At a young age, the struggles that people go through really shape who they want to become. Those struggles can shape aspiration, dreams and life goals. In Yiyun Li’s essay “Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life,” Li introduces the “before” and “after” concept. This concept can be understood in many different ways, most of them however relate to the passage of time and how is people relationship with this passage. An example of Li’s before and after concept can be withdrawn from Jay-Z’s essay “One Eye Open.” The struggles that Jay-Z went through throughout his youth shaped what he aspired to do after. His youth was able to give him a purpose in life, the period he witnessed at the projects gave him his goal. His relationship
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It can also help people explore solutions to problems that they may be having. Taking Li’s essay as an example of this, she says “To write about a struggle amidst struggling: one must hope that this muddling will end someday”(Li 117). To Li, her essay was mean to try and solve her confusion of time. Li used her essay to to try to understand how her relationship with time effects her personality. Understanding how a dreamer’s relationship with time is positive, Li then became inspired to be one of a dreamer’s personality, a step to resolve her complication with time to reach the “after”.. This notion of trying to create change through a better understanding of a problem is why artists like Jay-Z started writing songs. Being “ part of a generation of kids who saw something special about what it means to be human-something bloody and dramatic and scandalous that happened here in America-and hip-hop was [their] way of reporting that story”(Jay-Z 18). Jay-Z used his writing to share and also understand the story of a young hustler which he once was. Interested in “the interior space of a young kid’s head, his psychology,” (Jay-Z 17) Jay-Z wanted to explore why kids that age resolve to the dangers of hustling. To understand his story a little better or to shed a light on the struggles that the young hustler goes through. It also helps the young hustler understand his story a little better through the past experience that Jay-Z had. Just like when Li mentions in her essay “why write if not for that distance; if things can be let go, every before replaced by an after”(Li 120). Writing helps people share their understanding of different conflicts so that people who are going through similar struggles can benefit. Use other people’s “before” to help and reach an
It can also help people explore solutions to problems that they may be having. Taking Li’s essay as an example of this, she says “To write about a struggle amidst struggling: one must hope that this muddling will end someday”(Li 117). To Li, her essay was mean to try and solve her confusion of time. Li used her essay to to try to understand how her relationship with time effects her personality. Understanding how a dreamer’s relationship with time is positive, Li then became inspired to be one of a dreamer’s personality, a step to resolve her complication with time to reach the “after”.. This notion of trying to create change through a better understanding of a problem is why artists like Jay-Z started writing songs. Being “ part of a generation of kids who saw something special about what it means to be human-something bloody and dramatic and scandalous that happened here in America-and hip-hop was [their] way of reporting that story”(Jay-Z 18). Jay-Z used his writing to share and also understand the story of a young hustler which he once was. Interested in “the interior space of a young kid’s head, his psychology,” (Jay-Z 17) Jay-Z wanted to explore why kids that age resolve to the dangers of hustling. To understand his story a little better or to shed a light on the struggles that the young hustler goes through. It also helps the young hustler understand his story a little better through the past experience that Jay-Z had. Just like when Li mentions in her essay “why write if not for that distance; if things can be let go, every before replaced by an after”(Li 120). Writing helps people share their understanding of different conflicts so that people who are going through similar struggles can benefit. Use other people’s “before” to help and reach an