I Believe Essay
Reflection
Reading my essay aloud was a struggle for me internally. The ideas I spoke about within my essay are ones that don’t necessarily reflect me in the best light, it wasn’t something I was necessarily proud of. The idea behind my belief came before the anecdote itself, I was looking at the factors of selflessness, kindness, and selfishness before I knew just why I thought those things. And to be honest the anecdote I elected wasn’t the reason that perspective came to be, it was just an anecdote, The real reason was a little too complicated and personal for me to be comfortable sharing with strangers and my mother. Honestly I probably could’ve articulated a better belief and wrote an overall better essay.
What I was proud of, despite how my anecdote was somewhat superficial I was proud of how Vividly I wrote it. I think I did well to work with words to establish a clear image and direction for what I was trying to say. Take this sentence as an example “His clothes worn and dirty, his beard is musty and graying and one could garner a fair guess that he is up in his years. I act like he doesn’t exist, almost as if I cannot acknowledge he exists, for if I do, I fear what sentiment may be shared between us.“ Overall I think I did well to articulate my thoughts on what I believe and I expressed the anecdote in a well written fashion. This was a success in the Narrative Coherence piece.
My anecdote wasn’t the best in my personal opinion. If I were to do this assignment again I’d work with a belief that I could better articulate with a more personal anecdote. To be blunt the anecdote that I wrote was about guilt upon turning my back on a hobo, yet I’m not entirely sure how much this honestly affected me personally. Overall I’d say I failed in the authentic voice piece however my authentic voice for this belief wasn’t something I was necessarily comfortable with sharing. Therefore if I just worked around a belief that had an authentic voice I was more comfortable with I could’ve made an essay that was more earnestly personal, while still being well written and articulate.
The Essay
A truly selfless act and an act of kindness are two different things in my eyes. A selfless act is one wherein they have absolutely nothing to gain, it’s the point where acting upon this may even actively work against them. This ties into why I believe I am selfish. I am fundamentally ruled by a system of comfort and reward vs. discomfort and pain, I act upon things that feel rewarding and avoid others that feel punishing, and although I may act in instances of kindness I’m not a selfless person. This proves its own truth as I sneak a glance at the decrepit and straggled face of the homeless man on the street corner. His clothes worn and dirty, his beard is musty and graying and one could garner a fair guess that he is up in his years. I act like he doesn’t exist, almost as if I cannot acknowledge he exists, for if I do, I fear what sentiment may be shared between us. It’s almost as if our positions in life run in stark contrast. For the wisdom and experience this feeble man holds is undoubtedly miles above my own, yet here we are in a position where I’m the one who stands above him.
I continue on my way averting my gaze and hoping that he may blame me for it, for if just acknowledging him is the most selfless thing I could’ve done in that. Then me quietly continuing on as if he didn’t exist must have been a selfish act. My thoughts quietly draw to a state of reassurance, reassurance for my own selflessness, for not just a few weeks ago I helped an elderly lady at the grocery store. ‘Therefore I am selfless and good’ I tell myself yet even then I can’t help but compare, though it may be true that I acted upon an act of kindness when the opportunity presented itself, I am selfish. I feared gazing into the poor man’s eyes and thus literally and figuratively turned my back upon the most humane thing I could’ve done in that moment. I’m not a selfless person, I believe that is someone much more special than myself, someone not just capable of simple kindness but rather someone much more convicted and virtuous. And frankly I don’t really believe I will ever reach the standard of someone who is really and truly selfless.
Reading my essay aloud was a struggle for me internally. The ideas I spoke about within my essay are ones that don’t necessarily reflect me in the best light, it wasn’t something I was necessarily proud of. The idea behind my belief came before the anecdote itself, I was looking at the factors of selflessness, kindness, and selfishness before I knew just why I thought those things. And to be honest the anecdote I elected wasn’t the reason that perspective came to be, it was just an anecdote, The real reason was a little too complicated and personal for me to be comfortable sharing with strangers and my mother. Honestly I probably could’ve articulated a better belief and wrote an overall better essay.
What I was proud of, despite how my anecdote was somewhat superficial I was proud of how Vividly I wrote it. I think I did well to work with words to establish a clear image and direction for what I was trying to say. Take this sentence as an example “His clothes worn and dirty, his beard is musty and graying and one could garner a fair guess that he is up in his years. I act like he doesn’t exist, almost as if I cannot acknowledge he exists, for if I do, I fear what sentiment may be shared between us.“ Overall I think I did well to articulate my thoughts on what I believe and I expressed the anecdote in a well written fashion. This was a success in the Narrative Coherence piece.
My anecdote wasn’t the best in my personal opinion. If I were to do this assignment again I’d work with a belief that I could better articulate with a more personal anecdote. To be blunt the anecdote that I wrote was about guilt upon turning my back on a hobo, yet I’m not entirely sure how much this honestly affected me personally. Overall I’d say I failed in the authentic voice piece however my authentic voice for this belief wasn’t something I was necessarily comfortable with sharing. Therefore if I just worked around a belief that had an authentic voice I was more comfortable with I could’ve made an essay that was more earnestly personal, while still being well written and articulate.
The Essay
A truly selfless act and an act of kindness are two different things in my eyes. A selfless act is one wherein they have absolutely nothing to gain, it’s the point where acting upon this may even actively work against them. This ties into why I believe I am selfish. I am fundamentally ruled by a system of comfort and reward vs. discomfort and pain, I act upon things that feel rewarding and avoid others that feel punishing, and although I may act in instances of kindness I’m not a selfless person. This proves its own truth as I sneak a glance at the decrepit and straggled face of the homeless man on the street corner. His clothes worn and dirty, his beard is musty and graying and one could garner a fair guess that he is up in his years. I act like he doesn’t exist, almost as if I cannot acknowledge he exists, for if I do, I fear what sentiment may be shared between us. It’s almost as if our positions in life run in stark contrast. For the wisdom and experience this feeble man holds is undoubtedly miles above my own, yet here we are in a position where I’m the one who stands above him.
I continue on my way averting my gaze and hoping that he may blame me for it, for if just acknowledging him is the most selfless thing I could’ve done in that. Then me quietly continuing on as if he didn’t exist must have been a selfish act. My thoughts quietly draw to a state of reassurance, reassurance for my own selflessness, for not just a few weeks ago I helped an elderly lady at the grocery store. ‘Therefore I am selfless and good’ I tell myself yet even then I can’t help but compare, though it may be true that I acted upon an act of kindness when the opportunity presented itself, I am selfish. I feared gazing into the poor man’s eyes and thus literally and figuratively turned my back upon the most humane thing I could’ve done in that moment. I’m not a selfless person, I believe that is someone much more special than myself, someone not just capable of simple kindness but rather someone much more convicted and virtuous. And frankly I don’t really believe I will ever reach the standard of someone who is really and truly selfless.
The Shakespeare Project
Reflection
A lot of this project to me personally was a shot in the dark, what we did was very unfamiliar and new and even just the basic language of Shakespeare felt strange. Yet by pushing into this I believe one can find a niche that they may not have considered before. what I personally connected to was how Shakespeare tried to make human characters, I think it’s interesting how these characters are so melodramatic yet you can draw similarities between what these characters say and do and what actual people do. This melodrama was part of what made it fun, the bombastic and over the top behaviours were actually interesting in what at this point today are generic stories. Furthermore this over the top use of language is what fueled some of the best moments for me in this project, the moments spent in the recording studio awkwardly struggling with my classmates through the language of Shakespeare. In fact I’d bet that because of the somewhat janky flow we had with his language we could have an even better experience with those hilarious and awkward moments.
As I stated before, this project was a shot in the dark, and because of some of my and other people’s use of time and resources we ended out with a very unrefined final product. My personal struggle throughout this project was the way I paced myself, I can’t really say I had a proportionate amount of effort spread throughout and this came back to bite me in the butt. Because I was lax and somewhat unproductive through a fair amount of the given project work time in class, I ended up having to work super hard through the last two days before exhibition. This was kinda the most challenging part, relegating your time so that you are evenly productive throughout.
However unrefined the final product was there was definitely some areas that I grew. The first that comes to mind is as a person, and actor. I state both of these because of my personality being much more passive, historically given the option I would generally choose the thing wherein I have the least interaction with other people or the audience. In the case of a play It’d be a safe bet that I’d go for the most minor role. And thus my choice to step up and take the voice acting behind the character Lysander was kind of an unusual choice for me, so this funds the belief that I not only pushed myself to be a better actor but also a better person who can push out of their comfort zone a little.
I hate to be repetitive however the other area I believe I grew is my ability to persevere through difficulty and stress. I simply don’t think that just anyone would’ve chosen to dedicate those last twelve straight hours straight to the project. And at times even in the face that I couldn’t directly work on audio when it seemed that was the one thing I needed to do, I still tried to be productive and find ways to make thing move quicker when we next got the opportunity to work on it.
What I saw in Shakespeare was not an exercise in complex philosophy but rather one of forming characters that anyone should be able to find relatable in some aspect. I believe that Shakespeare’s characters don’t necessarily conform to that of the people of his time, which is why I believe he created timeless characters. I think his characters are over the top and melodramatic and I believe that makes them feel like less complex and “human” characters. Maybe a good way of putting would be that his characters don’t feel like people that you may just see on the street, but rather they feel as if they are aspects of ourselves if they were blown way out of proportion. For instance take Romeo and Juliet, it’s completely illogical how quickly the two fell in love, got married, did something stupid, and then accidentally killed themselves over it. Yet i’m sure there’s a lot of people who can relate to feeling like Romeo or Juliet at some point or other internally, they don’t upon it and do anything too foolish but it’s kind of like these characters are a small piece of themselves somehow. Basically I believe Shakespeare doesn’t capture entire human characters but instead displays human qualities in his characters in an over the top nature, because of this even today we can kind of graph these character unto ourselves, and that is why even three thousand years later people still study his work.
A lot of this project to me personally was a shot in the dark, what we did was very unfamiliar and new and even just the basic language of Shakespeare felt strange. Yet by pushing into this I believe one can find a niche that they may not have considered before. what I personally connected to was how Shakespeare tried to make human characters, I think it’s interesting how these characters are so melodramatic yet you can draw similarities between what these characters say and do and what actual people do. This melodrama was part of what made it fun, the bombastic and over the top behaviours were actually interesting in what at this point today are generic stories. Furthermore this over the top use of language is what fueled some of the best moments for me in this project, the moments spent in the recording studio awkwardly struggling with my classmates through the language of Shakespeare. In fact I’d bet that because of the somewhat janky flow we had with his language we could have an even better experience with those hilarious and awkward moments.
As I stated before, this project was a shot in the dark, and because of some of my and other people’s use of time and resources we ended out with a very unrefined final product. My personal struggle throughout this project was the way I paced myself, I can’t really say I had a proportionate amount of effort spread throughout and this came back to bite me in the butt. Because I was lax and somewhat unproductive through a fair amount of the given project work time in class, I ended up having to work super hard through the last two days before exhibition. This was kinda the most challenging part, relegating your time so that you are evenly productive throughout.
However unrefined the final product was there was definitely some areas that I grew. The first that comes to mind is as a person, and actor. I state both of these because of my personality being much more passive, historically given the option I would generally choose the thing wherein I have the least interaction with other people or the audience. In the case of a play It’d be a safe bet that I’d go for the most minor role. And thus my choice to step up and take the voice acting behind the character Lysander was kind of an unusual choice for me, so this funds the belief that I not only pushed myself to be a better actor but also a better person who can push out of their comfort zone a little.
I hate to be repetitive however the other area I believe I grew is my ability to persevere through difficulty and stress. I simply don’t think that just anyone would’ve chosen to dedicate those last twelve straight hours straight to the project. And at times even in the face that I couldn’t directly work on audio when it seemed that was the one thing I needed to do, I still tried to be productive and find ways to make thing move quicker when we next got the opportunity to work on it.
What I saw in Shakespeare was not an exercise in complex philosophy but rather one of forming characters that anyone should be able to find relatable in some aspect. I believe that Shakespeare’s characters don’t necessarily conform to that of the people of his time, which is why I believe he created timeless characters. I think his characters are over the top and melodramatic and I believe that makes them feel like less complex and “human” characters. Maybe a good way of putting would be that his characters don’t feel like people that you may just see on the street, but rather they feel as if they are aspects of ourselves if they were blown way out of proportion. For instance take Romeo and Juliet, it’s completely illogical how quickly the two fell in love, got married, did something stupid, and then accidentally killed themselves over it. Yet i’m sure there’s a lot of people who can relate to feeling like Romeo or Juliet at some point or other internally, they don’t upon it and do anything too foolish but it’s kind of like these characters are a small piece of themselves somehow. Basically I believe Shakespeare doesn’t capture entire human characters but instead displays human qualities in his characters in an over the top nature, because of this even today we can kind of graph these character unto ourselves, and that is why even three thousand years later people still study his work.
The Mask Project
The point of the Mask Project was to cover concepts of sociology and identity, and integrate them into the physical metaphor of a mask. We learned about ideas such as ‘the Cycle of Socialisation,’and ‘the Cycle of Liberation’ and how these things really play into society. Furthermore we watched a couple of movies, as well as read multiple books and articles relating to these topics. For the actual project, the expectation was to create an identity essay integrating the learned concepts as well as the personal piece of one’s own identity, as well as create an integrated mask that used symbol and metaphor. For the exhibition itself, we presented our mask and essays to parents and community members who would usually ask us about our masks and the associated meaning, this would hopefully lead to them reading our essay through and then spark a discussion about some of the topics written about therein.
In the creation of my essay I took an approach of crafting a concept and metaphor that I felt could encapsulate my identity. The concept I decided upon was the transfer from an optimistic outlook to a cynical one and just where my identity fit on that spectrum. As for my metaphor I used the idea of “Rose Tinted Glasses,” I used this metaphor for the way it plays into concepts such as nostalgia, and the way it can exaggerate the way you perceive something. For my mask I decided upon a very unique basic shape and design. I had a mask that was cut into three separate pieces then glued back together but with a distorted assembly, from there I used spray paint to make a sunset like image and then imprinted this image onto my mask via Mod Podge. My mask utilised both some reference to my essay’s metaphor, which was a rose colored sun, as well as a color transition representative of the idea of optimism and cynicism. This color transition went from a bright optimistic yellow, to a darker orange, to an even darker red and a hint of blue.
Overall I felt very much satisfied with my work in this project, I didn’t feel that there was too much refinement to be had. However if I needed to refine at least a single thing about my project, it would probably be my piece on socialisation in my essay. In my essay I tried to pursue a sort of idea of socialised depression in the modern world with phones, what it kinda felt like however, was a PSA about why phones are bad. Now as a whole it didn’t fall flat, yet it didn’t necessarily feel as authentic as I was aiming for. I tend to think that if I were to do this project again in the future or something similar, I would pursue similar topics and a similar process to really tackle this essay, however I would like to refine a few of my ideas like the aforementioned portion on the cycle of socialisation as well as refine my mask/art piece a little more (not that I wasn’t proud of it.) But in the end I still feel this has been one of my best writing pieces and exhibitions i’ve had thus far.
The exhibition itself was actually pretty interesting for me and I had a multitude of rather in depth conversations. I think my unique take on my mask drew a lot of people, that once they learned about my mask would usually then read my essay and spark up a good discussion. One particular example was a younger dude whom I didn’t know, but I remember being surprised when he just skimmed through the essay then followed by asking some pretty specific questions pertaining to my essay. For example he asked me if I thought the transfer to a cynical perspective happened spontaneously or if it was more of a slow burn, referring to a point in my essay that i’m pretty sure he just skimmed through. Another example was a woman who had an in depth conversation about some ideas of depression because of our connection via phones and social media, I found that her perspective as someone who doesn’t really use these platforms was interesting. In general things went somewhere along the lines of these examples which was nice.
For me this project ended up being something wherein I projected many of my thoughts that I have pondered extensively for years. My takeaways have a lot more to do with reflecting upon the last five years of my life than reflecting upon why I feel trapped in the “Cycle of Socialisation.” I think that my experience has been one where I didn’t really consider thoughts of racism, sexism, or whatever but instead it’s been more about the way I and the people around me have changed. I think that the way i’d describe it is that I don’t feel pressured by society, but more so about the way people and things change as well as my own ability to communicate and feel content with myself right now. Essentially my feeling of belonging with people and things in comparison to other times in my life, and realising that things really aren’t any worse than they have been at other junctions.
Link to essay: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hWsenfCsl4_hI6o4TsCjmmsN_BV2Ay-OMsPcxcfGLPw/edit