“The reward for conformity,” Rita Mae Brown once said, “is that everyone likes you but yourself.” This meaningful quote expresses that individuals maintain hatred towards themselves in order to conform to horrible decisions and acts. Millions of people have attempted to conform to the actions of the world such as dressing a certain way, making bad decisions, or selecting a poor choice of friends, to experience the pleasure of fitting in, but the attempts to do so only made life even more agonized and disastrous. To be a conformist, one must first lose his or her own morals and instead focus on what society has in store, whether it may be good or bad. Expressed through the use of a great deal of violent and cruel acts, conformity is the main…
Every individual wishes to get what they want. Most people are willing to achieve their goals with tradition ways. Meanwhile, some people choose to approach their obsessions by different method. There are always some conflicts between pursuing personal desires and choosing to conform.…
This world contains over two hundred million insects for each human being. Scientists have discovered that there are more than nine hundred thousand different kinds of insects; insects also represent about eighty percent of the world’s species. Recently, soil samples were taken from an acre in North Carolina; it was revealed that in that one acre, with the depth of five inches, there were approximately 124 million creatures to be found. These facts serve as a reminder that the world is close to bursting with these tiny beings, yet we as humans barely take the time to notice them. There are those rare few, however, who have learned to see fully and deeply, and to appreciate the beauty and the violence in the world around them.…
What principles should guide our lives? Throughout this insightful chapter, I found a strong correlation between my own beliefs in correlation to Ringer’s “Look Out for Number One,” alongside Chodron’s “Abandon Any Hopes of Fruition.” “One’s goal in life should be to spend time pursuing pleasure as long as this pursuit does not violate the rights of others,” (Ringer 191), a statement in which I find strong belief in, as I believe it to be the most rational course of action that pertains to how you handle your own life. I believe that there should be no blockade between your own desires and happiness, allowing you to pursue your own for filling life style as long as it does not directly impact another individual’s way of life or being.…
Every person is unique and each person needs to find what makes them dance so that they can shine like the giraffe did. Many people try to live their lives by following the standard route. They go through all their classes, go to college and get a degree, then work a 9-5 job until they retire. This life is not the life some people want to live, but they find themselves trapped in it. Someone might be middle aged with a beautiful family, but they are working a job they don’t like and they can’t leave because they need to provide for their kids.…
In Annie Dillard’s essay, Living Like Weasels, Dillard uses stylistic writing to make her story more universally understandable, starting from her initial encounter the with a weasel and the life lesson she took out of the encounter. The essay gives its readers an unusual comparison between the life of human beings and the life of weasels. There is also a physical description of how Ernest Thompson shot an eagle and found the skull of a weasel clinging to its throat which was a perfect symbol of how the weasel died protecting one necessity. Mrs. Dillard’s intention to write this essay is to show how particular weasel-like attributes can truly be adopted to help people live better lives. That is why this essay connects with the American Dream…
Weasels are underrated in today’s society, never to be heard of. A weasel can’t fly without wings, but it can “ hitch a ride on the back of a woodpecker” (Bittel). A weasel doesn’t have opposable thumbs, yet it can use a stick to grab lunch. A weasel can’t capture its prey with telekinesis, yet it can set up a trap. A weasel can’t be the king of the jungle, yet it is wild.…
According to Wolf’s Fitting Fulfillment theory, meaning “arises when subjective attraction meets objective attractiveness” (Wolf 9). While Wolf emphasizes the necessity of objective values in living a meaningful life, she does not provide a systematic framework in which objective values are defined and can be used to evaluate individual lives. Jonathan Haidt, one of the commentators of Wolf’s work, offers the concepts of “vital engagement” and “hive psychology” that are meant to solve the problem of objective meaning raised by Wolf. In response to Haidt, Wolf does not agree that objective values are superfluous or dangerous but instead refines her argument regarding the guiding role of objective attractiveness in human lives. While Haidt seems…
A Writer and the Heart of Man Writing is an art, exquisitely beautiful. The author writes every single adjective, verb, and noun with a purpose because it all matters, because that is a writer’s duty. As William Faulkner states in his speech A Writer’s Duty, “The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help endure and prevail.” From this, Faulkner communicates to the reader that a writer’s duty is to write with emotion, to write with fear, to write with love.…
Analysis of a Creative Non-Fiction Essay In Annie Dillard’s essay “Living Like Weasels”, she questions the meaning of life based on her interaction with nature and by contrasting human and animal behavior (www.go.view.usg.edu). Dillard talks about wanting to live more like the weasel she sees in the wild, because as she mentions, “The weasel lives in necessity and we live in choice,..” (“Living Like Weasels”, Dillard). Dillard provides a life lesson from her encounter with the weasel with her use of four artistic tools: figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and theme.…
I am willing to bet that there are many astonishing young men and women who have applied for this scholarship. I am also willing to bet there are a fair amount of applicants who meet the unwritten standards needed to receive this scholarship. I will not boast promises of outstanding grades or how this money could build my future. Instead, I will tell of my past, allowing my personality speak for itself. Growing up my parents always encouraged my siblings and me to stay true to ourselves, whether that is morally, mentally, and/or physically.…
The essay entitled “Enjoyment as an Alternative to Materialism” asserts materialism as being a destructive force to our overall well-being, more specifically, as being mentally and environmentally harmful. The essay discusses how happiness, or the key term of “flow”, is intrinsically valuable and can be derived internally, without any monetary cost, by choosing activities and experiences over purchasing more superfluous items. Additionally, the author Csikszentmihalyi discusses how leisure time spent on material experiences manifests into unintended consequences, which we’re complacent to, in the form of additional environmental burdens. The claim that the author is professing, for us to change our behavior if we wish to attain happiness…
Throughout her stories in “Teaching a Stone to Talk,” Dillard uses juxtapositions, analogies and imagery to demonstrate the raw beauty of the natural world and humans’ lack of awareness of it. Nature, as explained by the author, refers to the natural, physical world, and life that is lived by necessity rather than choice. The word nature itself is derived from the Latin form, natura, which means "essential qualities and innate disposition." A general concept is that all things, biotic or abiotic, are a part of nature, yet Dillard defines the natural world as all, that which is unaltered by human interference. Dillard acknowledges humans as members of the natural world, but makes a clear effort to differentiate actual nature from the artificialness…
Human beings act upon both their emotions and instincts to determine what they need in order to survive, and what they want to fulfill any sentimental desires. Because of our personal perspectives and our unique individuality, what we require versus what we yearn for can differ from person to person. This common variation causes a kind of controversy in the discussion of what the most constructive lifestyle comprises of. Many have authored books, directed documentaries, and appeared on television to offer their thoughts and hopefully convince their audience to agree with them. Specifically, “Everything Now”, an essay, by Steve McKevitt identifies and outlines his personal judgments on the difference of wants and needs to conclude that society…
Emersons' third maxim says, "Nothing is at least sacred, but then integrity of your own mind." In other words, the strength of our thoughts and our beliefs is what is most important to each and every individual. The theme that is projected within this statement is that a person's thoughts, opinions, and beliefs have more value than what they may possess materialistically. This theme is not only said in Emerson's maxims, but also in the play called The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail that contains many characters that project the message and lesson of this theme.…