Hello--
I am sorry this is not finding you sooner, but I hope that it finds you well.
In class, I told you that Mr. Fletcher was not only a smart man--but a wise man as well. I hope that you listened closely to the words he spoke today when he gave Adam Kane an award. Thinking about that talk, our class today, and our class I general--I thought about the Shorris' essay and his reference to Plato's "Allegory of the Cave."
So let me say this--literature makes us rich. And for me the written word is both sacred and holy--it is my church: reading gives me the laws I live by and writing allows me the chance to articulate what laws I have broken and a chance to confess these transgressions; I think that this statement also 'holds' true for Holden. Early this year, I shared a story with you about Pope John Paul and Father Tony--the punch line of that story reads: "The church is not a mausoleum for saints; it is a hospital for sinners. And we are both sinners."
On page 188 it reads--"The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one." Thus--here is what I would like you to consider tonight: because of this year--and what we have read and what we have discussed--what is a cause you want to live humbly for, and how will you make sure get to this goal?
Your responses can take any form--but the should be around 300 words. More importantly, remember that the best words are true words--and true words only come from the heart.
Good luck.
Best,
AK
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A Class Blog for the English 9A Class At Berwick Academy
14 comments:
I will live humbly for hard work. I will live humbly for the moments when I am not talking out and expressing my opinions vocally. When I am screaming down a field or a pool, or picking someone and their dreams of the ground. I was humbled and in awe on August 1 and 2, 2009 at the man power brought together at the Pan-Mass Challenge. Although we were all heroes for being there, it was 5000 people making a little dent collectively in the fight against kanser (that word deserves no correctness). In the course of the incredible two, I was forced to hydrate in the afternoon and evening until I felt like exploding. Honest Ade Juice is a lot of what I drank and on the insides of the labels there are quotes, I picked this one up one afternoon after 92 long miles. “I have never been especially impressed by the heroics of people who are convinced they are about to change the world. I am awed by those who struggle to make one small difference after another” Ellen Goodman. This is tacked on my bulletin board to the left of where I struggle every day working on the school assignments. I hope I can impress Goodman by my small actions. To live humbly is to live respectfully. I strive to be respected, I am not garbage. I do not have a map of life, and I do not have many answers yet but when I have lived long enough I will. Maybe this is why we die. We have answered enough questions of our own and left enough for others to answer; so it is our time to head out because we aren’t allowed to cheat for others. I am going to respect my hard work; I will be unassuming in life to others’ work too. This starts right now; to be unassuming is taking off the rye, constricting, filter between me and the world and look at it with a naked eye. Be naked, and be spontaneous about my hard work, and I will answer question and be humble towards life.
I WILL live humbly for thinking before I speak and being careful about the words I use. From this year’s discussions on race, sexual orientation, gender and social class, I realized that as a society, every day we classify people and put many people down unintentionally. Generally these words are not meant to hurt the person you are speaking to, but when they are spoken, those same words might cause harm to someone else who around you. For me, it is as simple as someone saying “that’s retarded”. I know people who are retarded, and telling someone they are “retarded” because they got a math problem wrong or tripped, is wrong in my opinion. That person who tripped or got the problem wrong isn’t “retarded”—they’re human.
I have become more aware of the words I use to express myself, and the words others use to express themselves. I am going to make sure that I get to this goal by reminding others not to use hurtful words when I hear them. Every time I say something hurtful, I try to remember why I shouldn’t have used that word and why it is personally hurtful to me. If I say “that’s gay”, I need to remember that I know many people who are gay that are perfectly kind and nice people. There is no difference between us, except for their sexual orientation. I believe that this is one of the largest problems of our nation today. We classify everyone with our “verbal diarrhea” and most of the time we don’t even know what we are saying. The meanings of our derogatory words are diluted and twisted because we use them so often without thinking about their real meanings.
Right then, in that last sentence I classified people—I classified our society, without even thinking about it. It is such an easy, yet sometimes harmful thing to do.
On the other end of the spectrum, saying a simple “thank you” to the people at lunch will usually make their day bright, but most people don’t even stop their conversation with a friend when they are getting their food—“we” assume that it doesn’t really matter. It does matter in my opinion.
I want to live humbly for, and argue for the rights of, the people with essentially no voice in society, the people who are the brunt of society’s jokes, the people overlooked by society. These are the people who are sometimes denied the basic rights of human existence. The people I am talking about are homeless, hungry, underprivileged, mentally disabled, disabled, or homosexual. While some of these people’s voices are getting louder, and gaining acceptance, many of these people are misrepresented. For whatever reasons, they don’t have food on their plates, clothes on their backs, or roofs over their heads. These are people who aren’t able to enjoy life to the fullest with all of its benefits because they aren’t allowed to love who they want to, or because their families can’t afford the services that they need to flourish in society.
I want to help these people gain a voice both in society and within our government. What these people deal with is unacceptable. Many of the people who are part of the afore mentioned groups are speaking up, and the government listens when enough do, but not enough bystanders are vocalizing, even when they agree with the views of the activists. I can start even just by telling people it’s not okay to say that something is “gay” or “retarded”, and trying to make them realize that it is never okay to use those words as synonyms for stupid. I can also volunteer, and help run food drives, or other drives to help people get what they need to survive. In addition, I can start petitions, sign petitions, and otherwise vocalize my views to the government in that we need to give more money to mental health services, and also in health care plans for mental health services as well as for other disabilities, as well as that marriage should be for anyone, not just a man and a woman. While this sounds daunting, everyone has basic rights, and I firmly believe that everyone should have access to these.
This question is an extremely hard one to answer because there are so many different ways and angles that one could answer it. As I was reading down the page about what some of my classmates wrote about, I came across the last two sentences that Lydia Waldo wrote. She said, “-‘we’ assume that it doesn’t really matter. It does matter in my opinion”. This statement humbled me. It reminded me that the things in life that really do matter are the little things. The things we just skim over; like little details in a book for example. Those minuscule details can shape or form a character and we won’t truly know who that person is without them. It will not matter 15 years from now whether you played a JV or Varsity sport. What will matter are the relationships you made with the people on those teams.
I was so humbled by this line because, I think, many people have this same thought but most of them don’t have the courage to declare such a bold statement. We all need reassurance that saying our opinions, usually, won’t hurt anyone; it will just give everyone else a better understanding of what you are feeling. It may not seem like it, but everyone’s opinions do matter in some way but they may not be put to use instantaneously. If you want your voice to be heard, you need to make sure that people listen to it and no one else can do that for you. It may take some time, but we all have a voice that needs to be heard, we just need to dig a little deeper to find it.
The most important words are those that come from your peers not your superiors.
I want to live humbly for life itself. It may seem corny and clichéd, but that’s what I want to live for, because if we do not go out into the world to live, laugh, and enjoy the ride, then what else is there to do?
I thoroughly believe that life isn’t just walking and talking and breathing. People have to go out and make a difference. People were born with intelligence, wisdom, and planning capabilities far superior to that of other animals. So you better use it. Any ape can sit in a cubicle for forty years. Going out into the world and seeing everything we can, living all the experiences (good and bad), and learning from whatever is thrown at you, that is what makes live worth living. And it better be worth living humbly for, because how else are you going to learn?
These are my thoughts on the following situations. As my thoughts blatantly show, I do not think some of these are real living at all.
Drag yourself to work every day. Make tons of money. Your family gets tons of privileges and vacations, but you do not see them often or spend time with them. MY THOUGHTS: Great, but then what the hell are you living for? Are you happy? Chances are you’re not, and since you don’t see a lot of your family, you’re kids do not grow to appreciate you. They end up living a life distant from their family. You failed.
You become a politician. As a result, you never have to worry about your own fiduciary responsibilities again. You slowly move through the ranks of the political system, and you eventually become a (prestigious?) senator. You make speeches about wanting to change the world. MY THOUGHTS: I have news for you, pal; YOU DID NOT MAKE A DIFFERENCE! Sure, you’re now part of the government of the free world, but guess what? The system is so wrapped in its own checks and balances that it can’t even pass a law without the thing passing through a dozen different administration processes. Whoop-de-effing-do for you, you’re just another old, dry politician in the government of a society that just doesn’t get it. Also, you’re now the butt end of anti-Republican jokes, and the population of educated youth hates you because deep down, you really don’t know crap. Good Luck. You’ll need it.
After graduating college, you rent a small apartment on your own until you can move somewhere else, probably close to new job. It is not a huge job, something that will win you the Nobel Prize, like a teacher, but you enjoy it. You work hard, aren’t paid much, but enjoy it all the same. Under the typical standards, you’re an “average” person. MY THOUGHTS: This is real living. This is what it is all about. You won’t make Millionaire of the Week anything soon, but it does not matter, because you’re happy. YOU ARE HAPPY WITH WHO YOU ARE. This is the crucial point. You like to teach even though it means you don’t make big bucks, because it means something to you to educate young people, or, for lack of a better term, “pass on knowledge”. You get to spend time with family because you have a three month break in the summer, and you also make a difference because you influence the next generation. You’re not average, you’re humble. You win.
I guess the point of the whole ramble is that as long as you, you, and only you are happy with what you are and what you do, then it doesn’t matter. Even if you are a politician or lawyer, as long as you’re happy with yourself, good for you. And about making a difference in the world, size does not matter. If it doesn’t make others suffer, I guess that makes a difference just by ensuring that there is a little less unhappiness in the world. Now go out and be happy with your life. That’s what living humbly is.
The cause I am going to live humbly for should surprisingly be in a selfish manner. In that I don't feel living humbly for someone else should happen. Being true to myself and working on setting my definitive morals are what I will work humbly for. When working towards a goal, being humble isn't the first thing that comes to mind because it is blinded by the bright accomplishment at the end of the road. In my travel to humbly acquire definitive morals and being true to myself, I will be very precise to notice every detail that will contribute to my success. In order to do this, I should take small steps in the right direction. Making little adjustments to help benefit both my goal, and the people around me is what I want to do. The importance of being as real as possible is not as evident to some people because simply, they just don't act the same around different people. To a certain extent, you should act different around your parents than your friends but the thing about my goal, is that I want to be the closest to the same around everybody. This challenging idea may be something everybody secretly wants to do, but I will do my best to overcome it.
The path I take to this goal is also important to me. Reducing the conflicts on my way to my goal will be accomplished by making a great effort to not have any steps backwards in my progression. Change can both be positive and negative, but the positive change is what will majorly help the enhancement of my moral capacity.
~Conor McFarland
The cause I am going to live humbly for should surprisingly be in a selfish manner. In that I don't feel living humbly for someone else should happen. Being true to myself and working on setting my definitive morals are what I will work humbly for. When working towards a goal, being humble isn't the first thing that comes to mind because it is blinded by the bright accomplishment at the end of the road. In my travel to humbly acquire definitive morals and being true to myself, I will be very precise to notice every detail that will contribute to my success. In order to do this, I should take small steps in the right direction. Making little adjustments to help benefit both my goal, and the people around me is what I want to do. The importance of being as real as possible is not as evident to some people because simply, they just don't act the same around different people. To a certain extent, you should act different around your parents than your friends but the thing about my goal, is that I want to be the closest to the same around everybody. This challenging idea may be something everybody secretly wants to do, but I will do my best to overcome it.
The path I take to this goal is also important to me. Reducing the conflicts on my way to my goal will be accomplished by making a great effort to not have any steps backwards in my progression. Change can both be positive and negative, but the positive change is what will majorly help the enhancement of my moral capacity.
~Conor McFarland
As a kid I had a dream which I would die for, I had a dream of becoming the next multi-million dollar baseball player. I practiced for hours throughout the week, enhancing my old skills with a ball as well as adapting to and incorporating new techniques. Unfortunately life is extraordinarily unpredictable and ironic; because as I changed, developed, and matured, I found new dreams and instantly dropped old ones which I had literally given blood sweat and tears in the attempt to obtain it. This is the mark of innocence, and in Wilham Stekel’s view, the mark of immaturity. I previously wrote a mini memoir about my family, in which I discovered I was not so unlike the protagonist of This Boy’s Life, in that I was lacking stability in my life, and an identity to which I could latch on and hold tight. I wrote about two parents fighting in the bathroom, a dying relationship, an ostracized kid, and although I did not know it at the time, I discovered the one thing I would live humbly for, and absolutely protect; my family.
I live for my Family because, believe it or not, I love them. I say believe it or not because of the fact of some of the feelings I expressed throughout my mini memoir, feelings of hate, disgust, and retribution tainted many of the once pure pages. Those pages were my life, and the divorce I wrote about infected it, wounded it, and scarred it; but what came out of it I will forever thank whatever caused my parents to separate in what seems like so long ago. Without two parents in the household together I was able to examine and appreciate the individual people they are; especially my mother, who is the only woman I know who can drive me to a soccer game in Epping, bring my brother to a karate tournament in exeter, drop my sister off at gymnastics, make a hot meal for us all to return to, and still have enough energy and sanity to inquire about all of our activites. She really is quite amazing. I mark myself, and how I have grown, by the development of the realtionship I have with my family; for instance, I used to be satisfied with talking to my family one on one once a month, if that, but now I feel that if I do not get to see the enormous smiles around the dinner table when I tell them how I aced an English quiz, or fell flat on my face during soccer practice, well, it might as well not have happened at all.
In the Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield struggles to find a connection with the peoples he cares about, just as I did. His story became my story, and my inspiration for how to achieve a dream. I examined Holden’s attempt after attempt at making a connection, and have witnessed the ensuing chaos as a result of his failure. Through Holden’s failure he has taught me how to live for my family. I had to emphasize and winnow out his weakness in order to find the strength to achieve this goal. I live for my family, I love my family, and will protect my family because of the connection I have to them. By aknowledging the connection I have to them, I am agreeing to accept all that comes as a result, good or bad, advancement or retreat, peace or conflict; because each and every consequence can be traced back to growth, and my hopefully steadily developing maturity. Holden Caulfield once said, “I don’t like them to stick too much to the point” (183). After examining this piece of work, Holden would definitely appreciate a little digression.
Chris
The cause I would want to live humbly for is one to appreciate everything in my life. I get so much and I hardly ever realize it. I would want to make sure that I change the way I look at my life and what I am given. By reading Catcher in the Rye I saw at the beginning how Holden takes for granted that fact that he continues to be sent to expensive school despite his lack of interest and effort. This year at Berwick Academy, I have realized that what I do have is a lot. It is a lot for me, it is a lot compared to other people, and it is a lot in general. This year I have really changed the way that I view things in life. Instead of going into something with the assumption that I’ve already lost, I’ve learned to go into something with the heart and mind of a champion. This idea has mostly improved my horseback riding which I completely took for granted until earlier this year. I will make sure that I will value everything that is in my world by looking at what I have instead of what I don’t have. Most of the time we personally don’t have the power to change everything that is happening to us or that is taking place in our life, but we do have the power to see it how we’d like. My mom always tells me that we can’t change those around us, but we can change ourselves. I agree with her except that I think that once we change ourselves and the energy that we put off into the world people will change too. From personal experience, once we are grateful for what we have, the universe gives us more. If we’re always complaining and whining then why would we receive more that we would just take for granted? I still have days and times when I am ungrateful and act spoiled, but by attempting to change, I will and hopefully with that I can help change others too.
It seems like the three male main characters we have read about, Toby, Romeo, and Holden, are all searching for an easy way out of their problems by sacraficing other people’s lives for the well being of their own. I would never do that for someone and I would never want to be around anyone like the three of them. The cause I want to live humbly for is simply to get people to start living their own lives with out anybody telling them or making them doing anything to change it. However, that doesn’t mean I would want the police to stop enforcing the rules against someone who is a murderer or something bad like that. The people like the three characters are the people that I would want to succeed on their own and to stop “mooching” off of other people’s lives just to maintain a false personality that will eventaully become evanecent. Every person should live their own lives and shouldn’t be pressured into doing something that goes against who they are. George from FCD gave us a perfect example of being pressured to change who he is even though his friend Vega didn’t come out and tell him that he wouldn’t be his friend if he didn’t drink with him. I don’t think it would be really that likely for me to change the world and make people make their own decisions while not being pressured to change who they are. I geuss what I could do is change what I am doing and start to just make my own decisions to get away from my problems in my own way without having anyone barge in and do it for me, or putting my problems on them.
~Jon Malloy~
Humble, what is the definition of humble? To be not proud or arrogant, or modest. In my opinion everyone should be proud of themselves for the things they do. Don’t take it over the top however just be proud of yourself and only let yourself know this. I want to be humble for the people who do so much but never get recognition. Not the people who do the littlest thing and get bombarded by press and money. When really it’s the little people who got them all of that fame and money. Yet they get absolutely no credit, for work they have done hard work not the easy stuff. Like with athletes, some of these people can have the biggest heads and really think they are Joe cool. Whether they are always bragging about themselves or saying how good they are. Nobody wants to hear that, nobody likes to hear about how good you are. However if somebody else is saying it or if even somebody says it about you that’s different. You can be humble in this case, you don’t have to brag about yourself or say anything about yourself but appreciate that someone else is recognizing you to other people. To get to this goal, I will sit back at first and not try to go out and hype myself up for other people to say stuff. If a good thing is one then it can be talked about but there is no need to bring it up on my own. Also I would try to get the people who do the most work as much credit as they deserve for the hard work they do. People who don’t stand up and say hey look what I just did. The people who are always in the background making sure everything goes smoothly and runs right for the “bigger” people to look good.
-Ricky-
I will live humbly for the wellness of the planet that we rely on. There are so many other things that I could say I live humbly for, but right now, I think this is the most important thing I can live humbly for. I do ot want to focus on myself because that's not the most important thing at hand, although it is important to me in a smaller way. I'm not ashamed that I am so concerned about the way that we treat the planet, I am proud to say that I am a "tree hugger". Everyone talks about how the planet is getting trashed by the human race, and how there are things that we can do to try and help clean up our act, but so far, I haven't seen much happen. Tiny things like recycling have been upped, and even the steel water bottle pledge has helped a great deal. I intend to live the way I think that everyone else should, unselfishly, and conservatively. I admire the people that have completely dedicated themselves to being people who don't consume more than absolutely necessary and think before they act in terms of the welfare of the rest of the world, and not just themselves. It's a hard idea for me to get used to, because I've grown up during a time when all everybody is doing is consuming, consuming, consuming. So that is my challenge to myself, to live humbly for the planet and the resources that we rely on for our survival.
-Hallie
Earlier this year we read and discussed essays about race, gender, and social status. These essays humbled me, and I realized that I often don’t think about homeless people because I am not exposed to them. I also realized how selfish I am, and how fortunate I am. I forget that there are people living on the streets, without food, clothing, or heat. This is a cause I want to live humbly for. I realize just thinking about these people will not improve their situation, but by thinking of them we might find ways to help them. I’m assuming that most of the people in English 9A have been asked for money by someone who is homeless. Let me ask you a question, did you give them any money? If you did I respect you because you are an honest and humble person. If not, why didn’t you? This has happened to me more than once and every time I have failed to give that person any help. This is selfish of me, because they need the money more than I do, and they will use it for a better cause than I will. Giving that person money could keep them from starving for the night. I don’t realizes this that the time, because I never think about it. By forgetting about these people, society closes them off and makes it extremely difficult for them to get back on their feet.
In order to achieve this goal, society needs to learn to be more humble and less selfish. This is how I will try to achieve this goal. I can’t convince society to be more humble and less selfish, but I will strive to act like this. By recognizing my selfishness I will be able to live more humbly and therefore achieve my goal.
Not that anyone will read these posts, and I know I already added my comment, but after reading all of the blog posts so far, I also want to try to live humbly for listening to others ideas without always adding my own voice or opinion to them. From reading all of these posts, I have learned so much about you guys (my classmates)without having to say anything. I have been humbled by the ideas posed, many of which I never would have come up with on my own because I haven't experienced many of the things you have. I think I need to work harder at listening to others because you can learn so much from doing so. My only response after reading many of the posts was "wow". I never knew how amazing everyone is.
Using Ricky as an example-- I hope you are ok with this! You are kind of quiet in class, but your blog entry lets me know so much about you and your opinions.
I will end with that. Thank you guys for all of the amazing things you share.
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