An Open Collection of Thoughts (Reflection)

An Open Collection of Thoughts

 Because a bulk of this realization for this post is similar to the last, there is an addendum to it at the end. From my previous essay “Nostalgic Irony”, I decided to expand upon the moment that personified the idea of living ideas. My mind is a jungle, the limbs of trees, thoughts, stretching far and wide, creating their own canopy. It’s a bit of a struggle to narrow onto a specific tree, a certain branch, a single leaf. This moment primarily focuses on wishes from said ideas I have inside of myself.

In this second essay, I really want to push the envelope. I have the capabilities to make an essay that is at least mostly comprehensible and abstract to the point of wowing another, including myself ironically, but I personally feel like I lack a certain form of coherence that I see from other mentor texts seen throughout the course. I want to elaborate on this moment so much so that I create something if not equal then better than my first essay.

In my first essay I used the essays Joyas Voladoras by Brian Doyle and Here is New York by E.B. White, and while I’m not completely certain which essay I feel the most comfortable incorporating over the other, Here is New York was the center focus of my last essay, so I feel that I will be steering away from any potential danger of not completing the point of the second essay: find a new idea. Joyas Voladoras then is a good fit, but in regards to the new essays we have available to us, I will try to embed the essays The Art of Failure by Malcolm Gladwell, because it paints a rather splendid image of trial and error that I feel works with my moment, and Language Choice by Young-Jin Park, because of its many personal testimonies. I also feel like I could try to incorporate the film The Five Obstructions because the method of recreation is another underlying theme within this new essay (although it isn’t precisely the main focus).

The bulk of my second essay is still in the process of being writing. My paper will try to begin with a very vivid introduction of a car driving through a winding road to reach a far destination or someone boarding a train to get off at a stop that the end up missing and work back to get where they need to be. This introduction will help personify the journey of reaching a conclusion whilst elaborating the moment I picked that’s about fluttering thoughts (i.e. “try this, go wherever”). The middle of the essay, other than introducing the previous texts and films I wish to incorporate, will foreshadow the central focus of the paper, and have a clear ending that I hope will be in likeness to my first essay.

Foundation of Second Essay

My thoughts, putrid birds flying onto my shoulder tops, would chirp their inner songs urging me to fulfill the tiniest wants: get lost here, find this, try that, and go wherever.

From my previous essay “Nostalgic Irony”, I decided to expand upon the moment that personified the idea of living ideas. My mind is a jungle, the limbs of trees, thoughts, stretching far and wide, creating their own canopy. It’s a bit of a struggle to narrow onto a specific tree, a certain branch, a single leaf. This moment primarily focuses on wishes from said ideas I have inside of myself.

In this second essay, I really want to push the envelope. I have the capabilities to make an essay that is at least mostly comprehensible and abstract to the point of wowing another, including myself ironically, but I personally feel like I lack a certain form of coherence that I see from other mentor texts seen throughout the course. I want to elaborate on this moment so much so that I create something if not equal then better than my first essay.

In my first essay I used the essays Joyas Voladoras by Brian Doyle and Here is New York by E.B. White, and while I’m not completely certain which essay I feel the most comfortable incorporating over the other, Here is New York was the center focus of my last essay, so I feel that I will be steering away from any potential danger of not completing the point of the second essay: find a new idea. Joyas Voladoras then is a good fit, but in regards to the new essays we have available to us, I will try to embed the essays The Art of Failure by Malcolm Gladwell, because it paints a rather splendid image of trial and error that I feel works with my moment, and Language Choice by Young-Jin Park, because of its many personal testimonies. I also feel like I could try to incorporate the film The Five Obstructions because the method of recreation is another underlying theme within this new essay (although it isn’t precisely the main focus).

The Definition of Success (Response to The Art of Failure and How I Hacked My Brain with Adderall)

“Human beings sometimes falter under pressure. Pilots crash and divers drown. Under the glare of competition, basketball players cannot find the basket and golfers cannot find the pin.”

“We live in an age obsessed with success, with documenting the myriad ways by which talented people overcome challenges and obstacles.”

“We have to learn that sometimes a poor performance reflects not the innate ability of the performer but the complexion of the audience; and that sometimes a poor test score is the sign not of a poor student but of a good one.”

(The Art of Failure)

 “It's kind of like going to the pharmacist, complaining of having Mystery AIDS, the flu, and erectile dysfunction, and getting one single pill to cure them all, but the pill is actually no pills at all.”

“Going a little furthur I’d say it's a duty to think actively about how we can use medicine and technology to expand the limits of our knowledge, to define new paradigms of information that will help everyone deal with an explosion of knowledge that no one in the world knows how to deal with.”

“All of this, of course, is one person's perspective. Your mileage will certainly vary drastically.”

(How I Hacked My Brain with Adderall)

The Definition of Success

                We spin, endlessly, infinitely, and seemingly limitlessly. The world, filled with beings that possess the ability to talk and walk, ought to have some form of clear disambiguation when it comes to the end result of an action. In said action, competition is produced when two people want to judge which action wins out over the other; rivalry is elementary. Pit these people against each other to produce the idea of success, explicit or implied. How do you judge a person for how well they do? The status of a product produced is relative; because it’s not finite, no single person can discern how successful a particular thing or action is.

                I grasp things differently. When I was about eleven years old, I understood what failure was completely. I was taking a vocabulary quiz with other students in my class and I proceeded to cheat off the kid next to me in an effort to avoid getting a failing grade that I’d have to bring home to my father. You don’t just bring back that sort of news; it’s the sort of news best felt, specifically in the rear. I was going to cheat, I did cheat, and I got caught so laughingly easily I can remember the snickering by the other children in the room when I was written up by my teacher.

                There was a particular sting in the air as a felt the note being drafted up. Perhaps, if Malcolm Gladwell’s piece The Art in Failure holds truth to the perception in success and failure in the world today, then, yes, “human beings sometimes falter under pressure” so much to the point we don’t just stumble. We fall. A lot. This is because of what drives us. Instead of wanting to merely complete a task, we seek out to do the 110% to feel a form of validation that’s practically alien to explain. But, by Trent Wolbe’s How I Hacked My Brain with Adderall a laughable tale about drug use to awaken the brain to new possibilities, this desire to succeed, and do all we can to succeed, is subjective, it’s all “one’s perspective” and that perspective varies greatly from person to person. Holding a person accountable to the idea of a form of success set in place by another is trying to copycat perfection, which isn’t possible by any means.

                Many turn to the use of other things to achieve their success and while “medicine and technology [can] expand the limits of our knowledge” this limit should be broken through the self, rather than through alternative means; success comes in many shapes and sizes, in different colours and forms, but a “poor performance. . . reflects the complexion of the audience” meaning that before we go about judging others on what they do we must first ask ourselves what we’re capable of individually; we cannot go about asking for what we can’t do.

Turning from the Mirror (Response to Liking is for Cowards and The Wedding Toast I'll Never Give)

We like the mirror and the mirror likes us. To friend a person is merely to include the person in our private hall of flattering mirrors.

The simple fact of the matter is that trying to be perfectly likable is incompatible with loving relationships. Sooner or later, for example, you’re going to find yourself in a hideous, screaming fight, and you’ll hear coming out of your mouth things that you yourself don’t like at all… Something realer than likability has come out in you, and suddenly you’re having an actual life.

Love is about bottomless empathy, born out of the heart’s revelation that another person is every bit as real as you are.

(Liking is for Cowards)

He summed it up as: “Life is suffering — and yet.”

There is perfection only in death.

But there is so much beauty in the trying, and in the failing, and in the trying again.

(The Wedding Toast I’ll Never Give)

Turning from the Mirror

          It’s underlying. It swims below the surface. There is an obsessive beauty in doing a certain action or method the right way. This could be a set of instructions for building a unit to be used, or an even greater ordeal. There is a primitive want within the individual to do things a specific way because it’s what they’ve been structured to do or what they want to make sure to avoid in the future.

          The text itself comes and sits at a table, facing one another. They exchange thoughts and ideas, coming to the idea of a shared notion between the two; be it known that because “there is perfection in death”, a MOE from Ada Calhoun’s The Wedding Toast I’ll Never Give, it is insane to realize simply how idolized humans have become over the idea of perfection. When there is an inability to do so, be perfect, conflict arises, despite the fact that we as social beings find acceptance through a network between each other, as Jonathon Franzen says in Liking is for Cowards, so that perfection is as unreachable as the level of actual satisfaction that can be received from likes on social media.

          But if we want to find unity together, why is it so easy for us to be strewn apart like forgotten child’s toys in a playroom? Ready to buy a new object to become fixated upon?

          Modern America has the plight of the pursuit of happiness. It has its own misconstrued concepts, but the overall idea provides a gross paradox upon the subject of love: if you aren’t happy with the person you find yourself with, leave them to go try again with another. If that doesn’t work out for you, go and try again. And again. We are sickeningly seeking out to please what we see reflected in the mirror despite realizing that there are beings around us just as deserving, if not more so, of genuine love, empathy, and kindness. If “life is suffering”, then why do we try to isolate our minds into the thought that we must suffer alone? That no one around us could possibly understand what could be going on within our heads. (We aren’t that special.) We must try to preserve the relationships we have for the fear of losing them is an evident possibility; we must always try despite the possibility of utter failure that can actually come about from such an attempt.

Final Draft of Nostalgic Irony

Jenny Ijoma

Nolan Chessman

GS-UY 102 D

22 July 2015

Nostalgic Irony

The body is a vessel. It’s marvelous, it’s a room. There is a singular noise to be heard from said room, a particular beating driven from such a place that has the largest capacity, the largest potential, to do practically anything. But it beats. It drives you, the individual, to a destination unknown to you, so eloquently, so exquisitely. Do all you can to ensure you are content with where you end up.

A goldfish will die in saltwater. Its body isn’t equipped to handle it. It serves its purpose in a different setting, it wants to live where it’s comfortable; it will flock to what its cells feel compatible with, a thought so realistically unfamiliar to the body as a whole, like a secret language every entity dances to. Think of the latent forlorn feeling of losing your place. This experience washes over the train of thought you have, it overwhelms it to the point of derailing it. Where are you?

I blink. The familiar street corner that appeared in front of me through the only window available now shows gallant buildings constantly being worked on, the furthest one advertising a lottery. My night sky, pale and empty, has its own idea. It shines bright, geometrically illuminating as far as I can see through these frames. The city is different. Its unfamiliarity to me is as obvious as a candle in a dark room; in the work Here is New York by E.B. White there is a large elaboration to the scenic mystery of the city of New York; I fail to hear “Manhattan’s breathing”, as E.B. White says, its vitality that of a person with inner workings, thoughts, desires.

My mind zooms to home, or what was. I blame my upbringing. There is a terrifying disparity between fantasy and reality; it pains me to feel the almost bittersweet comfort in the honesty of the city that is to many that arrive “to escape, not face, reality”. My home, a two story structure, built like a cot made to withstand the test of time, now a room in a building that reminds me of the Empire State Building. My fences are gone, now a clever mix of concrete and glass, and while White is right, there is a particular reason as to why this city is the “destination… the goal” despite being built on practical contempt. If you want invisibility, you’re in the best place. Your face, forgettable, thanks to the city’s “gift of privacy” and insulated individuality.

Sometimes I relay to myself, in hindsight this probably was not the best decision, and other times I remember the sobering feeling of sobbing on a sidewalk corner feeling lost, all in place, in mind, and in time. The city has a beautiful ability to “[compress] all life, all races and breeds, into [such] a small island” that subdues the few, but strangely many, quips and whims the mind seems to have when it lurches at the possibility that perhaps “it is healthier to live in a community where, when a cornice falls, you feel the blow” and you feel important, rather than irrelevant, and pointless. But if the “price of [your] ambition is a life closer to death”, as Brian Doyle says from the work Doyas Voladoras, a literature work abstractly spinning upon knowledge of the hummingbird, then perhaps there is joy to be had when living in the fast lane, that there’s a form of happiness that can be somehow successfully derived from its “forlornness or forsakenness”, by White’s terms. How awful it must be to not fully comprehend, to have to balance between the unreasonable destruction or fulfillment of an individual in such a stunning place that nearly hand delivers “spiritual sustenance and maintenance of morale”.

Dreams and desires are equivalent to each other: when deferred they have the uttermost potential to have our “hearts grow cold”, as Doyle says. Potential is the key word. Whether one wants a new job or another wants to go to a new place, there are risks, there are always risks. You quit your job. You sell your home. Human beings are so interesting; how is it a person can honestly be happy spending their precious “two billion heartbeats” living a life they are comfortable with changing on a dime? With the flick of a wrist, the thought of change plants itself in your head, it grows and suffers, taut for nutrition, and in sensing its thirst for the sun, blooms within your eyes with the target it originally had for you.

I flew over a thousand miles into the bright light. It was gorgeous distraction to the distraught feeling that consumed my insides. I had longed for the chance to start over, to get an opportunity to leave where I had grown up, and home paled in comparison of the city. Suburbia, the wishy washy idea of balancing residency with a side of big city dreams, never prepared me for the environment I walked in on. The stereotype was true. As I walked within a crowd of motley individuals consumed with their own lives, I wore a cloak of invisibility. There was a scary air filled with the “gift of privacy” and utter abandonment that could render a person practically senseless.

I wanted so much for the cliché. I wanted to laugh instantaneously with a stranger and end up becoming their confidant, their friend. I wanted to bump into the man of my dreams on the street, share a conversation, and continuously pinch myself as I asked myself whether the experience was real and truly happening right before me. I so wished for a chance to be so immersed with my surroundings on a journey elsewhere that I find myself in an abandoned library of sorts and just ooze and pour at the bounty of literature right before me. My thoughts, putrid birds flying onto my shoulder tops, would chirp their inner songs urging me to fulfill the tiniest wants: get lost here, find this, try that, and go wherever.

Freedom was never a choice for me. From a young age until I found myself in college, my parents enforced the strict understanding that my life was not my own. How does a caged bird fully embrace an open door? Is it too afraid to fly out, for fear of the unknown, or does it leave, completely and entirely hopeful that its life will get better, that everything ultimately gets better?

If deferred dreams dry in the sun only to float away in the wind, turning into specs of dust, as Langston Hughes says in the work Harlem, then we must recognize that we are “utterly open with no one in the end”, as Doyle states, and to make our dreams an actuality, no matter where they may possibly take us, be it across the street, in a car, or on a plane. These actions will get a reaction, and that reaction is the insurance of a “rejuvenation” so plentiful it will creep into the corners of your mind that hid away the childish urges to cater to your heart’s quirks, to whatever possibly allowed you to be happy instead of the ordinary humdrum that you fell accustomed into living.

Maybe life is supposed to be lived in parts, each relatable but somehow independent of each other. Yet that relationship bridges the gaps we have within ourselves, it builds the foundations of who we are to each other and to ourselves. Where you arise from will compose you, you are scripted letter by letter from the humble beginnings of your youth or the extravagance you felt upon your face every morning as a child. As you step away from this, be it from maturity or anything else, your independence, your freedom, will be scarred from the cage from which it left. It will fly to new heights, and do what it wants, what it’s always wanted to do.

The city is beautiful. It’s living, it is alive. It’s full of wonderful chances to ruin your life and sprout like a phoenix and start over once more. It wants to play with your heartstrings and make you forget about the “What Ifs” so that you know why the fascination can’t die, so that you to try to horribly fall into its chaotic humdrum only to realize that such a plight is impossible and unrealistic. Yet take joy in it. Find the happiness, find a form of happiness, in any way you possibly can. There is such a loveliness to the neglected thought that receives water again. There is such a joy that can arise from living a dream, not matter how extravagant. Take matters into your hands instead of dwelling on the possibilities that can arise from an idea; take an idea and put it into action.

Works Cited

Doyle, Brian. "Joyas Volardores." The American Scholar. The American Scholar, 12 June 2012.

Web. 16 July 2015.

Hughes, Langston. "Harlem." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, 1951. Web. 19 July 2015.

White, E.B. "Here Is New York." Here Is New York, E.B. White (1949). Travel Studies, 1949.

Web. 16 July 2015.

Draft 2 of Nostalgic Irony

Between drafts 1 and 2, I’ve made a few changes. My essay overall, lacked a focus on the main idea, so there is an additional conclusion near the end that better ties to the idea of the relationship between home and the individual, and how that can possibly affect one’s freedom when they are gone and what they will do with that freedom. Other than the additional paragraph, I proofread once more for clarity and changes the sentence structure of a few phrases, and then I made sure to credit mentions for the A Dream Deferred poem by Langston Hughes. Overall, these changes add tremendously to the point of the essay, which is to bridge together the text to myself and construct a work relatable to not only myself but the reader.

The body is a vessel. It’s marvelous, it’s a room. There is a singular noise to be heard from said room, a particular beating driven from such a place that has the largest capacity, the largest potential, to do practically anything. But it beats. It drives you, the individual, to a destination unknown to you, so eloquently, so exquisitely. Do all you can to ensure you are content with where you end up.

A goldfish will die in saltwater. Its body isn’t equipped to handle it. It serves its purpose in a different setting, it wants to live where it’s comfortable; it will flock to what its cells feel compatible with, a thought so realistically unfamiliar to the body as a whole, like a secret language every entity dances to. Think of the latent forlorn feeling of losing your place. This experience washes over the train of thought you have, it overwhelms it to the point of derailing it. Where are you?

I blink. The familiar street corner that appeared in front of me through the only window available now shows gallant buildings constantly being worked on, the furthest one advertising a lottery. My night sky, pale and empty, has its own idea. It shines bright, geometrically illuminating as far as I can see through these frames. The city is different. Its unfamiliarity to me is as obvious as a candle in a dark room; I fail to hear “Manhattan’s breathing”, as E.B. White says, its vitality that of a person with inner workings, thoughts, desires.

My mind zooms to home, or what was. I blame my upbringing. There is a terrifying disparity between fantasy and reality; it pains me to feel the almost bittersweet comfort in the honesty of the city that is to many that arrive “to escape, not face, reality”. My home, a two story structure, built like a cot made to withstand the test of time, now a room in a building that reminds me of the Empire State Building. My fences are gone, now a clever mix of concrete and glass, and while White is right, there is a particular reason as to why this city is the “destination… the goal” despite being built on practical contempt. If you want invisibility, you’re in the best place. Your face, forgettable, thanks to the city’s “gift of privacy” and insulated individuality.

Sometimes I relay to myself, in hindsight this probably was not the best decision, and other times I remember the sobering feeling of sobbing on a sidewalk corner feeling lost, all in place, in mind, and in time. The city has a beautiful ability to “[compress] all life, all races and breeds, into [such] a small island” that subdues the few, but strangely many, quips and whims the mind seems to have when it lurches at the possibility that perhaps “it is healthier to live in a community where, when a cornice falls, you feel the blow” and you feel important, rather than irrelevant, and pointless. But if the “price of [your] ambition is a life closer to death”, as Brian Doyle says, then perhaps there is joy to be had when living in the fast lane, that there’s a form of happiness that can be somehow successfully derived from its “forlornness or forsakenness”, by White’s terms. How awful it must be to not fully comprehend, to have to balance between the unreasonable destruction or fulfillment of an individual in such a stunning place that nearly hand delivers “spiritual sustenance and maintenance of morale”.

Dreams and desires are equivalent to each other: when deferred they have the uttermost potential to have our “hearts grow cold”, as Doyle says. Potential is the key word. Whether one wants a new job or another wants to go to a new place, there are risks, there are always risks. You quit your job. You sell your home. Human beings are so interesting; how is it a person can honestly be happy spending their precious “two billion heartbeats” living a life they are comfortable with changing on a dime? With the flick of a wrist, the thought of change plants itself in your head, it grows and suffers, taut for nutrition, and in sensing its thirst for the sun, blooms within your eyes with the target it originally had for you.

I flew over a thousand miles into the bright light. It was gorgeous distraction to the distraught feeling that consumed my insides. I had longed for the chance to start over, to get an opportunity to leave where I had grown up, and home paled in comparison of the city. Suburbia, the wishy washy idea of balancing residency with a side of big city dreams, never prepared me for the environment I walked in on. The stereotype was true. As I walked within a crowd of motley individuals consumed with their own lives, I wore a cloak of invisibility. There was a scary air filled with the “gift of privacy” and utter abandonment that could render a person practically senseless.

I wanted so much for the cliché. I wanted to laugh instantaneously with a stranger and end up becoming their confidant, their friend. I wanted to bump into the man of my dreams on the street, share a conversation, and continuously pinch myself as I asked myself whether the experience was real and truly happening right before me. I so wished for a chance to be so immersed with my surroundings on a journey elsewhere that I find myself in an abandoned library of sorts and just ooze and pour at the bounty of literature right before me. My thoughts, putrid birds flying onto my shoulder tops, would chirp their inner songs urging me to fulfill the tiniest wants: get lost here, find this, try that, and go wherever.

Freedom was never a choice for me. From a young age until I found myself in college, my parents enforced the strict understanding that my life was not my own. How does a caged bird fully embrace an open door? Is it too afraid to fly out, for fear of the unknown, or does it leave, completely and entirely hopeful that its life will get better, that everything ultimately gets better?

If deferred dreams dry in the sun only to float away in the wind, turning into specs of dust, as Langston Hughes says, then we must recognize that we are “utterly open with no one in the end”, as Doyle states, and to make our dreams an actuality, no matter where they may possibly take us, be it across the street, in a car, or on a plane. These actions will get a reaction, and that reaction is the insurance of a “rejuvenation” so plentiful it will creep into the corners of your mind that hid away the childish urges to cater to your heart’s quirks, to whatever possibly allowed you to be happy instead of the ordinary humdrum that you fell accustomed into living.

Maybe life is supposed to be lived in parts, each relatable but somehow independent of each other. Yet that relationship bridges the gaps we have within ourselves, it builds the foundations of who we are to each other and to ourselves. Where you arise from will compose you, you are scripted letter by letter from the humble beginnings of your youth or the extravagance you felt upon your face every morning as a child. As you step away from this, whether from maturity, your independence, your freedom, will be scarred from the cage from which it left. It will fly to new heights, and do what it wants, what it’s always wanted to do.

The city is beautiful. It’s living, it is alive. It’s full of wonderful chances to ruin your life and sprout like a phoenix and start over once more. It wants to play with your heartstrings and make you forget about the “What Ifs” so that you know why the fascination can’t die, so that you to try to horribly fall into its chaotic humdrum only to realize that such a plight is impossible and unrealistic. Yet take joy in it. Find the happiness, find a form of happiness, in any way you possibly can. There is such a loveliness to the neglected thought that receives water again. There is such a joy that can arise from living a dream, not matter how extravagant. Take matters into your hands instead of dwelling on the possibilities that can arise from an idea; take an idea and put it into action.

Reverse Outline of Draft of Nostalgic Irony

Here is the link to my draft of Nostalgic Irony:

https://docs.google.com/a/nyu.edu/document/d/1xCzUvdcp6sL1lvbYf2jRO18PolU5Z99qWiPrtjeVVQM/edit?usp=sharing

Draft 1 of Nostalgic Irony

Nostalgic Irony

The body is a vessel. It’s marvelous, it’s a room. There is a singular noise to be heard from said room, a particular beating driven from such a place that has the largest capacity, the largest potential, to do practically anything. But it beats. It drives you, the individual, to a destination unknown to you, so eloquently, so exquisitely. Do all you can to ensure you are content with where you end up.

A goldfish will die in saltwater. Its body isn’t equipped to handle it. It serves its purpose in a different setting, it wants to live where it’s comfortable; it will flock to what its cells feel compatible with, a thought so realistically unfamiliar to the body as a whole, like a secret language every entity dances to. Think of the latent forlorn feeling of losing your place. This experience washes over the train of thought you have, it overwhelms it to the point of derailing it. Where are you?

I blink. The familiar street corner that appeared in front of me through the only window available now shows gallant buildings constantly being worked on, the furthest one advertising a lottery. My night sky, pale and empty, has its own idea. It shines bright, geometrically illuminating as far as I can see through these frames. The city is different. Its unfamiliarity to me is as obvious as a candle in a dark room; I fail to hear “Manhattan’s breathing”, as E.B. White says, its vitality that of a person with inner workings, thoughts, desires.

My mind zooms to home, or what was. I blame my upbringing. There is a terrifying disparity between fantasy and reality; it pains me to feel the almost bittersweet comfort in the honesty of the city that is many arrive “to escape, not face, reality”. My home, a two story structure, built like a cot made to withstand the test of time, now a room in a building that reminds me of the Empire State Building. My fences are gone, now a clever mix of concrete and glass, and while White is right, there is a particular reason as to why this city is the “destination… the goal” despite being built on practical contempt. If you want invisibility, you’re in the best place. Your face, forgettable, thanks to the city’s “gift of privacy” and insulated individuality.

Sometimes I relay to myself, in hindsight this probably was not the best decision, and other times I remember the sobering feeling of sobbing on a sidewalk corner feeling lost, all in place, in mind, and in time. The city has a beautiful ability to “[compress] all life, all races and breeds, into [such] a small island” that subdues the few, but strangely many, quips and whims the mind seems to have when it lurches at the possibility that perhaps “it is healthier to live in a community where, when a cornice falls, you feel the blow” and you feel important, rather than irrelevant, and pointless. But if the “price of [your] ambition is a life closer to death”, as Brian Doyle says, then perhaps there is joy to be had when living in the fast lane, that there’s a form of happiness that can be somehow successfully derived from its “forlornness or forsakenness”, by White’s terms. How awful it must be to not fully comprehend, to have to balance between the unreasonable destruction or fulfillment of an individual in such a stunning place that almost hand delivers “spiritual sustenance and maintenance of morale”.

Dreams and desires are equivalent to each other: when deferred they have the uttermost potential to have our “hearts grow cold”, as Doyle says. Potential is the key word. Whether one wants a new job or another wants to go to a new place, there are risks, there are always risks. You quit your job. You sell your home. Human beings are so interesting; how is it a person can honestly be happy spending their precious “two billion heartbeats” living a life they are comfortable with changing on a dime? With the flick of a wrist, the thought of change plants itself in your head, it grows and suffers, taut for nutrition, and in sensing its thirst for the sun, blooms within your eyes with the target it originally had for you.

I flew over a thousand miles into the bright light. It was gorgeous distraction to the distraught feeling that consumed my insides. I had longed for the chance to start over, to get an opportunity to leave where I had grown up, and home paled in comparison of the city. Suburbia, the wishy washy idea of balancing residency with a side of big city dreams, never prepared me for the environment I walked in on. The stereotype was true. As I walked within a crowd of motley individuals consumed with their own lives, I wore a cloak of invisibility. There was a scary air filled with the “gift of privacy” and utter abandonment that could render a person practically senseless.

I wanted so much for the cliché. I wanted to laugh instantaneously with a stranger and end up becoming their confidant, their friend. I wanted to bump into the man of dreams on the street, share a conversation, and continuously pinch myself as I asked myself whether the experience was real and truly happening right before me. I so wished for a chance to be so immersed with my surroundings on a journey elsewhere that I find myself in an abandoned library of sorts and just ooze and pour of the bounty of literature right before me. My thoughts, putrid birds flying onto my shoulder tops, would chirp their inner songs urging me to fulfill the tiniest wants: get lost here, find this, try that, and go wherever.

Freedom was never a choice for me. From a young age until I found myself in college, my parents enforced the strict understanding that my life was not my own. How does a caged bird fully embrace an open door? Is it too afraid to fly out, for fear of the unknown, or does it leave, completely and entirely hopeful that its life will get better, that everything ultimately gets better?

If deferred dreams dry in the sun only to float away in the wind, turning into specs of dust, then we must recognize that we are “utterly open with no one in the end”, as Doyle states, and to make our dreams an actuality, no matter where they may possibly take us, but it across the street, in a car, or on a plane. These actions will get a reaction, and that reaction is the insurance of “rejuvenation” so plentiful it will creep into the corners of your mind that hid away the childish urges to cater to your heart’s quirks, to whatever possibly allowed you to be happy instead of the ordinary humdrum that you fell accustomed into living.

The city is beautiful. It’s living, it is alive. It’s full of wonderful chances to ruin your life and sprout like a phoenix and start over once more. It wants to play with your heartstrings and make you forget about the “What Ifs” so that you know why the fascination can’t die, so that you too try to horribly fall into its chaotic humdrum only to realize that such a plight is impossible and unrealistic. Yet take joy in it. Find the happiness, find a form of happiness, in any way you possibly can. There is such a loveliness to the neglected thought that receives water again. There is such a joy that can arise from living a dream, not matter how extravagant. Take matters into your hands instead of dwelling on the possibilities that can arise from an idea; take an idea and put it into action.

Idea of Essay 1

“Ingredients” in Essay

·         Joyas Voladoras by Brian Doyle

The significance of this ingredient is the emotional connection it creates. It imposes pathos, feelings, that allow for an alienated piece of work to have feelings as well.

·         Here is New York by E.B. White

The significance of this ingredient is the idea of the city, New York, and its almost satirical description through the eyes of a person who has lived within its walls to experience the life it can give.

·         Personal Experience

The significance of this ingredient is the honesty in the life I’ve lived and the experiences I’ve had.

Paragraph for Tying Together Essay of Ingredients

The city is beautiful. It’s living, it is alive. It’s full of wonderful chances to ruin your life and sprout like a phoenix and start over once more. It wants to play with your heartstrings and make you forget about the “What Ifs” so that you know why the fascination can’t die, so that you too try to horribly fall into its chaotic humdrum only to realize that such a plight is impossible and unrealistic. Yet take joy in it. Find the happiness, find a form of happiness, in any way you possibly can. There is such a loveliness to the neglected thought that receives water again. There is such a joy that can arise from living a dream, not matter how extravagant.

Letter to Lisa Nieto

The body is a vessel. It’s marvelous, it’s a room. There is a singular noise to be heard from said room, a particular beating driven from such a place that has the largest capacity, the largest potential, to do practically anything. But it beats. It drives you, the individual, to a destination unknown to you, so eloquently, so exquisitely. Do all you can to ensure you are content with where you end up. The work Here is New York by E.B. White and Joyas Voladoras by Brian Doyle build upon each other, through a series of pathos that can be integrated into feelings the city of New York may ensue upon an individual that finds themselves within its walls.

A goldfish will die in saltwater. Its body isn’t equipped to handle it. It serves its purpose in a different setting, it wants to live where it’s comfortable; it will flock to what its cells feel compatible with, a thought so realistically unfamiliar to the body as a whole, like a secret language every entity dances to. Think of the latent forlorn feeling of losing your place. This experience washes over the train of thought you have, it overwhelms it to the point of derailing it. Where are you?

I blink. The familiar street corner that appeared in front of me through the only window available now shows gallant buildings constantly being worked on, the furthest one advertising a lottery. My night sky, pale and empty, has its own idea. It shines bright, geometrically illuminating as far as I can see through these frames. The city is different. Its unfamiliarity to me is as obvious as a candle in a dark room; I fail to hear “Manhattan’s breathing”, as E.B. White says, its vitality that of a person with inner workings, thoughts, desires.

My mind zooms to home, or what was. I blame my upbringing. There is a terrifying disparity between fantasy and reality; it pains me to feel the almost bittersweet comfort in the honesty of the city that is many arrive “to escape, not face, reality”. My home, a two story structure, built like a cot made to withstand the test of time, now a room in a building that reminds me of the Empire State Building. My fences are gone, now a clever mix of concrete and glass, and while White is right, there is a particular reason as to why this city is the “destination… the goal” despite being built on practical contempt. If you want invisibility, you’re in the best place. Your face, forgettable, thanks to the city’s “gift of privacy” and insulated individuality.

Sometimes I relay to myself, in hindsight this probably was not the best decision, and other times I remember the sobering feeling of sobbing on a sidewalk corner feeling lost, all in place, in mind, and in time. The city has a beautiful ability to “[compress] all life, all races and breeds, into [such] a small island” that subdues the few, but strangely many, quips and whims the mind seems to have when it lurches at the possibility that perhaps “it is healthier to live in a community where, when a cornice falls, you feel the blow” and you feel important, rather than irrelevant, and pointless. But if the “price of [your] ambition is a life closer to death”, as Brian Doyle says, then perhaps there is joy to be had when living in the fast lane, that there’s a form of happiness that can be somehow successfully derived from its “forlornness or forsakenness”, by White’s terms. How awful it must be to not fully comprehend, to have to balance between the unreasonable destruction or fulfillment of an individual in such a stunning place that almost hand delivers “spiritual sustenance and maintenance of morale”.

Dreams and desires are equivalent to each other: when deferred they have the uttermost potential to have our “hearts grow cold”, as Doyle says. Potential is the key word. Whether one wants a new job or another wants to go to a new place, there are risks, there are always risks. You quit your job. You sell your home. Human beings are so interesting; how is it a person can honestly be happy spending their precious “two billion heartbeats” living a life they are comfortable with changing on a dime? With the flick of a wrist, the thought of change plants itself in your head, it grows and suffers, taut for nutrition, and in sensing its thirst for the sun, blooms within your eyes with the target it originally had for you.

If deferred dreams dry in the sun only to float away in the wind, turning into specs of dust, then we must recognize that we are “utterly open with no one in the end”, as Doyle states, and to make our dreams an actuality, no matter where they may possibly take us, but it across the street, in a car, or on a plane. These actions will get a reaction, and that reaction is the insurance of “rejuvenation” so plentiful it will creep into the corners of your mind that hid away the childish urges to cater to your heart’s quirks, to whatever possibly allowed you to be happy instead of the ordinary humdrum that you fell accustomed into living.

The city is beautiful. It’s living, it is alive. It’s full of wonderful chances to ruin your life and sprout like a phoenix and start over once more. It wants to play with your heartstrings and make you forget about the “What Ifs” so that you know why the fascination can’t die, so that you too try to horribly fall into its chaotic humdrum only to realize that such a plight is impossible and unrealistic. Through that awareness, find yourself more fortunate than the ones around you that lack the same head; there is such a loveliness to the neglected thought that receives water again. There is such a joy that can arise from living a dream, not matter how extravagant. 

Mentor Text #1: “Language Choice” by Young-Jin Park

There is something highly unconventional about the style of writing imposed by Young-Jin Park. In high school, it’s rooted in a student’s mind to adhere to a strict flow of writing. Students are taught there is only one “plug and chug” formula for sentence structure that’s to be recycled for any type of writing, essays, analyses, and more. I recall a few of my teachers year past that encouraged my classmates and I to avoid being creative in our sentences; they wished to scan simply for content, if XYZ topic was mentioned, and as long as that was there, that’s all that was of concern to them. Never mind the student that wished to express themselves but was inhibited, despite “[wanting] to be acknowledged as an individual”.

Park is an excellent example of writing desired in college, especially New York University. Park employs an especially articulate sense of style to his writing, going so far as to bring in voice and personality to his paper to help the reader truly understand the message being conveyed. It helps the reader not only get the idea but then create an opinion of their own in which they connect to the essay even further. There is the need for words, like any piece of literature, to “be a thing of beauty” instead of merely just remaining a useless, nameless “tool or method” as Park says, that the Writing curriculum at New York University tries to incorporate, and does so practically seamlessly. This is especially apparent in the samples of work from students like Park.

Why I Chose "Here is New York"

Think about the feeling of holding your breath for a long time, the release. There is a freeing feeling about familiarity. When you have a routine, an action, or a thought engraved within you, a conscious being, it means that your body is actively recognizing how comfortable it is with the ordinary going on around you. If a person were to change this monotonous activity, to my chagrin, you have what many would call a disparity between the two. That is change.

            Several people find themselves in the heart of New York from the need to cure their wanderlust, or their thirst for luck, or even just the desire of trying something new. That in itself is, for lack of a better word, not enough reason for one to completely pack up and start a new life, but people do it anyways. The shock factor when one finds themselves in a new place, especially a city as large and as vast as New York City, is immense. It’s frightening. There is a level of preparedness one must encompass within themselves to avoid completely and utterly ruining the happiness they originally were out in search for.

            When you want to learn about something new, you find yourself researching the subject. You use search engines online or you go to a library and you immerse yourself in information in hopes of furthering your information. This is especially helpful when learning about how to do particular things. As helpful as all that may be, they lack the emotional integrity needed to fully understand the subject. Take for example the city. You can study the architectural design of the city’s landscape for years, go as far as memorizing key figures that have walked in its streets, and the numerous amounts of key events that have occurred for decades long past, but they will not be equivalent to the stories of actual people doing all they can to survive in one of the most expensive areas in the country. They will surely pale in comparison to the tribulations felt by families getting by on necessary amenities.

            The city is beautiful; the city is practically perfect. It has all you need, congested and filled in a copulated center waiting to be stumbled into. One has to find their place, and that struggle is very difficult, but once found the shroud of helplessness and desolation gets peeled off leaving behind riper dreams waiting to be acted upon.

My Primary Text

"On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy."

"The capacity to make such dubious gifts is a mysterious quality of New York. It can destory an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck."

"New York blends the gift of privacy with the excitement of participation; and better than most dense communities it succeeds in insulating the individual (if he wants it, and almost everybody wants or needs it) against all enormous and violent and wonderful events that are taking place every minute."

"The quality in New York that insulates its inhabitants from life may simply weaken them as individuals. Perhaps it is healthier to live in a community where, when a cornice falls, you feel the blow; where, when the governor passes, you may see at any rate, his hat."

"Many of its settlers are probably here merely to escape, not face, reality."

"Although New York often imparts a feeling of greet forlornness or forsakenness, it seldom seems dead or unresourceful; and you always feel that either by shifting your location ten blocks or by reducing your fortune by fiver dollars you can experience rejuvenation."

"Of these three trembling cities the greatest is the last- the city of final destination, the city that is a goal."

"He fished in Manhattan's wallet and dug out coins, but has never listened to Manhattan's breathing, never awakened to its morning, never dropped off to sleep in its night."

"The city is like poetry: it compresses all life, all races and breeds, into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment of internal engines."

"By rights New York should have destroyed itself long ago, from panic or fire or rioting or failure of some vital supply line in its circulatory system or from some deep labyrinthine short circuit."

"The city, for the first time in its long history, is destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate the millions."

The main idea of this essay, Here is New York, is concentrated around the idea of New York City, its fascination, its vibrancy, and its bittersweetness. The adoration the city has from many is comparable to none; the city itself takes on life and has its own struggles that are felt by the citizens that walk within it, and their day to day routines reflect their desires and turmoil much more exquisitely than anywhere else.

OWS Protests

“There's no better symbol of the gloom and psychological repression of modern America than the banking system, a huge heartless machine that attaches itself to you at an early age, and from which there is no escape. You fail to receive a few past-due notices about a $19 payment you missed on that TV you bought at Circuit City, and next thing you know a collector has filed a judgment against you for $3,000 in fees and interest.”

“People don't know exactly what they want, but as one friend of mine put it, they know one thing: FUCK THIS SHIT! We want something different: a different life, with different values, or at least a chance at different values.”

“Eventually the Occupy movement will need to be specific about how it wants to change the world. But for right now, it just needs to grow. And if it wants to sleep on the streets for a while and not structure itself into a traditional campaign of grassroots organizing, it should. It doesn't need to tell the world what it wants. It is succeeding, for now, just by being something different.”

Habits are ridiculous. It’s commonplace for a singular activity to be embedded in an organism, be it for days, months, or years. Humans are, sadly, no except to this point. The MOEs pointed out by Taibbi talk of the importance in the Occupy Wall Street Protests more than an analysis could decipher.

            America is founded upon the idea of living the dream. This dream can be big, to live in a lavished home ordained with beautiful artifacts, or small, to simply get a job and sustain oneself. Capitalism, a principle established for the economy, is misconstrued extremely. The economy takes the face of the school system, with big businesses acting in the place of bullies holding up smaller students, ordinary citizens, against their lockers and demanding lunch money. When an individual tries to fight this system, they are knocked down time and time again.

            To fight the routine instilled upon the economy, many take up arms in protest against any and all actions set in place. The power to do such as a thing in itself is remarkable. There are countless places on the planet that limit one’s right to free speech and active protest against the government, so America and its inhabitants are very lucky. Movements act to cause change, and the momentum they gain can do worlds of wonder.

Here is New York

“By rights New York should have destroyed itself long ago, from panic or fire or rioting or failure of some vital supply line in its circulatory system or from some deep labyrinthine short circuit. Long ago the city should have experienced an insoluble traffic snarl at some impossible bottleneck. It should of perished of hunger when food lines failed for a few days. It should have been wiped out by a plague starting in its slums or carried in by ships' rats. It should have been overwhelmed by the sea that licks at it on every side.”

“The oft-quoted thumbnail sketch of New York is, of course: "It's a wonderful place, but I'd hate to live there."”

“Behind me (eighteen inches again) a young intellectual is trying to persuade a girl to come live with him and be his love. She has her guard up, but he is extremely reasonable, careful not to overplay his hand.”

The city is beautiful. There are several manufactural feats that have been accomplished for a city such as New York to be in existence. These MOEs I selected highlight various points made by White that speak of New York City’s congestion and all that ensues.

New York City, crafted into the most highly sought after area in the world, encompasses enough genius, art, and extravagance for a person to experience for multiple lifetimes. Coming from a life suburbia for example, it’s quite a place to be in. A startling difference would be the experience of stepping outside a door into busy street traffic, rather than a group of neighborhood boys playing football or the mailman doing his rounds. There is a comfort aligned with the solemnness of that environment that is hard to find in New York. Anywhere a person may find themselves will be a niche, the question is just whether or not they can assimilate themselves within said niche.

The city is bittersweet. There is a wonder associated with it, whether you are from a completely different country learning about it in class, or on the west coast wishing to be on Broadway; when you find yourself here, you are walking along the dreams of those come and past that wish to be in your shoes. It’s very daunting. The city is a living, breathing being that is excessively overwhelming that is oh so beautiful. 

The Secret Life of Bees

“Seeley thinks that this convergence between bees and brains can teach people a lot about how to make decisions in groups. “Living in groups, there’s a wisdom to finding a way for members to make better decisions collectively than as individuals,” he said.”

“A group of people can propose many different ideas—the more the better, in fact. But those ideas will only lead to a good decision if listeners take the time to judge their merits for themselves, just as scouts go to check out potential homes for themselves.”

“Seeley advises that people should be made to feel that they are part of the decision-making group, so that their debates don’t become about destroying the enemy, but about finding a solution for everyone.”

          Humans are jigsaw pieces. Each piece is vital, unique, but as a whole are there for the bigger picture. Every life has a person experiencing the normal humdrum of ordinary activities, but when composed together with other lives, there is a beautiful myriad that is formed. These MOEs I selected speak specifically to the idea of groups and working in them.

          I had the belief of discrepancy when I thought of groups. When created, they seemed to unrealistically get a life of their own. Take into consideration a friend group. Each friend within this group invests time and energy, love and compassion, into the idea of a network of support. This investment gives the group meaning, and this meaning gives the group life. The pessimistic side to this ideation is the selfishness, as people may often chose themselves instead of a greater entity. This disparity breaks the framework of groups.

          When looked at positively, there is a wonderful greatness about group work and what it can possibly entail. Ideas from different individuals get scripted together to make amazing pieces of work. This applied to concepts like governments can create unity between people of varying opinions and backgrounds and cause enormous amounts of change.

The Mannahatta Project

"The patrons, that morning, consisted of a group of summer campers engaged in a scavenger hunt, and a fleet of hospital patients in wheelchairs, attended by a few nurses. A man drifted by on a bicycle, with “Brick House” playing from a boom box. As tempting as it was to rue the absence of otters, egrets, and acres upon acres of spartina grass waving in the breeze, there was something beguiling about this assemblage in the Park on a summer weekday morning."

"Looking down Sixth Avenue, Sanderson gestured toward the herds of pedestrians stretching away from us and said, “You see all those heads, and you think that the six hundred Lenape who used to live on Manhattan could have fit on that one block.”"

"We tried to explain. He said that he knew nothing about any pond and then gave us a look suggesting we’d better just move along."

                Life is fleeting. Its active nature carries us, the many entities, around and around, often clashing with each other and bringing out a multitude of change and variation. New York, the focus of extravagant difference reached from differing ideas or opinions, has progressed through life, changing similarly to the life of a human being; New York took on its "birth", crashed through its gawky adolescence, and glided into its newfound adulthood. Paumgarten, through several pieces in the work The Mannahatta Project, expresses the idea of self-possession, overabundance, and tabled attempts and actions. This MOE is done through the concept of the idea itself, self-possession in humans brought about the eradication of the native New York environment, impacting indigenous species, both people and not, both living. The MOE more personalized through human interaction between themselves and each other  is particular to me specifically because of the foreign concept of such a congested area. There are very few places in the world quite like New York, and once you find yourself in the area, you become enthralled in a way, be it to a particular feeling that rings from inside, like the idea of inescapable companionship but still apparent loneliness. Do you know the feeling of having something on your mind you would like to say, but decide to not say it? There is a failure at the missed connection we as humans have when conversing with each while second guessing ourselves and our thoughts.

Joyas Voladoras

"When young we think there will come one person who will savor and sustain us always; when we are older we know this is the dream of a child, that all hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter how ferocious the defense and how many bricks you bring to the wall."

                There is a crazed ambiguity towards dreams. Ambition is marked less on how capable you are and more towards what your actual goal is, whether it is to be fit or more intelligent. When desire is looked at from a more romanticized viewpoint, it is misconstrued to many, me in particular. Doyle, in an elaborate way, is trying to get across this idea of shared empathy we as humans possess towards unrequited ideas and wants. Doyle expresses the fact that many of us harden our hearts against fear of the unknown, a common fact. This moment Doyle writes of fills my head with several memories and vivid artifacts of dreams deferred. It awakens within me the ignored, bittersweet pitter-patter of my heart strings at yet another remembrance that brings my dread: the wave you give to another that is followed by ignorance, the smile you fake in a conversation when you have no idea as to what expression is appropriate to use, and the idea of occupying yourself so much that you fool yourself into loving your own apparent loneliness. There is so much to be taken from Doyle's word, and so much that reverberates in accordance with my own feelings that there is not enough justice to simply agree with a MOE but to realize that the work as an entirety, in itself, is a MOE.