Essay Final continued

Prompt: 

• Explain how the juxtaposition of this quote with the role of the student addresses intrinsic and extrinsic motivation

The contrast between two completely different lifestyles highlights the fact that students are accustomed to doing something for external rewards rather than doing things intrinsically- or doing things because you enjoy them. 

     Students are raised in an environment where their lives are controlled. This inevitably leads to their lives being so structured like following commands like "Get to class on time, do your homework, stay out of trouble, get good grades" on a daily basis. These people are dehumanized in the sense that they aren't given a sense of reality because in the real world, people do not follow such structured rules; they make choose their own paths and live the way they please to. A poet's task is to do what they feel because they genuinely enjoy it. They have the lucky opportunity of expressing themselves and at the same time "shape the world". These are the people that are the future of the world; the philanthropists in societies across the world that make altruistic choices that change peoples' lives for the better. Students are not given a chance to explore what they truly feel and desire to do which is what truly sets them apart from a poet who gets to act upon intrinsic motivation.

      All in all, the author juxtaposes the different ways of life between a poet and a student to explain the difference between genuine actions and actions that are done to get something in return. It is necessary to understand that students have a more structured life and a poet has a free life. It is natural to then see how intrinsic and extrinsic differentiate when taking into account Rushdie's quote.

immigrants in our own land

The poem has an angry mood because of the terrible jobs and opportunities they're forced to take. The tone is also sentimental and reminisces about the old way of life they used to live. The allusion to a hellish place really ties all this negative feeling together and truly gives the reader a sense of what its like. I agree with Jessica that its crazy and the poem hits home and remains true even today.

EMERSON'S CHILD

American poet/ essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson urges the reader to fulfill the grueling task of "being yourself" in a conformist society. He does so by inciting the mentality of a child, looking within, and standing tall in the face of ridicule, in his essay "On Self-Reliance".

It is important to reflect upon people’s inner self rather than the physical appearance. In society people, are incessantly bombarded with information and instinctively conform to it. They lose touch with who they really are. Because of this, Emerson advises man keeps their “mind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered.” People need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture: what are their innermost truest desires and intention. Keep a firm mindset on your personal needs and the lifestyle to a long, healthy, happy life will open.

Many acknowledge that standing apart from the crowd isn’t exactly easy – not everyone wants to be the elephant in the room. Emerson calls for people to embrace their differences rather than repress them. It is known that people who decide to go against societies standards and challenge them, receive harsh criticism “For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure. And therefore a man must know how to estimate a sour face.” Where there is a will there is a way, and some lose sight of this common truth – that people who go against what is normal are seen as “weird” and are criticized harshly. But Emerson warns of this and shines light on a common truth that many forget which is key to progressing and developing as an individual. The world’s most famous people have learned to estimate a sour face, and serve as an example of Emerson’s ideas at work.

Children are tiny geniuses. This is because children achieve what many spend their whole life scared of doing: being different. The behavior of children do not adapt to societies ideas and standards “Infancy conforms to nobody: all conform to it.” To keep a simple, clear mind allows people to find the key to a genuine state of happiness. Ignoring what others expect others to do make one stand out from the crowd in a positive way, and it is a trend that Emerson strongly believes in. Great minds and leaders acquire this kind of attribute and go on to start revolutionary movements.

In the end, everyone is human and cannot simply just go out one day and go against the social norm. Emerson can be a stepping stone to achieving such a difficult task. It can be therapeutic as well. There is so much potential and subtance in this essay, and it is unfair to pigeonhole it as an essay that simply tells you to “be yourself”.

Emerson Wrap Up

Today was the day I put my final thoughts on Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay "Self-Reliance" into a project. What my group and I decided would best represent Emerson's theme of looking inside yourself for the answer rather than in others is the use of boxes to represent different emotional layers to us beneath our physical appearance. We had three boxes - each different sizes. One box was decorated elegantly to represent the side - or layer - of us that we want people to see because we conform to society in order to blend in by making ourselves appear homogeneous to everyone else in society. The next box was a less-elegantly decorated box that represented how we were beginning to scratch the surface and look within. This box was pretty bare with almost no decorations. It goes along with a Mean Girls quote where one of the characters takes a moment to step back and think how they "used to walk into a room full of people and wondered if they liked me, now i wonder if I like them." The Mean Girls character begins to challenge their "prescribed" place in society as a conformist, which is exactly what Emerson tells us to do, when he tells us to not conform to society like a "brute". The final box was a nice color with a nice but not perfect appearance. It represents our core and our soul. Our soul is who we really are and we should "Accept yourself, you don't have to prove SHIT." It really resonates with what Emerson advises because he warns us that "For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure. And therefore a man must know how to estimate a sour face." The final box ties in to Emerson's biggest message of all which stuck out to me the most: people who don't conform to society and stay true to themselves are ridiculed and may be seen as crazy. But we must keep our head held high.

vocab 10/11/16

Meme: an element of culture passed from one individual to another especially through imitation
Ex: Cultures that live on through memes spread far and wide from its origin.

Virus: A piece of code which is capable. of copying itself and has detrimental effect, such as corrupting the system or destroying data
Ex: A computer virus can spread and infect other computers.

Viral: An image, video or piece of information that circulates rapidly and widely from one internet user to another.
Ex: The video went viral and was seen by millions

Blog: (weblog) site regularly updated by a user or a group of people
Ex: She regularly contributes a blog to the magazine's website

Wiki: website that allows anyone to edit content
Ex: many contribute to the information posted on Wikipedia

URL: protocol for specifying addresses on the internet
Ex: I will send you a URL of all my work through email

Website: a connected group of pages on the world wide web
Ex: Your grades can be found on the Aeries website

Www: (world wide web) a collection of internet networks available across the world
Ex: My website can be reached by searching the worlwide web.

Internet: local are connection of internet servers
Ex: the internet is often used to look up information on anything you'd like to know about.

2.0: an improved version of something
Ex: the world wide web was the internet 2.0

Open source: customization of source code is encouraged
Ex: open source software is used to be more useful and error free in the long run

Team Vocab Test

When it comes to the elections of this year, many people can anticipate these two candidates to surely accuse each other from doings of the past. Each candidate tries to remain stolid, but Hilary definitely outbeats Trump. It's aggravating because Trump and Hilary are constantly sticking their probosci into everyone's business and venomously attacking each other. With each debate, America is left suspended to watch the next one just to see the two yell at each other. Both Candidates try to hypnotize the world into thinking their fit to be president; they try to prove that they can transform this world into something greater, but they simply just illuminate each other's faults.