The Art of the Essay

Success.  Isn’t that ultimately what most of us want want to achieve?  We desire to be successful in every aspect of our lives, whether it comes to our careers, relationships, or physical fitness.  Why do we want to be successful?  Perhaps, many of us think success will make us happy.  Many of us view happiness as a byproduct of success.  I’m not exactly sure how I feel about this.  Maybe one day when I’m 40 and married with kids, I’ll wake up and think to myself, “Wow, I’m so successful, I’m so happy.”  But I’m not so sure I’ll ever have a day like this.  New research on happiness seems to indicate this day will never happen.  “With only a few exceptions, people tend to return to the same level of happiness over time, regardless of what happens to them – even extremely good events like winning the lottery, or extremely bad events like becoming a paraplegic, only seem to bump people’s reported happiness up or down for a limited time, before they start to drift back to their baseline.”[1]

If our happiness is not tied to success, why do we work so hard?  Why do we deal with blood, sweat, and tears in order to become successful when it won’t increase our happiness?  Maybe, instead, we should adopt the Buddhist mentality that desire leads to suffering.  Instead of working extremely hard to be successful we should just be satisfied with what we have.  We would be just as happy and we wouldn’t have to break our backs, endure sleepless nights, and encounter extreme amounts of stress in the process..

However, I actually think that seeking happiness as an end-goal is not the mentality one should go through life with.  Those, who chase happiness are bound not to find it.  That is because people see happiness in the wrong way.  Happiness is not a characteristic.  It is not fixed, like my eye color or hair color.  It is an emotion.  And all emotions are fleeting.  Last summer I got into a fist fight with my best friend.  We had a dispute and we fought viciously .  This wasn’t a fight were people throw air punches and then wrestle to ground.  We both had significant gashes and black eyes. It was a fight driven by intense anger, borderlining hate.  But my anger at him, subsided long before my physical wounds.  When I aced my last economics test I was so happy for a day or two.  But that too was fleeting, and before I knew it I was irritated and stressed because I had another test.

The only true happiness is ignorance.  The only true happiness is a state of non-existence.  If you exist on this planet you cannot be in a state of permanent hapiness.  And thank God for this, because if we were permanently happy there would be no need for change, no need for action.  If someone is working out in the gym, they are not fully happy with their body.  If they were there would be no reason to work out.  Anyone trying to achieve anything is never in a state of permanent happiness.  Students at Vanderbilt aren’t in a state of permanent happiness.  We wouldn’t be striving to learn more or be more prepared for the job market if we were truly satisfied.  Constant happiness is stagnation.  Constant happiness is idleness.  We wouldn’t want to be happy 24/7 because then we would not set out to accomplish anything since everything would be perfect.

We should be thankful for the ups and downs in life.  We should be thankful for intense ecstacy as well as anger and pain.  Sometimes achieving the goal isn’t even the best part, it’s the journey we take to do it.  I have always found the journey more rewarding than the destination.  We must realize that pure, eternal happiness would not actually be enjoyable.  Paradise gets old after a while.  We must always strive for new goals.  There will always be mountains to climb, tasks to conquer, and battles to win.  And every battle we win does produce happiness, albeit fleeting.  It dissipates, and before we know it, wehave another goal to achieve.  When you fully beat a video game, you get an empty feeling like there is nothing else to do.  That’s what eternal happiness would feel like.  Be grateful for the never ending cycle of trials and tribulations and well as successes and victories.

Character. The Oxford Dictionary defines the word as “the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual”, “the distinctive nature of something”, “and the quality of being individual”. Personally, I have developed my own definition for what I think someone with good character has. While these traits may not be the all-or-nothing formula to becoming someone with good character, I certainly believe that loyalty, passion, and modesty are three of the most important aspects in what I consider to be an admirable person.

Loyalty. The dictionary says it is “the quality of being loyal to someone or something” and “a strong feeling of support or allegiance”. To me, loyalty means that one is true and unwavering to another person. To be loyal is to be actively there for people and to support them. My most loyal friend, Katie, does all of that and more. I have known her since 6^th grade and together we went through many of the same experiences, such as hard science classes, orchestra, volleyball, and so much more. Having been the new kid, Katie was one of the first people to be nice to me and even invited me to her birthday party, which was a big deal in middle school. Through the years, even though I have gotten closer and grown apart with various different friend groups, Katie has always been one of my closest friends and has consistently been there for me. No matter what happened in my life, I knew that I could always count on Katie to understand my feelings. She supported me through some of my hardest times, and I am continually thankful for her everyday and try to be equally as loyal to Katie as she has been to me. Katie taught me what true loyalty meant, and how meaningful my loyalty could be to someone else.

Passion. In the dictionary, passion is “an intense desire or enthusiasm for something”. In my life, passion is my driving force, the thing that keeps me going. I am passionate about individuality and creativity. Pursuing my own originality has helped me find a purpose in life, as I always try to look at things with a creative twist or a unique viewpoint. My friend Allie is actually the one who inspired me to find my own passion. For as long as I have known her, Allie has always loved movies and films more than anything else. She’s that friend who always asks you to go to the movies, watches the movie so intently that you might not be able to remember the last time she blinked, and afterwards rattle endlessly about the hidden symbolism and significance embedded in the movie while you stare back at her wondering if you both even watched the same movie. Her passion for movies is so inspirational that it motivates me to develop my own passion for creativity. Our passions are push us forward and keep up moving; without them, people would not have a clear direction of what they want.

Modesty. The dictionary definition? It is “the quality or state of being unassuming or moderate in the estimation of one’s abilities”. My definition of modesty is that someone is humble and understanding. I never clearly thought about this trait until I read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when Sirius Black said my favorite quote of all time, “if you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.” Of course, in the book, Sirius was talking about how wizards should treat house elves, which are considered “lower” than wizards, but I thought the line applied to my everyday life and changed my entire way of thinking. No one is really “lower” than anyone else in today’s world, so to me the line really means that humans should maintain a certain level of humility and treat everyone of equal respect. After all, no matter what physical or mental qualities a person has, that person is no better than the next. Understanding each other is instrumental in not only realizing our differences, but also in identifying our similarities.

So, to me, good character = loyalty + passion + modesty. It seems so simple and straightforward that after writing these past few paragraphs, I was a little disappointed in myself. Are my standards too low? Is it really so easy to have good character? I looked back at the definitions of character, and realized that a key ingredient was missing from the recipe: individuality. Katie, Allie, and Sirius Black all taught me something valuable that allowed me to open my eyes and look at the world in a different way. Now, I need to open my eyes and look back on the person I am and want to become. My individuality is not something Katie, Allie, nor Sirius Black could teach me. Instead, I need to figure out what it means to be Jenn and develop my own character.

Love. Love is complicated. In one sense, it seems almost impossible to define. It can’t be seen, can’t be heard, tasted, bought, or sold. And of all abstractions, love seems like one of the most subjective, most nuanced. So much so, that it feels almost painful to limit it to one specific experience or feeling. Yet love is a universal source of happiness. We dream, imagine, and surround ourselves with it. I can speak of love only from my own perspective, which breaks love into two “types”. There is the type of love which drives us to preserve, nourish, and care, like the love we have for a brother, or a mother, a furry friend, or a childhood novel. Then there is the love which drives us to be passionate, to have desire and will – the love for ambition. When “I love what I do”, that’s the kind of love I’m talking about.

First, the love we have for one another, for objects, memories, sounds, and so on.

Having parents, more than anything else, is what has taught me about what it means to
love. When they are happy, they love you. When they are as angry as can be, they still love you. They care about you. They want you, more than anything, to do well, because your own happiness is their happiness. That’s true love. The love we have for things, people, memories – we know it is true when it drives us to obsession – when we love something so strongly that it becomes part of us. When we worry for our parents, whom we leave all too abruptly once we hear the calling of college, and when they worry for us, that is true love. Love is when the child feels as though a divorce has left an empty hole, when this failure feels as if it is one’s own failure. I once read a quote that described this perfectly: “Love is
that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” Loving is caring about something – someone, to the extreme. I learned all about this a few years ago.

Five years ago, I travelled to Norway with my mom. I remember that trip so well, because it was in this trip that I learned a lot about the nature of love. I also learned that loving something so much that it becomes a part of yourself, can be a painful experience. My mom and I were homesick, without knowing it. We had moved, because of my father’s job, to the United States and the visits to Norway had become increasingly rare. I thought that my excitement stemmed from the desire to travel, and get away from home. I thought it would be a chance to make some Norwegian friends, and an excuse to let worries about school and college just fade away. But when we got to my grandma’s old apartment, I knew
that there was something missing. Maybe it was the smell, or the empty mailbox, or the missing TV that triggered it. Maybe it was a combination of all three that made me feel overwhelmed by a feeling of loss. My grandma had lived here for most of her life, and it had been several years since she had moved out, and many years since I had visited. My anger, and sadness, all of the feelings of loss and frustration that I felt – they were symptoms of love. Because the fact is that I had loved the particular smell of furniture in the three room apartment, and the sunny morning when I would drink hot chocolate on the couch and watch Norwegian kids programs. I loved being a child. I loved my grandma, and I loved the traditions we had had. When the hot chocolate and TV had been thrown out, and the child had grown up, I could feel the sore that love had left.

That’s the kind of love we think of most often.  But love isn’t always what you would expect it to be. It isn’t always directed towards an object or a person. When someone says “I love what I do” its sill love, just in a different way. I believe that love can be for a way of life, an
outlook, or a dream. Think about the last time you tried to tackle something really challenging that had a lot of meaning to you. You knew how difficult it was. You knew that you were playing by a certain set of rules, and that the challenge was somehow bigger than you. But at the same time, there must have been something within you, pushing you to pull through. There must have been some kind of motivation, maybe the feeling of danger, or being on the edge of the unknown. There is some inexplicable passion – love that you have that drives you onwards. To me, that’s what it means to “love what you do.” Its love for a type of life, whether it be the adventurous kind, or the philosophical, and contemplation filled variety.

Love is a difficult beast to tackle. It’s a kind of feeling that can come at the most unexpected times towards the most unexpected things. But love is also the source of a lot of happiness and joy. I have loved a lot in my own life; I have loved the sunshine, the old doll, my best friend of twelve years, my parents, and the old cat that growls at me when I come home. At the same, I have loved in a different way – in living a life of pursuit and purpose, of waking up each day aspiring to solve the next problem or discover knew things. I guess, you might equate love with a strong passion. Regardless, love is beautiful and powerful. As e.e. cummings once said, “Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear; the strength so strong mere force is feebleness: the truth
more first than sun, more last than star.”

Being alone can be nice; being alone is having breakfast by yourself on a peaceful morning, or staying in to watch your favorite show while everyone else goes out. You’re not with others, but still having a good time. After all, you don’t have to do what others are doing, and being alone gives you time to think without outside influences. As an individual human being, it’s important to be alone.

However, some associate being alone to feeling lonely. It’s true that sometimes one may feel lonely because he or she is alone, but loneliness isn’t exclusively the same as being physically alone. Loneliness is being dissatisfied with the people one associates with because the ideal and perceived interpersonal relationships don’t measure up to each other. It’s feeling misunderstood, or being unheard. It’s when you want to say something, but you don’t because you think no one is really listening; they could be hearing your voice, but not really taking your words to heart. And other times you say something, but it doesn’t come out right—maybe the timing was wrong, maybe you weren’t ready to say it. And before you can go back to explain and clarify, everyone has moved on already, misunderstanding what you have said. When you can’t communicate properly with others, you’re left with this feeling that no one really cares, and even though there are billions of people on this planet, you feel as though you are completely closed off from them.

Although it can be easy to feel lonely from simple situational occurrences, such as failing to receive an invitation to a party or feeling out of the loop during a gossip session, loneliness can be caused by a variety of other factors. A major factor that appears to contribute to this condition is genetics; it may seem strange that an abstract concept such as loneliness can be scientifically attributed, but studies have shown that feelings of social isolation are connected to a distinct gene expression that drives inflammation, a response of the immune system. This means that the immune cells contain altered gene transcripts, resulting in differences in the proteins created by the genes. In chronically lonely individuals, it was found that 78 of the gene transcripts were over-expressed, creating too much protein, and 131 of the gene transcripts were under-expressed, creating not enough protein [1]. From this scientific evidence, it can be concluded that the tendency for loneliness is hereditary because these altered genes found in affected individuals are passed down generation to generation.

Because loneliness has been shown to be caused partly by genetics involving the immune system, it has frequently been shown to be connected to the weakening of the immune system. Among the under-expressed gene transcripts are those involved in antiviral responses and antibody production. As a result, the body is more susceptible to viral infections, cancers, and other illnesses. The mere feeling of loneliness also affects sleep, by both destroying a fully restorative sleep period and preventing sleep altogether. This, in turn, further weakens the immune system because it is during a restorative sleep period that the body can produce the most antiviral cells [2].

In addition to weakening the immune system, loneliness is a major precipitant of depression. The inability to feel socially connected to others is debilitating to the mental health, as one may feel misunderstood, lost, and out of place. After his failed suicide attempt, British actor Stephen Fry wrote that “loneliness [was] the most terrible and contradictory of [his] problems,” indicating that loneliness was the biggest contributing factor to his depression and suicidal behavior [3]. An actor was so driven by loneliness to the point of suicide attempt, though constantly surrounded by others and loved by thousands of fans. Clearly, it’s the quality, rather than the quantity, of the people whom one associates with that really matters.

Everyone has felt lonely in a room full of people before. While most people experience loneliness at some point in their lives, many don’t realize how dangerous long-term loneliness can be; because it is often exclusively thought of as a product of negative, meaningless external experiences and interactions, it is difficult to see the detrimental effects of this sensation within our bodies. The numbers don’t matter. It doesn’t matter that everyone loves you if you feel misunderstood and out of place; forget those people. Don’t let loneliness consume you—surround yourself with those who make you feel alive, and do what makes you feel that you have a purpose.

[1] http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/82496.php

[2] http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/excessive-sleepiness-10/immune-system-lack-of-sleep

[3] http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/08/dangers_of_

loneliness_social_isolation_is_deadlier_than_obesity.html

The famous American actress Rihanna once told media that even though she was born in Barbadian, she had a phobia of sea creatures, even tiny fish.  Phobia means extreme and irrational fear of something, and it is considered as mental disorder.  Rihanna’s symptom is called “ichthyophobia,” the fear of fish.  There is a very long list for different kinds of phobia, some are common, like acrophobia, the fear of height; but many of them sound unimaginable to us, such as tetraphobia, the fear of the number four.  Nevertheless, phobia is one of the mental illnesses recognized by clinical psychology.  However, the misunderstanding of phobia leads many people to believe they have an actual phobia of something while in fact they are just afraid of them.  What’s more, this very professional term, “phobia”, has become some people’s scapegoat for their refusal of doing something, in other words, their “justifiable” excuse to escape from confronting difficult situation.

Take the example of “study phobia”.  “I’m not stupid or lazy; I’m scared, so I failed the test.” –very few people will say such thing because it’s the common sense that it will not be accepted as reasonable defense.  However, in some students’ mind, they believe that they are really suffering from “study phobia”; that’s the reason behind their vehement rejection to study even though they fully recognize they have to.  First of all, the fact that you don’t want to study doesn’t mean you have a phobia of study.  Usually, phobia comes with sudden change of mental and physical conditions, such as extreme distress, anxiety and panic, heart beating faster, shaking, or short of breathe.  Personally, I don’t think any student will have such symptoms when reading books or listening to lectures.  Maybe they will suffer from these mental and physical disorders when taking a test, but that is caused by stress, not phobia.

So, does “study phobia” really exist?  Although this term is not included in any official list of phobia, it’s definitely possible.  According to many psychiatrists, people can be taught to fear almost everything.  For example, if a small child is told not to play with dolphins in aquarium because they will eat him, this child could very possibly develop a fear of dolphins.  Even after he has grown up and learned that there is little chance that a dolphin will hurt him, he will still be afraid of this kind of ocean mammal (the fear of dolphin is called “delfiniphobia”).  Back to study phobia, if one student had an extremely painful experience on learning, such as continuous humiliation in tests, quizzes, and question-and-answer sessions, or repeated failure after tremendous hard work, day after day, year after year, eventually he could have a phobia of study.  However, whether you really suffer from study phobia or not doesn’t matter.  The most important thing is how you deal with your fear or refusal of study.  Instead of confronting “study phobia” or turn to a psychiatrist for help, some students just give up in school work.  When the sense of guilt comes to them, they will comfort themselves with the conjecture that they have “study phobia”.

In real world, people rarely describe themselves as having “study phobia” because so many might react with skepticism to that saying.  But what for those more “justified” phobia, like ergophobia, irrational and persistent fear of work or finding employment?  Many people learn to handle the situation by ‘leaving”.  While some “leave” by attempting to ignore their fear and continue their normal life, some “leave” by very irrational means, even turning to marijuana or other drugs.  Those people “surrender” to their fears and don’t want to consider some possible treatments because they are so “afraid”.  There are, actually, several methods of overriding the fears that intervene our personal life.  The most common one is called cognitive behavioral therapy, a therapy that may be performed in a group setting to help the patient understand the cycle of negative thought patterns, and ways to change these thought patterns.  As long as the patient is willing to undergo some discomfort in the process and make a continuous effort to change, the treatment will alleviate patient’s phobia in some level or even eliminate his fear of some particular situation.

It’s true that the world is a scary place.  We are constantly surrounded by things that frighten us.  If this kind of emotion has greatly affect our normal life, try to confront and overcome it.

1939-2004. Maybe “Loving mother and wife.” And a name. That’s all you get to describe a persons life: the year they were born, the year they died, and a dash. We have to be sure to live that dash.

Life seems to be this intangible balance, which no one really has figured out. There are thousands of different things, and you only have two hands to hold them. So you pile up that paper you have due tonight, a call you owe your dad, dinner with that friend you keep cancelling on, and a soccer practice you can’t skip again all in your right hand. In your left you have that new show on Discovery that you’ve been dying to watch, hanging out with your boyfriend, cleaning your tornado-zone of a room, and oh yeah, sleep. You dance around, trying not to let anything fall. You’re never fully present because this circus act takes all of your attention, selfishly hoarding it behind locked doors. But inevitably something shifts, and the whole perilous tower comes crashing down. It’s devastating, but what can you do? You know nothing different, so you pick each piece up and pile them on again, foolishly hoping this time around it will be sturdier.

This may be life, but it is not living.

That dash you get should not be faded by worry. It should not be cracked by stress or weathered by tears. It should be etched deep into that stone, each new experience digging a little deeper. That road-trip you took with your friends in the middle of the summer should be there, each out of tune song-lyric nestled safely in the granite. Those 3 am chocolate-chip pancakes from the diner down the street should be there too, right next to that Dracula paper for English you were really proud of, yet that only got a B.

You have to live your dash.

It’s so easy to let living take a back seat to life. Life is trying to live up to your parents’ expectations. Life is trying to pass that unreasonably difficult weed-out class that is Organic Chemistry. Life is partaking in a friendship that drains your soul, just because you feel obligated. These things are all around, pervading your every thought. They seem like the most important things in the world; like if you do them you will be fulfilled. And maybe that’s true. But will you be happy? Maybe your father’s pride that you joined the family business and your friend’s lightning-fast hug after she downloaded all her problems to you will temporarily fill the holes in your heart where happiness should go. But here’s the thing about temporary: it doesn’t last.

Happiness lasts. Happiness sticks in those holes like cement, filling every nook and cranny. Because it doesn’t go away, happiness builds on itself until it bursts forth from you, illuminating everyone and everything you come in contact with. And you get happiness from living. You get happiness from being in that musical, even though they put you in the back because, lets face it, your dancing skills are sub-sub-par. You get happiness from going to a playground in the middle of the night and spending hours on the tire swing. You get happiness from going to watch your best friends play lacrosse on a beautiful spring day, and cheering embarrassingly loudly when they score.

But none of these moments mean anything when you’re not present. You can’t get true happiness when you’re still part of the circus balancing act. So, drop everything. Just for a few hours. Watch a show, take a nap, read a book. Do anything to empty your mind of the to-do lists, the deadlines, the time restraints. Then, pick up one thing at a time. Only one thing. Write the paper without thinking about calling your dad. Watch that show without picturing your messy room in your head. Be fully engaged in each activity, and you will start living your life instead of participating in it.

When you die, that dash becomes you. It represents every heartache, every leap of joy, every moment. Don’t waste those moments worrying about that physics test you took last week or how what medical school you get into will affect your future. Appreciate those moments for what they are: a chance to live your dash.

Who are you?

Can you describe yourself in a way that make it impossible to confuse you with another individual? Go ahead and try to think of your personality, your character, your self. It’s not so easy—uncovering the secrets that loom in the self can be incredibly elusive. However, no matter how difficult this task may be, everybody should engage in attaining a level of self-awareness. Despite the challenges inherent in the journey of self-discovery, it is imperative to illuminate what lies within the self.

While the process of deeper awareness may be hard at times, we possess the latent ability to recognize the self. For instance, humans can recognize themselves as separate from the world around them; in other words, they exhibit self-awareness. The capability to have a level of self-awareness is found in humans and great apes.[1] This test of self-awareness was conducted by the “mirror test” which tested whether animals could recognize the reflection in the mirror as themselves. However, the apes had a cursory understanding of the reflection, similar to the level of awareness that toddlers possess. The gap between adults and toddlers is fairly large and it makes sense that older people have more self-awareness than toddlers do. That doesn’t necessarily mean that this awareness increases constantly with age. For example, a method of increasing self-awareness seems to be the discovery of the self through self-reflection, which is introspective thinking about one’s own character, actions, and motives. I do not think that people engage often in self-reflection beyond a superficial level. From my personal experience, it seems that people do not think about why they do something or why they react to specific situations in certain ways. Sometimes, this response to avoid thinking introspectively may be deliberate. Sometimes, the monsters that lurk within instill more fear than the monsters in the physical world.

These monsters could be anything: insecurities, unpleasant memories, or even phobias. Psychological monsters exist within the self that an individual has not discovered yet. Imagine standing at the edge of an abyss and peering down at the darkness. There are likely recognizable shapes, but the precise forms remains obscured. Self-reflection serves to illuminate the abyss by throwing lights into areas that remain shrouded in darkness and obscurity. Despite the straightforward way of analyzing one’s self, self-reflection remains avoided. Maybe we are afraid of what Friedrich Nietzsche describes in one of his famous aphorisms, “Whoever battles with monsters had better see that it does not turn him into a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you”. Perhaps we don’t want to stare into the abyss because our monsters may overwhelm us. However, if we run away from our problems, then we never get the chance to solve them. Confronting our fears by confronting our abyss is the only way to overcome our monsters. At some point, we have to recognize and cast off our defense mechanisms that prevent us from figuring out exactly what is causing certain personal problems. The abyss will remain dark and unknown as long as we let it fester in the absence of light. Self-reflection pulls back the curtains of the self and may improve a person’s life along with the people around that individual.

Through self-reflection, the process of self-improvement begins. In other words, being aware of who we are constitutes “an essential step” for self-improvement.[2] Practical demonstration of this concept correlated self-awareness with emotional intelligence and leadership ability.[3] Not only can a higher level of self-awareness help us be more attuned to our emotions, but it can also improve interpersonal relationships. Additional studies produced results indicating decreased aggression and wrongdoing with self-awareness.[4] For example, a study that measured the number of children who took more candy when they were not supposed to found that children that were less self-aware took more candy. [5] All of the benefits of exploring the self seem to indicate a fuller life.

Even if the benefits can be clearly seen, the path to self-discovery is littered with obstacles. Some people can intuitively navigate their abyss and illuminate the darkness with ease. It is important to note that all humans have the ability to improve their self-awareness, but not everyone utilizes this ability frequently. However, once this process begins, people will most likely be happier with themselves. So I urge you, once again, to go ahead and try to self-reflect.

Who are you?

Please recite The Pledge of Allegiance. I’m sure most people who grew up in America would be able to recite The Pledge without much thought. Being American is awesome. A couple things come to mind when I think of my beloved country.  Cheeseburgers, baseball, bald eagles, apple pie, McDonalds, and above all else: football.  These are just few of the many things that represent the greatest country in the world.  Of those items, almost all of them I see on a regular basis just by watching TV.  However, when growing up, I was always told America is the “land of the free and home of the brave”.  Freedom isn’t something I can see, or even something I hear about that often, yet we are told it is the backbone of our country.  When people live in America they often take for granted the many things that make America a unique and fortunate country to grow up in.

As a child growing up in America I learned to love my nation.  In school history classes I have learned endless facts about Americas founding, colonization, becoming a nation, and finally our rise to a world superpower.  I especially remember learning about our great constitution and the freedoms it guarantees its peoples in our constitutional democracy.  Further, I heard all about the many people who immigrated to America because of the economic opportunities it presented. I learned all about the many victories of American armies during the world wars, the cold war, and how we always fought to protect capitalism and democracy from communism.  Although these facts were presented in a very biased manner, I inevitably grew up with a profound appreciation for America and the principles on which it was founded.

As I grew older, I learned less and less about how America represents freedom and opportunity, and more about the shortcomings of America.  Perhaps this is a result of the great financial recession that plagued most of my high school years when I started paying attention to the news and how these problems impact millions of Americans.  Not only was there a terrible financial crisis, but we were also fighting a seemingly never-ending war on terrorism.  With these facts always in the news, I began to think of America less as a land of opportunity and freedom, and more as a land of problems.  The list of ‘problems’ America faces are never ending, and range from our political system, to our health care, to even our great federal deficit.  While Americans are constantly reminded about our problems, those from other countries still see America for its beauty.

People from other nations view America in a much different light than most Americans do.  When I was visiting Peru over winter break I asked my tour guide, Javier, what most Peruvians thought of Americans.  I was expecting him to say Americans are annoying tourists obsessed with materialism.  Rather he said that almost every Peruvian has a dream to one day make it to the United States.  Further, he said that just about every family, including his, has somebody who is in America working.  When I asked why, he said simply that, “America is the land of opportunity”. This was especially surprising to me because it gave a new found appreciation to all the beauties I grew up hearing about America that I took for granted.  Javier greatly admired the vast opportunity in America, the freedom, and the democracy.  We hear all the time about the great economic recession that is still plaguing many Americans with unemployment.  However, in Peru the unemployment in some cities is significantly higher (40%).  Further, the jobs many Americans think of as dead-end jobs, many Peruvians look up to as a great opportunity.  Essentially, while I was growing up I was simply told about freedom and opportunity, but I never had actually realized that other people grew up without the great opportunity I enjoyed on an every-day basis.

I think a major reason for this discrepancy comes from our media.  So often yellow journalism tactics cause media to pay attention to the stories that sell the most, and unfortunately this is mostly the bad parts of America.  When constantly hearing about American problems it is hard to think of all the many benefits living in America has that we take for granted.  When is the last time you heard a news anchor say, “In today’s news, Americans still enjoy the freedom to vote for whoever they want, be safe from foreign nations, and enjoy the right to fair trials and is still backed by a strong constitution”.  The fact of the matter is, when growing up you hear all about the beauties that make America a great country.  However, as we grow older and start to pay more attention to the media, we constantly hear of the problems plaguing America.  This causes people to forget how great of a nation we live in, and the many intangibles we enjoy that other people do not experience.

Preston Evans

ENGL 120w

03/23/14

Cyberspace or Cyberplace?

The Internet: we use it everyday for a multitude of desirable reasons. What year was MTV founded? I’ll look it up on the Internet. I missed my favorite show last night; guess I’ll just watch the episode on the Internet. In fact, you’re using the Internet right now to read this article. As much as we hate to admit sometimes, we have become the Interweb generation. We rely on this global network for everything from sending funny animal pictures to friends to sending in important job applications and obtaining information about the world that surrounds us. So, is the Internet just information? No, and stay with me here, is it a place.

Ok, that doesn’t make sense. The Internet is intangible, it’s essentially a series of tubes that connect users and allow information to travel from place to place, monitor to monitor. Surely the Internet is more of an idea, an incorporeal figment of the human mind. (One does not vacation to the Internet). However, the Internet has become less and less abstract in today’s world, which could possibly mean that it is forever becoming a more tangible, more “real” place, every day.

First, real “places” must have definite (or indefinite) boundaries with a given name. Well, the Internet, otherwise known as cyberspace, has many names and certainly has indefinite boundaries. As new amounts of content are continually published and made available to other users, it is consistently and continually expansive. The expansive nature of this great force allows the Internet to be unlike any other place currently existing. Perhaps the Internet is taking over, conquering the world right out from under us without us even realizing it. Next, places are physical, and because they are physical, allow for interaction with others. Ok, this one should be easy: just take a second to think about all the social media websites you probably belong to and all of the email addresses you manage. Chances are that number came to be at least three. Facebook, Gmail, even YouTube allow us to interact socially and form communities in a supposedly non-existent space. Now, we can even chat face to face via the Internet—we find ourselves ever closer to obtaining synthetic physical contact.

If the Internet really were a place we could not go, or transport ourselves to, I would absolutely be spending more of my time outside than seated at a desk staring through a screen. However, the Internet is very much becoming a real place.

Today, we can use satellite imaging to travel the streets of Rome using Google Maps, then click over to Paris in the blink of an eye and see an entire art exhibit at the Louvre all from our desks. But we’re not at our desks; we’re walking through Paris, taking in the culture and the sights of the city, albeit through a different lens than our own eyes. Even if we don’t feel the light breeze winding its way through the busy Parisian streets or have to exhaust ourselves walking up a seemingly endless amount of steps to reach the top of the Arc de Triomphe, we can still experience these things in a different way. We can see the view from the top of the Arc without the hassle. But the Internet is not France; it is the Internet. It allows us to experience these places while also being a place of its own. For without the medium of the Internet, we would not have been able to arrive atop the Arc, looking out over the Champs-Élysées, to begin with.

If the Internet were not an important destination in many of our lives, it would cease to exist. Fortunately, we use it every day, help it expand, help it develop and grow.

In short, the Internet is no less a place to visit than Orlando, Florida or Paris, France. The Internet is no longer an abstraction, but a real place that allows for real-time interaction with other visitors. Thus, the Internet functions as a destination, even if it is different from what we are led to believe is “normal.” If we thought we had a sense of place, maybe we should guess again.

So there’s a rich man, and a poor woman, and the two happen to meet by chance. At first, they despise each other but after many chance encounters, they get to know each other and fall madly in love. However, the man’s wealthy parents strongly disapprove of their relationship, and set him up with another woman; jealousy and misunderstandings ensue. Furthermore, it turns out that the man’s brother, who happens to be the woman’s best friend, is also in love with the woman, who feels guilty because she cares about both. Finally, as the main male lead attempts to make amends with the jealous female lead, he suddenly has a nosebleed, and after a frantic dash to the hospital, he is diagnosed with cancer. The main couple quickly makes up as they both cry bitter tears, the cancer is suddenly in full remission in the next episode, the couple gets married, and the rejected brother moves to America to become a successful businessman.

There’s the plot summary of your typical Korean drama. A majority of Korean dramas consist of overly complicated situations, unrealistic coincidences, melodramatic reactions, and a plethora of misunderstandings and conspiracies. Frankly, these dramas sound cringe-worthy in writing. Yet there are hundreds of websites dedicated to showing these dramas online, such as DramaFever and gooddrama.net, and millions of people who spend hours a day watching these shows, both Asians and non-Asians alike. Not only are these dramas popular in Asian countries outside of Korea such as Japan, China, and the Philippines, but they are also popular in the Americas, such as the United States and Brazil. The dictatorial North Korean government has banned South Korean dramas and threatened execution in consequence of watching them, yet North Korean residents continue to smuggle these shows in their homes [1]—people are risking their lives to watch South Korean dramas. What is it about these shows that make them so popular all over the world?

The popularity of Korean dramas is a large part of the cultural phenomenon known as the Korean Wave, or Hallyu [2]. In fact, Korean dramas are what started this spread of the South Korean culture; in 1997, a Chinese government network called CCTV aired the Korean drama What is Love, which became an extremely huge hit. That same year, a financial crisis devalued the Korean won [2], and with the combination of this financial crisis and the popularity of What is Love, East Asian broadcasters realized that Korean dramas were cheaper to distribute, and more in tune with the times. Since then, Korean dramas have perpetuated all over the world, leading the spread of South Korean culture.

As shown in the plot summary of the typical Korean drama, it is clear that Korean dramas feature many clichéd themes—those of love, family, friendship, rivalry, suspense, etc. These themes are a major reason Korean dramas transcend cultural tastes and barriers, and are so popular internationally [3]. With such universal themes, all viewers are able to relate and empathize; everyone has gone through heartaches and social dilemmas, and many people have lost loved ones. Even though these themes are often portrayed in exaggerated situations, fans of Korean dramas are attracted to, rather than turned off, by these unrealistic depictions; perhaps these overblown portrayals merely add to the excitement of the whole experience, in the same way that outrageous gossip causes gasps of shock and curiosity, a desire for more. Or maybe viewers are enthralled by the illusion that they are experiencing the impossible (or the highly unlikely) through these shows—if you can’t experience it yourself, why not at least experience it through the lives of fictional characters?

While many fans watch K-dramas for sheer enjoyment of the melodramatic plots, others, especially those outside of South Korea, are further fascinated by the cultural aspect of these shows [4]. The universal themes depicted are relatable, but the differences in culture shown through the lives of the characters may be new to some audiences. Although it is ridiculous to assume from Korean dramas that the lives of people in South Korea are constantly filled with drama and heartbreak, one can still learn much about Korean history, values, customs, and other aspects of the lifestyle in South Korea; Giant accurately portrays the protests and demonstrations against corrupt and greedy Korean authorities during the economic boom of the 1970-80s [5], and Answer Me 1997 depicts the general lifestyle in the 90’s era in Korea, the touching sentiments of a group of friends’ final year in a Korean high school, and the changes in Korea as it has come to the modern times [6].

Despite the all the absurd plot twists and cheesy acting, Korean dramas are watched by millions, all over the world. People spend hours in front of their computer or TV screens, finishing one drama, and then moving on to another that seems to have basically the same melodramatic plot. There is something about these themes in Korean dramas that make them so popular and addicting, whether it is the admirable loyalty or undying love between two characters, or the discovery of Korean cultural values. For many viewers, Korean dramas are not only a form of gut-wrenching and captivating entertainment, but also a way to explore and learn about the Korean culture, all from the comfort of their sofas.

[1] http://www.rfa.org/english/commentaries/dramas-10222013131630.html

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_drama

[3] http://www.dailytexanonline.com/life-and-arts/2012/11/08/korean-pop-culture-increasingly-popular-in-us

[4] http://www.eslteachersboard.com/cgi-bin/korea-info/index.pl?read=1050

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_(TV_series)

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reply_1997