In both, Barbara Fredrickson’s, “Love 2.0” and Azar Nafisi’s, “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” there is an overlap on the themes of small moments and identity. In “Love 2.0,” Barbara Fredrickson introduces scientific analyzes of the brain’s response to positive connections and presents an ongoing juxtaposition from both ends of love and strongly states how love is “forever renewable” (108). In “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” Azar Nafisi illustrates her class meeting with her girls, who are driven to learn about the relation between fantasy and reality. She reveals the emotions and enhances her girls’ reactions to the freedom that is experienced - for a short period of time - in her living room. Small moments tend to have a satisfying yet temporary power
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Everything that is ours will be disowned or will be left behind when we pass away. The flowers that we often offer to express love don’t last in their perfect condition for too long. Similarly, the most eye-catching beauty isn’t eternal either. According to Barbara Fredrickson, “love is renewable” and “you can find love countless times each day” (108). When we approach others and make small connections, we tend to share a positive resonance between each other. This shared positivity temporarily keeps up happy and tends to again, temporarily stabilize our positive outlook on life. We are not only allowing ourselves to slowly adapt to the environment around us, but we are also slowly changing our identity unconsciously. No matter what we desire or how we aspire to present ourselves or react to certain situations, we only have a minimal and impermanent power to take control of our identity. Majority of the time, this minimal power is due to the constantly changing surroundings around us. Azar Nafisi elucidates that life in Islamic Republic is as “capricious as the month of April, when short periods of sunshine would suddenly give way to showers and storms” (283). This descriptive comparison between the life in this region and the “short periods of sunshine” again, establishes how small-lived the pleasurable moments are. The word choice that Nafisi uses to describe the transition and how “suddenly” the showers and storms would over-turn the sunshine demonstrates the quick look of reality. In addition, Barbara Fredrickson, elaborates on how “your own heart alters its activity with each postural shift, each new emotion, even each breath you take” (109). This, once more, enhances the constant change that our body experiences. Hence, the health benefits that occur due to these small “micro-moments of love” are only momentary. Likewise, in Azar Nafisi’s selection, the small moments that take place in her living room, have a
Everything that is ours will be disowned or will be left behind when we pass away. The flowers that we often offer to express love don’t last in their perfect condition for too long. Similarly, the most eye-catching beauty isn’t eternal either. According to Barbara Fredrickson, “love is renewable” and “you can find love countless times each day” (108). When we approach others and make small connections, we tend to share a positive resonance between each other. This shared positivity temporarily keeps up happy and tends to again, temporarily stabilize our positive outlook on life. We are not only allowing ourselves to slowly adapt to the environment around us, but we are also slowly changing our identity unconsciously. No matter what we desire or how we aspire to present ourselves or react to certain situations, we only have a minimal and impermanent power to take control of our identity. Majority of the time, this minimal power is due to the constantly changing surroundings around us. Azar Nafisi elucidates that life in Islamic Republic is as “capricious as the month of April, when short periods of sunshine would suddenly give way to showers and storms” (283). This descriptive comparison between the life in this region and the “short periods of sunshine” again, establishes how small-lived the pleasurable moments are. The word choice that Nafisi uses to describe the transition and how “suddenly” the showers and storms would over-turn the sunshine demonstrates the quick look of reality. In addition, Barbara Fredrickson, elaborates on how “your own heart alters its activity with each postural shift, each new emotion, even each breath you take” (109). This, once more, enhances the constant change that our body experiences. Hence, the health benefits that occur due to these small “micro-moments of love” are only momentary. Likewise, in Azar Nafisi’s selection, the small moments that take place in her living room, have a