Another Essay
I figured I should post today to keep up the illusion that I post every week. This illusion is mostly for myself, since a forced essay-writing every week will probably make the difference between me saying something Incredibly Profound and not, because in one case I will be in the habit of writing and in the other I will not.
Speaking of essay writing, I have to write an essay for English class on Any Thing I Want. This is a more difficult task than it may at first seem, because I have added an additional clause to make the essay about Any Thing I Want that will Get a Good Grade. I then concluded that if I submitted anything I have ever written for my online journal it would not Get a Good Grade, either because it is too offensive or too deep or of a style assuming the Wrong type of arrogance. I did the lattermost in my most recent essay: I developed some brilliant points of analysis on Jane Eyre, but stated in conclusion that the essay had no point, the Wrong type of arrogance. I got a C minus. Though apparently this mix of literary genius and dogmatism is so beast that the Community of High School English Teachers has no way to deal with it, since after a conversation with the teacher and a remark she returned my essay as an A with the footnote, "I must have been tired when I first read it."
The Right type of arrogance, of course, would be to suppose that Jane Eyre is an excellent work worthy of an arbitrarily large amount of attention. This Right type of arrogance is the type encouraged, for instance, by Christianity in selflessness.
More on the Right type of arrogance: the Remembrance Day assembly. That is the annual time when we focus on verbs like "remember" and "sacrifice" and occasionally "death" and imagine that strong emotions are elicited by these verbs. I suspect that only a few people in the room had actually known war, and could relate to what our eloquent speakers were talking about (Jack Xu's yuppie Asian accent was perfect for the occasion). Everybody else was left pretending to understand what the speakers were pretending to understand which was that something Very Very Solemn and Important was being talked about. Everybody was Too Insecure to question this façade so it was kept up very well through the whole assembly, except possibly during the minute of silence when it was cut short after fifteen seconds by a faltering trumpet.
Back to the essay: I figured I would have to come up with an essay topic and format from scratch. I also concluded that general art and morality were out of the question, since it would presuppose acceptance of Moral Relativism. I suppose I could write an essay about Moral Relativism, but to establish something in one-thousand words as true that is intuitively obvious requires an ability in sophistry which I do not possess. My lack of ability is not a deficiency, like it is not a deficiency I lack the ability to have masochistic sex while slitting my wrists. (This bad metaphor is a case-in-point.)
If I wanted to have a conclusion this is where I would mention what essay topic I chose. But in this essay it is the means, not the end.
posted by carpo @ 10:07 p.m.
19 comments
19 Comments:
Your grammar is sub-par and you thesis is unclear.
3.5/6
Don't worry, I'm sure one day you'll be able to have masochistic sex while slitting your wrists. Just keep at it.
since this is the newest one ill post
how you have used "Beast" more than
40 times!
just felt that needed to be said...
.... seriously.. that's kind of pitiful, that your ony response to various peoples combination of ideas is a delete?? Is that stating that you have no response to our comment? Please, tell me why you use beast so much, and why the hell you talk about having masochistic sex while slitting your wrists. Im pretty sure my post had no swear words in it. DIsappointed Steven.. disappointed..
I deleted the comment and did not respond because it was lame. I mention the word "beast" frequently because I enjoy talking about myself. I mentioned masochistic sex and wrist-slitting because it served as an extremely poor metaphor.
Of course, if you had thought about it these answers would have been obvious. I guess this shows that three minds are lesser than one, if the one belongs to a beast.
Slay the Beast!
it's eating all the children!
Well first off pardon the grammar (which I know will be hard), as I will write this and not read over it or proof read it in any way. First off yes writing increases the odds of writing something profound, but so does having an infinite number of dogs typing at an infinite number of typewriters; eventually you will get an infinite number of hamlets, and for that matter anything that can be written. The other end of the stick involves a bunch of (well written) crap. This would be my response to the later.
The challenge in writing an essay on anything you want is simply to come up with a thesis. Once that is done, someone who is smart enough picks a topic they know about, the wrest is easy. I could provide you a draft in less than 30 minutes, writing the thesis included.
Of course an English teacher is going to punish you for a dogmatic approach to the world. Only I idiot (like myself) would try to base an essay on pathos. To do so would neglect consideration for your audience. For the time being you are not in fact better educated than your teacher no matter what you think. Pathos requires a place of authority. One which you do not hold when you write an essay. You do not hold a PhD in English literature, literary critique or anything even remotely connected. Under no circumstances should you be rewarded for writing like you do.
I would love to hear more about this ‘conversation’ you had with your teacher. If any explanation of the paper went on, it deserves no higher grade than what was presented. Never should you pretend that Jane Eyre is a great piece of lit unless you think so yourself. But never neglect its value to others.
While I think of my next witty comment to continue battering you on that front. I shall move on to your remembrance day. Two words: shove it.
First off its two minutes. Secondly ‘supreme sacrifice’. Third, back to my two words. Now as to your “pretending to understand…that something Very Very Solemn[sic.] and Important[sic.] was being talked about.” What is not to understand, guys ran out of a trench and in to machine gun fire, if they got to the next trench then they cut the other guys open. We mourn the guys who the bad guys killed. Its quite simple indeed. In fact we trivialize it beyond what we need to (ie the removal of the Germans who we killed, and also played football with on Christmas day). It is this trivialization that creates the illusion that people are pretending to understand. People are simply grasping at straws.
"Who else" indeed, you are not recognizable at 10:36pm.
All that I write is valid and meaningful because I am beast. This covers over 62% of your points, which is mentally sufficient. But I will address the rest:
i) What I write in class will utilize my beast to produce something that is not necessarily ideal but which will yield a good mark. This may include "lying".
ii) War: facts are easy to grasp but feelings are not. On an even higher level of understanding, it is not that heaven is freedom and hell is dying in war. As thinking will tell you, we all die at some point and it is how you lived, not how soon you die, and how you lived is not directly based on freedom. Try any book by Kurt Vonnegut for an excellent expression of this idea.
Nothing you say is true. I looked at your comments rationally: your facts are wrong, your opinions are refuted multiple times in this journal. As a beast I am unassailable. In trying to break me you have broken yourself, though you must be used to it.
I don't know why anyone bothers anymore, or, for that matter, why I do.
Anything I say is going to be immediately discounted and cast aside; the same is true of anyone else's attemptted comments.
So, maybe, we try, becuase we realize it's unlikely anyone can really be as emotionally off base as yourself. We convince ourselves it's simply not possible for an individual to be so completely removed from society and not experience a desire to explore it.
Sadly, I don't believe that's the case.
As a general rule I believe in people; you call yourself a beast: I cannot believe in you.
Understanding is a mutual agreement: if you wish to be understood, you must seek to understand. Somehow I don't think you want to understand, at all. Somehow, I think you just don't care. You'll have to excuse me if i treat you in the same manner.
So if it sounds like myself and the others who keep trying to knock sense into you have given up, maybe you should wonder why.
Think about it.
Your third paragraph is worthy.
"if you wish to be understood, you must seek to understand"
In your case it looks like you're trying, but you're not succeeding, so don't be so presumptuous.
It would be better if you ignored me.
It would be rather interesting to see which comments belonged to girls and which belonged to guys. Anyone care to clarify?
I'm fairly certain that tent lover is the only female.
I would agree.
Oh that's easy. Your attacks on Steven's entry were more emotionally involved, choosing a moral standpoint.
Whereas the previous commenter, Who Else, decided to take a more logical approach.
And of course, Steven will tell you that logic rules over emotion and that any trekky would rather hit Spock than Captain Kirk.
Hah. Yeah right.
well, then you're all mistaken.
Is it so unbelievable that i might be a girl?
I thought Tent Lover might have been Jeffrey Sun.
I'm not stupid, I'm just insistant that you shouldn't be shunning the truth. Sure you're smarter than a lot of people, but that's not very tough. You only get the right to not be humble when you've made something of yourself. Right now you're in the same position as all of us.
The point of a Remembrance Day assembly is not to pretend to understand, but to try to understand. It is true that many people in the assembly would not understand the idea behind Remembrance Day to the extent that you would expect, but the purpose of the assembly is not simply to give an air of being solemn but rather to try to connect with society’s past. Through this connection, we learn many lessons, as we learn much from history. Different people will have different perspectives, different interpretations, gain different morals, and learn different things. Although most of us have not experienced the war and don’t have a deep and rooted understanding, it is still important for us to reflect on the past. Remembrance Day is for everyone, whether you’ve been in the war or not, because it isn’t only about being serious and respecting those who have sacrificed, but it also is an opportunity to think and try to take the past into one’s perspective in order to see the contrast between the old and new society, and perhaps appreciate how society has developed and how the things we take for granted are to be cherished.
As with most area of life, how much you gain from the Remembrance Day Assembly is quite proportional to how much you put in. If a person simply finds the assembly a waste of time, then that person probably won’t contemplate anything new through the artistic presentations, the speakers, and the moments of silence. That being said, though you are very critical on the efforts of the community around you, it is nevertheless an indication that the assembly has, to an extent, failed its educational purpose. Despite your harsh and sarcastic tone, I do agree with your implication that the assembly was unable to reach the minds of many students and needs improvement. Improvement, of course, takes action. If people care enough about the subject, and really want to see improvement in this service, then they should volunteer their time. In order to really reach the students, it takes students’ involvement and input, not only because students know how to reach people like them, but also because through being involved, students benefit tremendously.
I must admit that it’s frustrating to see people complain about things before they make the commitment to change it, even though it is so common. Often, the things we complain about are as they are because not enough effort is made to improve it. In a way, when we complain about things, we are remarking on our own laziness. However, complaining is still very important, though people don’t like to hear it. Complaints, if received correctly, are means of communicating weaknesses.
Regarding my “yuppie Asian accent”, although what you said is honest and truthful, although it did successfully attract my attention in a hurtful way, please try to not judge me on my accent. I know that this can be very difficult, and that inevitably, my language problems, whether it’s my accent or the numerous run-on sentences and grammar mistakes, will distract my audiences.
Why I bother to comment – probably for similar reasons that Steven writes a blog. I commented main for my own purposes, to put thinking into words and to express. Sorry Steven, I’ll get my own blog… eventually.
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