The Art of the Essay

I have always been an avid reader.  And it wasn’t America’s education system that first had me reading. Since I can remember my mom was reading stories to me.  She tells me she even read to me when I was in the womb.  Before I even started kindergarten, the roles were reversed and I was reading (very simple) books to my mom.  I am eternally grateful for the culture of reading my Mom maintained in the household.  By reading to me she exposed me to the great world or reading and learning.  And Because I saw her reading books, naturally, I wanted to read to.

Of course I read in school too.  My 1^st grade reading was an important part of the school curriculum.  I am grateful for all the teachers who taught me how to read.  However, I still believe that it was my mom, and not the education system that really got me into reading.  Sure, our teachers encouraged reading outside the classroom, and we read some really interesting and thought provoking books.  My favorite was The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton.  It is a coming of age story featuring “greasers” in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  As a 10 year old it made me think about how my experience of growing up would be in the future.  As much as teachers get criticized for the book selection, I read some great books for school.  However, I didn’t enjoy every book teachers gave me and some books even turned me away from reading.  For instance, I really didn’t like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Although, it received much critical acclaim, as well as heightened my empathy for those with autism, I didn’t really like the author’s style or the book in general.

Situations like this is what leads to many kids closing the door on reading.  They never experience a culture of reading growing up.  There are two reasons why kids may be turned off to reading by the school system.  The first reason is that kids tend to be naturally rebellious.  There we so many irrational thinks I did because my parents told me too.    Almost every day before I biked to middle school, “Ben, wear a helmet.” Me:  “Nah.”  There are kids who have this same mentality but with books assigned in school.  They might enjoy the book, but they approach it apathetically because someone older than them demanded they read it.  The second reason is they may have been assigned books that they didn’t enjoy and assumed that all reading was just as painful.

Luckily, I learned to love reading outside of school.  So even when teachers who I didn’t like demanded how many pages I would read at night, I would usually do so enthusiastically.  I could separate the book from my feelings about the teacher or authority in general.  If I didn’t like a specific book, I could separate that book from reading in general.  But that is only because I grew up in a culture of reading.  If a child doesn’t grow up in a culture of reading, his first (and often only) reading experiences occur in the classroom.  If someone doesn’t grow up in a culture of reading they will associate reading with the teachers (and authority in general) that they don’t like.  They will read one bad book for school and think all books are bad.

Now, more than ever, the reading of books is under attack.  Technology basically means constant entertainment on demand.  T.V shows, Netflix, movies, surfing the web.  Before, reading was one of the only things to do when in solitude.  There are great teachers at great schools who are passionate about reading, but the state cannot instill a culture of reading.  The culture of reading must start in the household.  Every parent should make sure their kids get into the world of reading.  Why even leave it to the chance of having a good teacher or reading good books in school in order for a child to like reading?  And if your parents did not maintain a culture of reading in the household, it’s never too late to get into reading.  If your first experiences with reading were bad for whatever reason, give it a second chance. Be open-minded.  Just because your school or parents failed to instill a culture of reading doesn’t mean you cant find it yourself.

They say that knowledge is power. And they’re right. Knowledge IS power. It awakens the conscience and lets humans understand the world and the context they live in. Without knowledge, humans would not have the capacity to learn or capability to accomplish great feats that have furthered mankind. However, what is key to the process is the transfer of knowledge, because no matter how knowledgeable one man is, it means nothing if he cannot transfer that information to other men and make a difference in the society they live in. For Frederick Douglass, this knowledge, this consciousness and understanding, was transferred to him through learning the ability to read.

Born into slavery around 1817 or 1818, Douglass first worked on a large plantation called the “Great House Farm” and later on was traded to many different slave-owners, including Mr. Hugh Auld in Baltimore. While there, Sophia Auld, Hugh’s wife, who never had slaves before, was kind to Douglass at first and even began to teach him how to read, until her husband ordered her to stop, saying that education makes slaves unmanageable. At this point, even though Sophia stopped teaching Douglass, he was still able to learn by himself with the help of local boys. By being able to read, Douglass was able to learn. And through learning knowledge, Douglass was able to eventually escape to the North and leave slavery behind.

Prior to reading, Douglass only knew of the horrid life he had as a slave. In general, white slaveholders perpetuated slavery by keeping slaves ignorant, as many people then believed that blacks were intrinsically incapable of amounting to anything other than slavery. Douglass was kept ignorant of the basic details of his life, such as his birth date or father, as he was born as a result of a white slaveholder raping his slave mother. Essentially, slaves were taught to be slaves, not humans. By keeping slaves ignorant, slaveholders robbed them of their individual identities. By keeping slaves uneducated, slaveholders were able to prevent slaves from getting a sense of self-sufficiency and capability. Slaveholders knew that literate slaves would question authority and understand that there could be more to their lives than just slavery. Finally, by keeping slaves illiterate, slaveholders were able to control what knowledge could be transferred to the rest of America; if slaves could not read or write, they would never be able to tell their sides of the slavery story.

Thus, this transfer of knowledge, this communication of information, is very powerful indeed. It has the ability to shape America’s story. Certainly if Frederick Douglass had not learned how to read, his story would have never come to light. Douglass himself would have never been able to escape. By being able to read, he was able to become knowledgeable about his situation. He recognized the injustice of slavery to himself and to others, and realized that he is a man, not just a slave. This ability to read brought Douglass light and awakens his consciousness, which in turn actually brought him suffering. By becoming literate, he began to have a greater understanding of the world around him and was able to make a great change in his society.

Douglass escaped from slavery and used his power of reading and writing to contribute to the abolitionist, or anti-slavery, movement that was gaining momentum in the North. In the early 1840s, when Douglass first arrived in Massachusetts, he began reading the Liberator, and abolitionist newspaper edited by William Lloyd Garrison. In 1841, he met Garrison at an abolitionist meeting, at which he told his slavery story, and as a result became an abolitionist speaker for the American Anti-Slavery Society. In 1845, he wrote narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, not only an account of his personal experiences as a slave, but also an essay that argues against slavery. This work showed Douglass’ ability to transfer knowledge through writing, and without learning how to read and write, he would not have been able to write his own narrative and tell the slavery story from the viewpoint of a slave. The book became an instant bestseller in 1845, and Douglass even started his own abolitionist newspaper in 1847 named North Star. Douglass continued to write and campaign for equality and black suffrage. He wrote more books, My Bondage and My Freedom in 1855 and The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass in 1881. His Narrative emerged in many other slave narratives and slavery fictions, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Even in current times, Douglass’s work is read today as one of the finest examples of the slave-narrative genre.

To have gone from illiteracy to becoming an influential writer and narrator who helped the abolitionist movement, Douglass indeed put his knowledge of learning to use. He showed how powerful the transfer of knowledge could be. A few short lessons from Sophia Auld got him started on his quest of learning how to read, and he pursued that powerful skill, eventually breaking his bondage from slavery and writing works and giving speeches that promoted his cause to end slavery. To Frederick Douglass, knowledge is power, and that knowledge was transferred from one of the most important skills any human could have: the ability to read.

College libraries are the homes to unopened books and sleep-deprived students.  My mom has always told me how back when she was in college she would have to go to the library and search through countless books in order to find information for a paper, or even search an encyclopedia to find simple facts about a person’s life.  The plethora of books in the library provided her with all the information she needed.  I don’t know about you, but I have never even looked in one of Vanderbilt’s countless encyclopedias for information.  This is due to my good friend Wikipedia. With the rise of the Internet, the library has become less of a place that people go to find books, and more a destination for people looking for an environment to facilitate their ability to study without distractions.  Although the Internet has replaced the demand for books, college libraries have adapted to the changing technologies to continue to provide a studious destination on campuses.

The decline in people finding books in the library is directly related to the rise in the Internet.  When I go to the library, I often have to write an essay such as this one, or study for a test.  Historically, it would make sense for me to go to the library because of the millions of books and endless information surrounding me.  However, I can’t recall the last time I came to the library to check out a book.  As a matter of fact, the only time I’ve ever checked out a book from the library was for my freshman year writing seminar.  The reason for this is because there are literally millions of sources all available on one screen: my computer.

In college today, students have found a way to skip the age-old process of reading an actual informational book, in favor of finding a website providing consolidated information directly related to their topic.  All you have to do is have Internet connection, and know how to search Google in order to find all the information you could ever need for a research paper.  Furthermore, with a book the most specific information you can get without reading the whole thing is the table of contents.  Where, best-case scenario, you can get a rough estimate of what range of pages the information you’re looking for is in. Compare this to the Internet where you can find the exact sentences or even exact word you’re looking for with the click of a button.  Simply use the ‘command+ f’ function in order to search an entire document and the magic of the Internet will show you exactly where that word appears in the text.  Because of this, just about every student uses the Internet as their primary source for obtaining information.  With the simplicity of finding research on the Internet, students have changed the purpose for going to the library.

Libraries have adapted in order to provide continuing utility to students.  Although people may not be going to the library for its vast array of books and knowledge, they still go to the library to find the knowledge.  I often go to the library and search for information on the Internet that could also be found in a book in the library.  The reason for this is because of the quiet study rooms, and academic environment.  When doing this, I am not saying that I hate books; rather I am using my time economically to find the information I need with the maximum efficiency.  The end result is still the same though, I went to the library, and found the necessary information I need for my class.  Thus, although library books are less used, people are still going to the libraries because of the academic environment that allows them to use their time efficiently without distractions.

Students often see the library as the place that nobody wants to be in, yet everyone inevitably ends up in.  No matter how much I like studying in the comfort of my room, there is no way I can argue that studying in my room is as efficient as going to the library.  Maybe its because in the library there isn’t a comfortable bed constantly tempting me to stop studying and go to bed, or a TV begging to be turned on, but the library is without a doubt more efficient for studying.  I think that this is less because it is quiet, but more because if you look around just about everyone else is in the same boat as you are trying desperately to finish their work.  It is in this capacity that the library provides itself as a vital part of our campus that, as much as people hate going there, is beneficial and helpful.

To put it bluntly, I was pretty nerdy in high school. I was not a nerd in the sense that I would dress up as Princess Leia for fun or had tape around the center of my glasses, I just really loved the academic part of school. When everyone else opted for multiple free-periods senior year, I petitioned to take more than the allowed number of AP classes. When everyone else was going out to whatever house party was happening that night, I spent hours in my kitchen sifting through seemingly never ending superlative votes for the yearbook. While the majority of the seniors in my class partied in Punta Cana for spring break, I stayed in Saint Louis and competed in the state championship for Mock Trial. This probably goes without saying, but not only was I a nerd in high school, I was by no means cool.

As you can imagine, this made being social pretty difficult for me. Not only was my schedule incessantly busy, but also my high school was like the ones you see in television teen dramas on crack. The students, females in particular, were constantly trying to out do one another in everything, so being the president of multiple clubs, captain of an athletic team, and senior editor of the yearbook did not really bode well for me making friends. But alas there is a haven for kids like me at every high school—that haven is the library. My love for libraries will never fade because it is the main reason I made it through high school remaining (albeit debatably) sane. My love for libraries stemmed from the fact that there is so much more to libraries than just books. I loved the library because of the head librarian, the friends I made there, and the inexplicable push the library gave me to be the best person I could be.

My first library friend was actually one of the librarians, Mr. Elliot. I was still trying to find my place freshman year, and I would see him around in the cafeteria and what not. Eventually, we became friends and I started going to the library just to talk to him. I would tell him about whatever problems I was having at school, if I was stressed out about a situation at home, or even if one of my friends had upset me. We rarely talked about books and mostly talked about life. Looking back on my four years in high school I would say I went to the library more times to talk to my confidant than to do research or check out a book. Talking to my librarian built the foundation of my love for libraries that continuously grew throughout every year of high school.

As I ventured into my sophomore, junior, and senior years, my circle of library friends expanded. It should have been more obvious and probably come sooner, but it was not until my junior year of high school that I had that “a-ha!” moment that kids who love school hang out in the one place where academia is on steroids: the library. I found my closest friends at the library. Whether we were working on a project together, cramming for an exam next period, or putting the finishing touches on a paper, there was an unspoken camaraderie that developed between each of us knowing that we were all there striving to succeed. This camaraderie carried over from the library to dinners at local restaurants like C.J. Muggs, heart-to-heart conversations about what was going on in each of our respective lives, and the connections that are carried throughout college to my hometown friends.

Maybe it was the camaraderie that I felt in the library that pushed me to want to succeed. It could have been my dreamy-eyed freshman self looking up to the seniors who always hung out in the library and seeing them all get into top twenty colleges. Possibly the fact that books surrounded me with infinite knowledge that I could obtain was what made me work hard in the library. Whatever it was, to this day when I walk into a library I am overwhelmed with the feeling that I am there to get work done and to become a smarter and better person.

I understand that not everyone has this feeling about libraries. Not everyone had a librarian that served as a guide through high school. Most students did not find their close group of friends at a grouping of desks in the library. I am sure not everyone gets a rush like I do when I walk through the doors of the library. And that’s fine. To some people, a library is, and will always be just books. But to me, a library will always be so much more.

There is so much power hidden in books. With each new page, a little magic is released, building a fantastic world out of only twenty-six letters. Just one chapter can transport you onto Baker Street where Holmes and Watson mull over the most recent sensational crime. A few paragraphs can carry you across the boundaries of time and reality where you fight along the Starks against the treacherous Freys. And one sentence, “All was well”, can end an era of spells and horcruxes. You never know where you will end up with a flip of the page, allowing you to transplant yourself into someone else’s world for an hour or two.

My dad lives and breathes this escape from reality. You should see our basement. There is one whole wall of bookshelves piled lined two-deep with books. And not just any kind of books: Sci-Fi books. Some of these novels defy the Science Fiction stereotype and actually do have an enigmatic plot or hero. William Gibson’s Neuromancer and Orson Scott Card’s Enders Game carry some critical acclaim attached to their recognizable titles. To even non-science fiction readers, these books have “clout”.

Then there are those books that are a little less recognizable. Those books that have not won accolades from critics. Those books that, frankly, no one has really heard of. No one except my dad, that is. In my dad’s collection these books outnumber the others ten to one. There’s that book that is based on the video game HALO. I had honestly never heard of a book based on a video game until I discovered this gem hidden behind others of its kind including Runelords by David Farland and, I shudder, The Host by Stephanie Meyer.,

I know these books are not good because they have plots so forgettable my dad can’t remember if he’s read them. There have been countless times in airports when, in a last minute scramble, he buys the exact same book I saw on the shelf the week before. He has no idea. He reads it like it’s his first time, eagerly flipping pages throughout the entire flight. To be fair, I guess you can’t remember every spaceship explosion or alien invasion you’ve ever read, but still. Sometimes these repeats happen within the span of months.

But these books give my dad immeasurable joy. As a lawyer, he sits behind a desk all day, every day. I’m gonna be honesty, I don’t exactly know what he does, but I do know it involves a lot of paper work. And late hours. And travelling. Basically, he gets very little variation with his day, and even less rest. So, when he comes home with tired eyes I don’t think he wants to delve into War and Peace. That’s where these books come in (yes, even the one based on the video game).

Books like Neal Asher’s The Departure aren’t incredibly complex. The sentences are straightforward, the syntax is simple, and the words are short. Without these distractors, readers can focus solely on the plot. They can place themselves in the Argus Station, a space station where the Committee will soon have the power to edit human minds, but only by killing twelve billion humans on earth. To me, and probably every sane person on this planet, this situation does not seem relaxing in the least. But readers like my dad aren’t looking for relaxing. All they want is an escape.

And this world is definitely an escape. Instead of focusing on an overdue brief or difficult clients, my dad gets to see through the eyes of Alan Saul in his journey to destroy this dystopia. With each page, he gets deeper into this alter ego, until it takes over. That’s the power of books. They let you forget your true identity for a few hours and take on the role of anyone you want. Books allow you to drop your problems and leave them outside the pages. The pages open a magical world, building on the imagination to encapsulate the mind, and leaving a little bit behind when they finally shut.

Preston Evans

ENGL 120W

03/30/14

Readefined; An Age of Decline?

Is reading dead? I remember when one of my favorite book stores in Nashville, Davis Kidd, “turned its final page.” After thirty years of being one of Nashville’s largest and most prominent booksellers, the Green Hills storefront, nestled in the front corner of the mall, was forced to close its doors on November 11, 2010. I recall many days spent running up and down the hall of books, intrigued and wide-eyed at all the information that was there, all the knowledge. Listening to samples of CDs in the music section or wading through those velvet ropes that guided the bustling line to checkout. Actually buying a printed book from a real human. It seems funny now… I remember on warm summer nights spending time with friends just outside its doors, baby-faced and smoking cigarettes because it made us feel cooler than we actually were. To anyone that had the pleasure of experiencing this magical, wondrous play-place of books and art, Davis Kidd probably conjures up gleefully nostalgic memories for you, too. And so the closure of this store was treated like the death of a close friend, and Nashville lost a fine bookseller.

So, is it? Is reading dead? I’d like to think no. I’d like to think that we, as human beings and as building blocks for society, are at least intelligent enough to see the importance of reading and of expanding our knowledge through the gathering and interpretation of information we find in books. I’d also like to think that the legacies of stores like Davis Kidd are able to live on.   Some quick statistics may suggest that book reading has steadily declined in the past several years with the large amount of readily accessible information on the Internet. According to an article in Publisher’s Weekly, printed book sales fell by 2.5% last year. This puny percentage may not seem like a lot, but book sales dropped from 620 million units in 2012 to 501.6 million units in 2013. That’s almost 120 million less book that were bought in 2013 than in 2012 [1]. And further data suggests that this declining trend will only steepen in coming years.

However, just because sales of physical book copies have gone down does not necessarily mean that people aren’t reading. According to Pew Internet and American Life Project, about one-fifth (that’s 21%) of adults have read an e-book in the past year [2]. E-books are digital books that can be bought through the Web, delivered to a device such as a computer or Kindle, and read page by page on said device. These e-books allow for readers to enjoy hundreds, even thousands, of books at the touch of a button and in the palm of their hand. Forget lugging around heavy textbooks; download them to your tablet or computer. Furthermore, the average e-book reader has read approximately 24 books in the past year, while the average print book consumer has only read 15.

Something I find immensely impressive with many e-book devices is the access to free classic novels and some contemporary writings all consolidated within the device. Once, on a plane, I was able to access Dickens’ 1861 masterpiece Great Expectations on my mom’s Kindle. I was delighted, and not only because Great Expectations is my favorite Dickens novel, but because of the infinite possibilities that this little handheld screen just presented to me. I’m hovering thousands of feet above the ground and yet was able to find a 544-page novel sans any sort of Internet connection or Web interaction in the blink of an eye. Simply amazing. What’s more, efforts of Project Gutenberg offer over 45,000 free e-books online [3]. This growing accessibility to books and information via the Internet and through Kindle and similar products’ databases are allowing for an increased reading pace as well as an increased interest in reading (as those who would not necessarily have the means to buy a book before can now afford them).

Still, nothing can strip the integrity of the printed book. Nothing quite compares to holding and flipping those pages between your index finger and thumb and the smell of a fresh book (is that just me? I would hope not). Even if Davis Kidd and many other libraries suffered a marginal loss from Internet accessibility and affordability, many libraries and bookstores have integrated the technology into their business models. I have a family friend who actually goes to the local bookstore to buy digital e-books from a vendor. This way, he says, he does not miss the “personal interaction and communication that is necessary and pleasurable when buying a new book.” Similarly, online databases like JSTOR require a small subscription fee in order to access the articles and works they contain. These are not websites; they are libraries. They are digital, and they are different, but they are libraries nonetheless. In fact, the American Library Association reports that the number of visits to public libraries in the US increased by 61% from the mid 1990s to the early 2000s [4].

Reading hasn’t died, nor is it in the process of dying; it has simply changed. We share ideas and gather information in new ways today, and as a result we are finding ourselves more connected and more intelligent than ever before. So read on, avid booklovers, be it digitally or physically, because it seems that books and libraries won’t be tarnished by the so-called “information glut” of today’s media.

1-    http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/60529-sales-of-print-units-slipped-in-2013.html

2-    http://libraries.pewinternet.org/2012/04/04/the-rise-of-e-reading/

3-    http://www.gutenberg.org/

4-    http://www.ilovelibraries.org/getinformed/facts-figures

Years ago, before my grandfather died, he spoke to me about his belief in god. A brilliant man whom I loved and miss every day, he told me that in his life he learned to believe in something greater than himself because it made things easier sometimes. I could not understand how a man like him, a United States Air Force captain who worked day and night to pay his own way through college and dental school to go on to earn a small fortune and start a family which I am so proud to be a member of, could possibly need to rely on faith beyond himself to feel fulfilled. I have reflected on his words more times than I can recall, and I am still unsure of just how I can relate them to my own life and beliefs.

Faith plays  a role in all of our lives. Regardless of our religion, spirituality, superstition, or lack thereof, who and what we believe in changes the way we think, feel, and live. In the Old Testament, faith is defined as being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. In Merriam-Webster’s English Dictionary, it is described as a strong belief or trust in someone or something. It is a funny thing, though, for neither of these definitions are significant in the slightest when compared to the true meaning of an individual’s faith. The things that a man or woman has faith in are as uniquely his or her own as any other measure of individuality amongst people. Where the problem lies, though, is in the unfortunate truth that faith can be misplaced. Billions of people on this earth are certain, as in the definition from the Old Testament, of things of which there is no evidence. They trust, too, as in Merriam-Webster’s description, in people and things which often times do not warrant such acknowledgement. These illusions which we preserve for ourselves do not add significance to our lives. Instead, they fabricate a sense of purpose and importance which has no dutiful place in human life. In order to live fulfilling lives, we must collectively acknowledge the realities of our existence and thus be forced to accept that the only reasonable place to vest our faith is in ourselves.

To clarify my intent, I do not wish to delve into criticisms of any particular faith, belief system, or anything else of the sort. Many who retain closely held beliefs and strong faith in their religion or otherwise have proven to be, in my experience, men and women of tremendous virtue and moral stature. Instead, it is my purpose to attempt to innumerate the reasons why our faith should be held within oneself, the only entity over which we exercise true control, and therefore the only one and only thing in which we can truly trust and believe.

A man in a television show (another place where many, including myself, place their faith) once told me, “if the only thing keeping a person decent is the promise of divine reward, then brother, that person is a piece of shit”. While there was a sense of humor involved in this statement, it also is a provocative concept in the conversation about faith. Is it really understandable for a person to trust and believe in a desire for heavenly reward (or punishment, for that matter) instead of trusting and believing in his or her self as a source of strength and direction?

Religion is certainly not the only culprit of misplaced faith. We elect leaders who we trust (sort of) to make decisions based on how our country is run and, in many ways, how we live. In most cases they are not people we know personally or have even ever met, yet we place our faith in them to do the right thing for our country. We even place our faith in our favorite sports teams to win the big game, perhaps harmlessly, even though we have no control over what happens on the field or court. I don’t know about you, but blind faith in my favorite teams has proven to lead to disappointment time and time again.

Humans have lived for thousands of years believing in things outside of themselves. We have faith in gods, the afterlife, political and social figures, sports stars, and even our loved ones around us. In reality, though, there is no evidence that this faith is fruitful outside of what we tell ourselves, yet our mutual illusions persevere. As my grandfather told me, it makes things easier. I cannot accept that, though. It seems to me that the ease and relief we experience from placing our faith in the hands of the unseen or that which is greater pales in comparison to the strength and fulfillment we can enjoy through believing, trusting, and having faith in ourselves.

I have been a swimmer for as long as I can remember. My parents would always describe me as a fish, a dolphin, and, when I became a bit sassier as a teenager, a shark. So naturally I started swimming competitively in a summer league. In my very first race I got disqualified for leaving the block too early. Tears rolled down my face as they called the winners to the podium, but they immediately ceased when I heard my name called too. Were they really calling me up there to announce that I had been disqualified? As it turns out I had won a ribbon! I walked around the rest of the meet proudly with a white ribbon that read, in a multi colored font, “participant.”

As I continued to swim, this trend would continue (Does this sentence sound awkward?). Granted I did learn not to leave the block too early so my efforts were eventually rewarded with first and second place ribbons, but even when I did make a mistake I was still reminded that I was a winner for simply participating. I could not leave a swim meet with fewer than five ribbons; I also was shaped with the mentality that I could not lose.

So you can imagine my surprise at the results of when I tried out for the varsity swim team my freshman year of high school (Does this sentence sound awkward too?). I went in with the mentality that I could not lose. I had been a winner throughout my entire swimming career and I probably had over one hundred ribbons to prove it. I made the team, but to my horror, I was put in the slowest lane of swimmers. If I am being honest, I was the fastest out of all of the slow swimmers but that is beside the point. It was at this point that I realized that not everyone is a winner.

Generation Y, the generation I am a part of, has been raised with the mentality that everyone is a winner. We have also been described as lazy, self obsessed, and entitled—all of these adjectives stemming directly from the excessive amounts of trophies we were given as children [3]. If you played in a little league soccer team, you were given a trophy even if you finished last in the league. When I worked as a counselor at a summer camp, my boss always told us that if we played a game, we needed to find a way to make sure that everyone who played got a piece of candy so that everyone could go home feeling like a winner. This always confused me. If we rewarded everyone, how would the winners feel accomplished? How would the kid who spent hours on the soccer field perfecting his soccer kick know that it was worth it? How would the girl who practiced late into the night on her driveway shooting free throws know that she could win a game for an entire team? The answer is that they would not, because these kids, like me, had been shaped to believe that everyone is a winner.

Maura Pennington, a contributor for Forbes Magazine, compares this train of thought to the planets in our solar system [1]. Pluto was told he was a planet all of his life when obviously he was too small and too far away to be legitimate. No one prepared him for the harsh reality of the day he found out that he was a dwarf planet. No one prepared him to lose. Who is preparing our children to lose? Reality is a harsh place, especially in an economy where the job market is so competitive. Generation Y, and I am not innocent of this, believes that we are entitled. I am not prepared for applying for the job that requires six rounds of interviews only to be cut after the fifth round. Will I get a ribbon for participating then to make it okay and take away the heartbreak? Ultimately, I have not learned to deal with rejection or losing. I can only imagine the catastrophic events that follow the days after one is rejected. When everyone is treated like a winner, ultimately everyone is a loser.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/maurapennington/2012/01/17/how-do-we-determine-winners-when-everyones-a-winner/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-sigman/when-everyone-gets-a-trop_b_1431319.html

http://www.livescience.com/38061-millennials-generation-y.html

In our age, it’s hard to say if there’s a consensus conception of evil. Even if we might not be able to define it, maybe we can identify it. The Holocaust serves as the clearest example of evil in modern times. However, it also demonstrates principles that suggest the potential for evil lies in all people.

I’m reading a book called “Eichmann in Jerusalem” by Hannah Arendt, an account of the trial of Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann was a high ranking Nazi officer in charge of emigration from Germany and its occupied territories under the Nazi regime. This meant, when the Final Solution was initiated by Hitler, that he was tasked with organizing the shipping of Jews from their homes to death camps in Germany and Poland. According to Arendt, the point of his trial in 1960 was to prove that Eichmann’s deeds were a result of a severe anti-Semitism. How else could someone have lived with facilitating the deaths of so many? Yet, she argues, Eichmann’s testimony suggested otherwise. Eichmann’s testimony was marked by idiosyncrasies: he couldn’t remember anything regarding his responsibilities or orders unless they specifically regarded his prospects for career advancement or his personal life; he showed obvious inconsistencies in his thoughts and ideals and was unaware of them; it seemed like he adopted ideals and clichés depending on the situation. All this made the central question of the trial – “did you feel regret? Did your conscience permit you to do this” – almost unintelligible, inapplicable, because it seemed as if he could not even get it through his head that his massive crimes were inconsistent with his claimed love for Jews.

Eichmann, as a high-ranking Nazi official, was probably atypical in his ignorance of the implications of what he was doing. But his denial and thoughtlessness were likely common to many citizens in Germany under the Nazi regime. This is not to say that the Holocaust was not a deliberate, hateful act aimed at genocide of Jews, homosexuals, Roma, and many other groups of people. But Nazi Germany was not solely composed of people single-mindedly committed to commit these crimes. It is a fallacy to assume that the people of Germany were, by nature, different than you and I. Rather, they fell into social traps to which all people can succumb: basing moral judgments on norms, deferring to authority figures, fearing consequences for dissent. This meant that when the Nazi system was established – once the system of propaganda was established, targeted groups were sufficiently dehumanized, and all was disguised under a veneer of nationalism – otherwise well-adjusted individuals were sucked into committing the worst offenses of human history.

But we aren’t Nazi Germany. Yet the same inconsistencies and biases contaminate our moral decision-making. Much of our moral thinking is dependent on non-moral considerations. Think about how you would react to a robbery, a man begging for money, or a domestic dispute in a public place if you are the only one around. Now consider the same situation again in a crowded public place. You might not be as inclined to help in the second situation, and this “bystander effect” has been well-researched and supported in psychological studies. The famous Milgram experiments showed us how people could be compelled to shock a person to death simply through the verbal urging of an authority figure. Economic implications factor in as well. Think of another prominent of example of a crime committed against an entire people: slavery in America. Slavery was so persistent in southern America because of the economic interest to keep slaves. The agricultural society depended on slavery for cheap labor. Releasing slaves would require the empowered people of the time, slaveowners, to change their lifestyle and to give up a large portion of their wealth. For a modern example, just look at the money seeping from the oil industry to support climate-change denial. Our moral thinking is often not as rational as we assume.

This frightens me. When I reflect on what might be the dominant moral issues of our time – reconciling our lifestyles with the apparent damage to the climate, possibly displacing millions – living in wealth while millions in Africa and Asia suffer from curable diseases – the dominant form of thought I identify in myself is avoidance and suppression. I think, “I’ll give more to charity in the future,” or “I need to focus on my own life;” yet these thoughts don’t seem to align with any explicit moral principle that I would accept; they are irrational, but I go along because it is easy and it doesn’t shake things up.

I am not a religious or spiritual person. But I grew up in a Christian family, and so I have imagined a conversation with God after my death.

God asks, “When these millions of people were in trouble, you had the capacity to help them. Why didn’t you?”

I don’t know what I would say.

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(People, I had some trouble structuring this essay. I didn’t know whether I spent too long on the Nazi thing, or if I should have gotten to the implications earlier, or if the personal slant at the end is weird or something.

Also is the comparison to Nazi Germany valid? I think I could have done better in the paragraph 3-4 transition.)

What is happiness? A quick Google search will tell me “the state of being happy,” “a mental or emotional state of well-being,” and even “the positive range of emotions we feel when we are content or full of joy.”  But what exactly does that mean? The meaning of the word itself seems just as elusive as finding that state of mind. And speaking of, how do you find that state of mind anyways? Is it in spending a weekend with your family? Or getting an A on a test? Is it in finally mastering that concerto? Or taking a vacation for yourself?

Someone once told me, “Happiness is not an object you can find, but rather a mentality you can choose.” This got me thinking. Is being happy really a choice? Do the people who seem to radiate sunshine and rainbows simply have that ability because they choose it? Do the people who struggle with depression just choose not? According to researchers, 40% of our own level of happiness is due to our choices (the other 60% from genetics and life circumstances beyond our control). But, I’m not sure it’s all that simple. Take this for example. Let’s call this person, “Person X.” All throughout childhood, she was happy. She found beauty in the little things, laughed to no end. Even through freshman year of high school she found herself genuinely smiling and finding happiness everywhere. But somewhere, midway through high school, it changed. Suddenly, smiles could not always replace stress. Laughter was not always a remedy for exceptionally lazy days. It seemed as though happiness could no longer overcome the hardships. And things remained that way for a while. The reasons for this sudden, seemingly irreversible shift are still unclear but what I can tell you is that it was never a choice (and it wasn’t genetics or life circumstances either). And I say that with 100% certainty because Person X was me. If I had the choice, I would not have chosen to struggle through years of ups and downs and uncertainties. I would not have chosen to let my difficulties get the best of me. Would anyone choose hardship over happiness?

Scientists think they have begun to debunk the myth surrounding happiness. I, as a life-long math and science nerd, have always believed in the power of research, the honesty of science. But my experiences have led me to question these studies. They have their fancy definitions, one of which describes happiness as “having three parts: pleasure, engagement, and meaning” (Martin Seligman, a leading researcher in positive psychology and author of “Authentic Happiness”). According to Seligman here, having the “feel good” (pleasure), a “good life” of work, family, friends, and personal interests (engagement), and contributing to a larger purpose (meaning) would make someone happy. Despite being able to laugh and smile every now and then, having an amazing network of family and friends backing me, and my love for dance and playing the cello, I did not find that happiness I was looking for. This formula, it seems, is not always foolproof. Researchers also claim that gathering positive emotions can make us feel happier and help us gain resiliency. But isn’t it the lack of these positives the whole reason why we’re in trouble? Do you see the catch-22 here? Psychologists even also have a list of  “people who are happier.” But it doesn’t mean that by fulfilling all those qualities would make me a happy person? The only thing I can seem to agree with is that there is a difference between moment-by-moment happiness and long-term happiness. But really, all I gather from these studies is that the key to happiness is still very much unclear.

So what is it that makes happiness so mysterious? Perhaps, its subjectivity. Or maybe an overall lack of understanding (though I’m not sure science will ever be able to tell us what we need). But I suppose, in a way, that makes achieving it so much more worthwhile. After all, a document with so much detail otherwise, offers nothing more than the constitutional right to the “pursuit of happiness.” I guess we’re on our own in figuring out exactly what that means for each of us.

Source:

http://www.pbs.org/thisemotionallife/topic/happiness/what-happiness