to a dramatic movie. I do not know that my individual tastes actually define who I am but I do know that they obviously show people, to an extent, who I am and what I am about in a superficial way. We all look to how other people dress and how they present themselves to tell us if they are “like us” or possible friends. Considering all the things that are of interest to me I can see that many of them have to do with how I was raised and who I was raised by. For example in my family owning a truck is a staple and seeing how high you can lift it is a challenge, my dad, my uncles and my brother all have trucks and I guess the good memories I have not just of them but also the cars have influenced my preference and interest in them. On the flip side another side of my family is strongly interested in music, al kinds and types, and art, now I cannot play or paint like some of my relatives but I do have an equally strong love of music and a beautiful piece of art.
In contrast to this there are some traits I have and some things that interest me that are boring to many of the people I know. For example, I have always loved, bordered on obsessed, tennis and during Grand Slam tournaments I have been known to spend hours watching the many different matches offered. So I think that sometimes the things we are interested in do not come from history or influence, sometimes the things we are most passionate about are born into us, they are inherent.
Sometimes I think many of us dress in a certain way because, like in high school we sometimes want to highlight certain facts or features of who we are. For example, many of my friends have decals on their cars with brand names like Volcom, Fox and Burton imprinted on the back window and they do it because first of all it shows other people what they are interested in and also they do it because it is like a signal to other people about the “group” you belong to, I think as human beings this is one of the most vital components to social interaction, we all use symbols, be it clothes, music we listen to or activities we participate in to show people who we think we are and who we indentify with. Therefore, I feel that we all look to symbols to decide who we interact with and who shares our likes and interests.

Writing Topic pg. 164

Collateral damage refers to situations in which people other than those involved become involved and get hurt. In “From the Diary of an Almost Four Year Old” it seems that there is some kind of war going on in the country she lives. It feels like she is probably part of some persecuted group and that is why the soldier attacked her. Collateral damage is brought about by situations in which people that should not be involved are affected and deemed “expendable”. I think this type of damage can also affect things other than human beings. For example in the industrial age our country’s natural resources were damaged and extinguished all in the name of progress. Nature was deemed expendable because it does not ecru money or a product like industry does.
The term collateral damage seems to be commonly used by people to describe situations in which they want to act like there was no other choice. Im sure the soldier felt some sort of justification in harming a toddler; otherwise I do not think he would not have done it. The same principle applies to the scarce natural resources we have compared to when our country was founded. People act like collateral damage is unavoidable when in fact they are just using it as an excuse to excuse the actions they take. The term is a strange one however, because collateral damage is anything you out up like getting a loan from those places you see in commercials and giving them the pink slip to your car and the term damage, well, everyone knows what damage is. I think the strangeness of this term fits the situations it is applied to in a certain way, our natural resources are used to achieve the end of profit and like your cars pink slip it is never seen again.
I cannot think of a situation in which collateral damage is morally justified, in my experience I have learned and I believe that collateral damage implies and leads to people or some aspect of life being damaged or destroyed. The concept of it being morally justified brings to my mind that old saying of “sacrifice a few to save many” and “for the grater good”, who decides what the greater good is and what about those few who are sacrificed to save the many, what about them? It sounds practical and rational to say that something must be given up for the majority to flourish but it leads to the question of where this thinking leads; when we allow ourselves to take the easy way out, which in my opinion involves collateral damage, how do we know when we have crossed the line? When is enough, enough? One of the hardest aspects of life is making decisions, any decision that involves a large amount of people will probably involve some sort of collateral damage but I think the best thing to do is draw the line at allowing important things such as human beings to be compromised in some way and minimizing the damage that is done.