Volvo's and Their Maintenance: The Story of Vern and his car.

            The heap of parts that Grace has been keeping in her garage over the years is Vern’s actual Volvo for several reasons. Let’s start with the definition of an object. An object is made up of its physical parts. This being said, the heap of parts was Vern’s Volvo because those parts originally made up his actual car. If we expand this concept to the entire world, the example of human beings is an excellent one. Humans are defined by their parts (just like Vern’s Volvo) in essence by their chemical make-up. What separates humans from primates is our DNA. Our DNA is one of the many parts that make us whole, just like the parts of Vern’s Volvo that originally made up a whole Volvo. Another example is that of a common toaster. The parts inside the toaster are what make up the toaster as a whole. Without these parts the toaster in question would not exist.  Objects are always defined by the sum of its parts.

Based on the definition of Vern’s Volvo, his current car cannot be the same as his original car, because it is made up of completely different parts. The new parts that Grace installed in Vern’s car were not original to the car.  Therefore, because all of the parts of Vern’s car have all been replaced over time, Vern in reality is driving a brand new car. This is why the heap of metal in Grace’s garage is indeed Vern’s actual Volvo.

            If Grace were to put the Volvo back together, it would then be Grace’s Volvo because she put it together. Ownership transfers when you put pieces together into a workable whole like the car. The individual pieces of the car were originally Vern’s, but because Grace put the pieces together to form a new car, the car is definitely hers. One could argue that the car she reconstructed was still Vern’s because the individual pieces were his. However, Grace put time and energy into the car so she made it her own. She is now going to make use of the old Volvo making it hers.

Vern’s Volvo changed when Grace finally received the last piece of Vern’s Volvo; the Volvo that Vern was currently driving was no longer his Volvo. He was driving a brand new car that he technically owned, but was not in any way his original Volvo.  For example, if I were to renovate my house and rip everything out down to the foundation and replaced everything in it, by market standards it would then be considered a new home. The same concept applies to Vern’s car. Everything old had be taken out and replaced, that is why Vern’s car changed. It changed not only owners, but it changed from and old car to a brand new one. 

To Know One’s Self

            To know one’s self  is to be self-aware. To be self-aware is the realization of your needs as an individual. Self-awareness is something we gain as we grow older and become accustomed to our behaviors and feelings.  To know one’s self is to be comfortable in your own skin, and to know who you are as an individual. There is never going to be anyone else just like you or me. We’re one of a kind; priceless. This knowledge and overall feeling is what one needs to know in order to truly know one’s self. Having this knowledge is valuable because it allows you to be totally connected to your inner self. Being completely connected to who you are as a person, both mentally and spiritually, gives you the freedom to explore everything the world has to offer but to still be totally confident in who you are. Everything you will experience in the world, either good or bad, may have little influence over you because you are completely aware of who you are. You are you and nothing and no one can change that.

            My worst quality as a person is my anxiety and my pessimism. I believe my pessimism is a direct result of my anxiety. If I were more able to stay calm then I would have no reason to always think so negatively. I always tend to think the worst out of every situation no matter what it is. It could be something as trivial as gas prices going up. If gas prices go up, then in my mind I always think the worst. I’ll think that because the price has gone up, then gas will be too expensive and then my family won’t be able to afford to heat our house, and then we’ll all freeze to death and die. This is obviously extremely overdramatic, and I know it will never happen; however, I can’t help but think that. Most of the time, it’s school related. For example, if I get a bad grade on a test and it makes my average go down then I automatically think that I’ll be rescinded from college and be forced to go to community college. I know in the back of my head that these things won’t happen, but I can’t help but stress out about them. To help combat these weaknesses I’ve sought the help of one of the school psychiatrists and we now have weekly meetings where we talk about coping strategies.  These meetings have really helped me. Being taught ways to better cope with situations has done wonders for my anxiety, and overall has made me less pessimistic.

            I believe that my greatest strength is my ability to get along with just about anyone. Having excellent social skills is imperative in every aspect of life from business, to social, to family. You will always have to interact with people and this is one skill that I believe I excel at. Being around people is something I’ve always enjoyed. I find it very soothing to be around the hum of other people’s voices and the sound of laughter. When I was younger, I would often get really depressed if I didn’t have a friend constantly around. I felt empty if there wasn’t someone there that I could make happy and laugh. Now I just find joy in being around those I love and care about, but I also find joy in making new friends. I think of making a new friend like finding a pearl in a mountain full of clams. I’ve always thought of it as a kind of accomplishment where both parties gain something: a friend.

            It’s so hard to write about one’s strengths and weaknesses, because we’re not used to talking about them in such an upfront fashion. We’re used to keeping them to ourselves to either not seem pompous, or to not seem weak. It is also hard to think about what our strengths and weaknesses are for basically the same reasons. We are all so image conscious that we don’t want to appear too overzealous or too feeble. I like that I was made to write about these things because it helped me figure out what they were in the first place. Writing about them made me learn a little bit more about myself then I knew before. I think that it is good for others to do this too so that they too can learn more about themselves and ultimately become more self-aware. Knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses is imperative in order to know one’s self inside and out. 

My Expulsion from Eden

          This poem is like the Adam and Eve leaving the Garden of Eden in many ways. In the line where Dickinson says, “We sauntered from the Door--” it’s like she is describing Adam and Eve gleefully leaving behind their house, the only thing they’ve ever known. When Dickinson writes, “Eden is that old-fashioned House we dwell in every day…” she’s saying that you’ve taken for granted what you are accustomed to seeing every day. In Adam and Eve’s case, they didn’t know anything else except for Eden and they didn’t know that once they left it would be gone forever. They were “unconscious of returning,” and once they left the garden they were forever filled with knowledge of the world. Their ignorance was erased once they sauntered out the door into the world of unforgiving reality.  They were ignorant of the perfection of their surroundings and they see the imperfections of the world when they leave. In the last stanza, Dickinson is saying that when they look back on the day they left the garden, they will no longer understand the happiness they felt in Eden because they now have the knowledge of the world. Once they gained their knowledge, they could never go back to their world of blissful ignorance.

            In eight months’ time I will be sauntering out my own Door on my way to my biggest adventure yet: college. My departure for college is parallel to Adam and Eve’s departure from the Garden of Eden because we were all ignorant of the future on our way out the door. I have no idea what college life will be like; I can’t even begin to guess.  We all have to leave our “old-fashioned House”, a place that provided warmth, security, and comfort all the days of our lives and journey out into the unknown. When Adam and Eve later reflect on Eden, they would not see it in the same light as they had before because of all of the new things they had witnessed in the outside world. Eden was the only thing they had ever known, and now that they have something to compare it to it won’t be the paradise they once saw it as. The same will happen to me once I leave my own personal Eden- my home. I’ve never lived anywhere else except for the home I’ve grown up in and moving away from home to attend college will be a major change. When I return home, there may be a chance that I will no longer see my home as the sacred haven I’ve grown accustomed to seeing it as.

            In the last few weeks I’ve had the most unusual dreams. I thought that they had no meaning. But when I shared them with my mom, she told me that they hide a deeper underlying meaning that my subconscious was trying to depict. In one of these dreams, my mom was standing in our kitchen and then all of a sudden she grew giant swan wings and flew away through an open window. She flew straight out and never looked back. This dream was particularly hard on me and I woke up crying that night. In the next dream that I had about a week or so later, I dreamed that I came home from school to see a realtor sitting at my dining room table taking to my parents. My parents had promptly decided to sell our house so that they could live out their dream of living in the Canadian outback. Our house sold the next day and we moved into a hotel while we planned our move to Canada. When I told my mom about these dreams she laughed and told me it was my subconscious telling me about my apprehensions about my upcoming departure from home. This made a lot of sense to me. I’m absolutely terrified about leaving home. I don’t adjust well to new surroundings or situations at all, and I’m petrified about leaving the only security I’ve ever known to venture out into the unknowns of the world.

            I’m most afraid that when I return I won’t feel the same homey feeling that my house gives me, because I would have made another place my home. I’m also afraid that my town will look and feel different to me when I return; almost foreign. But mostly I’m afraid that I will see my friends differently because I would have been exposed to so many different people. I could possibly like these new people more. This is what I am most afraid of, because my friends are such a large part of who I am as a person and I don’t want that part of me to change just because I’ve moved to a different place and met different people. I won’t know any of this until it happens and I truly hope that my view of the things that have meant so much to me in my life will continue to look and feel the same when I come home. However, once I know I can never un-know, so only time will tell what my future holds.

Life Advice

Flipping carelessly through a college pamphlet had become so normal at this point in my life. The strangely soothing sound of turning pages relaxed my stressed mind. There was nothing particularly unique about this summer afternoon. The wind was blowing through the trees, the bees were buzzing, and the world was still spinning as far as I could tell. I was not prepared to for this routine day to turn into one of the more meaningful ones I’ve had thus far.

As I lay in my hammock, I saw a shadow in the corner of my eye. My mom was coming out of the house with two glasses of water and a smile on her face. I found this fairly strange, because she usually never comes outside simply for pleasure on weekdays; she was always too busy working. I sat up as she came near and moved over so she would have room to sit. She came over and handed me my glass and took a seat. We said nothing for a while, just simply sat and enjoyed the nature around us because it truly was a beautiful day. She turned to me and told me that she had come out here for one reason and one reason only; to talk about college.  She told me a story about how all she ever wanted to do was go to college as far away from home as possible. She didn’t care where the school was, as long as she had to get on a plane to get to it. But during her college days, she couldn’t help observe how rowdy kids in isolated college towns were. There was absolutely nothing to do but drink all the time. When you put young college kids in an environment where there is no social outlet other than the school, you’re just asking for trouble. When kids get bored they get awfully creative.  This being said, her final point was that I shouldn’t go to college in an isolated area away from a major city. I didn’t take her advice to heart, I simply just sat there and ignored her and continued to drink my water indignantly. I couldn’t understand why she sharing all of this with me. This was HER life, not mine. Her experiences would have nothing to do with the future outcome of mine. All it took to change these thoughts was another very important conversation.

The summer going into my junior year I worked with a girl named Ashley at a day camp. Ashley was several years older than me, so I naturally assumed she was in college. However, I come to find out Ashley was a recent college dropout from Colgate University. To say that I was stunned would have been an understatement. I couldn’t believe someone as smart as Ashley would willingly leave such a prestigious university for no reason. I was naturally curious and asked Ashley why she had made such a rash decision. She told me that she couldn’t handle the constant and seemingly never ending partying of her peers. Colgate is in Hamilton, New York and is infamous for being incredibly dull and boring. Being so isolated from everything, the students always resort to drinking or other forms of tomfoolery. She had decided that it wasn’t worth staying in college. Hearing this was like getting hit on the head by a ton of bricks. I couldn’t believe my mom’s seemingly pointless advice was coming back to me full circle! I finally understood what she had been trying to tell me. Going to an isolated school is simply a recipe for disaster and disappointment for those who don’t seek that kind of college experience. That day I truly accepted my mother’s advice, and hoped that one day it would steer me in the right direction; the direction of my dream school. This realization jumpstarted my mind into thinking about what I wanted in my future school now that I know what I definitely don’t want. Do I want an urban area, a large campus, a small campus, large diversity? All of these questions came pouring into my mind relentlessly. When I got home that evening, I settled down in my favorite chair and opened my college brochures again: only this time with a more refined eye. 

The Ephemeral Joys and Sorrows of Mankind

Human beings unlike any other creature on this planet are aware of their own mortality. We demonstrate this by engaging in terrifying, daredevil like acts like sky diving, or drag racing. We do these things because we know our time here is limited. Our world also illustrates this by living extravagantly. Like the saying goes, “Live your life to the fullest”, that is exactly what we do, and because we know that we will never have this life again so we had better live well like there is not tomorrow. For us nothing lasts forever. “What my brother is now, that shall I be when I am dead. Because I am afraid of death I will go as best I can to find Untapishtim whom they call Faraway, for he has entered the assembly of the gods.” (97) Gilgamesh knew his time here was limited, and didn’t want to face the same fate as Enkidu so he sought out on a journey searching for eternal life. When Gilgamesh found Untnapishtim and he stated, “There is no permanence” (106) he meant that nothing is the human world is eternal. Everything in our lives must come to an end.  

            People are able to go about their daily business, because they do not dwell on the fact that there lives are finite. Everyone knows that their lives are going to end one day, but we choose to simply live day by day, choosing not to think about our ultimate ending. If people did sit around all day dwelling on the fact that every day is a day that we will never have again, then we would live in such a depressing and uninspired world. When we die, we die knowing that we did something meaningful in our lives that either benefited us, other people, or both. For some people it could have been providing a good life for their children. For others, it could have been creating a non-profit to help people who cannot help themselves. Whatever it may be, people want to die content with the life and legacy that they left behind. No one wants to die with regret; only with peace and contentment. We as humans create a world of eternal life within our memories and through our literature. For example, every time someone speaks of their grandparents who have passed, they are breathing life back into them. By speaking of them, you are bringing back their memories and bringing them back to life. Our lives live in memories when we are gone, and it is the duty of our loved ones to make sure that we are never forgotten. Humans also create eternal life in our literature. Gilgamesh for example, wanted eternal life and he received it in a way he hadn’t expected. His epic tale was the first story ever to be written down, and because of that his legend has lived for thousands of years. Every time someone reads his tale, he lives once more. So in this sense, humans are immortal. We live on in the memories of our loved ones, and in the pages of our literature. 

What's a Hero?

            The characters mentioned are classically referred to as heroes for their usually brave and heroic qualities. By the way we define a hero; the answer would be yes, they are heroes. They have the criteria needed to be considered a hero by our definition. A hero (typically defined as a man), is a person who has noble qualities and is admired for their bravery. We define a hero as anyone who goes out of their way to help someone else in need, and possibly risking their own life in the process. The first image that pops into our heads when we think of a hero is someone big, strong, and being able to swoop in at any moment to save us. That is the key component to a hero; being willing to help someone who cannot help themselves in a certain situation.

            Women can absolutely be heroes. It is unfortunate that our literature tends to only depict heroes as men, however we have had many women heroes throughout our history and throughout the history of literature. Joan of Arc for instance is an example of a female hero, however no one ever thinks of her instantaneously when they think of a hero. This is mainly due to the male dominated heroes throughout our history (His Story) and literature. Wonder Woman is another example of a female hero. Wonder Woman was the first female superhero to be published by the fame comic book publisher DC Comics in December of 1941. Wonder Woman was one of few women in the original Justice League clearly proving that she had the same super hero abilities as the men she fought beside.

            Heroes do serve as models to a particular conduct. They show us how to be noble, brave, and to stand up for what we believe in. All heroes are men and women who fight with valor to save the innocent or for what they believe is right. Heroes give people something almost godly to look up to. If we see this shinning beacon of hope and strength, then of course we are going to want to follow suite. Heroes give us a false sense of supernatural security that we will never have. It is always nice to pretend that someone in a bright cape will save you from a burning building, but in our world that is just not the case.

            I believe that Brecht meant that our world does not need heroes at all. Maybe he thinks that the idea hero is already present in our society, and that we don’t need the overzealous ones of literature to pollute our thoughts of what a hero really is. Heroes are everyday people like firefighters and police men who put their lives on the line so that they can help someone who cannot help themselves. I believe a hero is any man or woman that goes out of their way to help another in a time of need. I also think a hero is a person who fights for what they believe in even in the face of extreme adversity. Heroes have many different faces, but I believe a hero is someone that everyone can be.