Because all individuals possess different sets of experiences and perspectives, their individual realities, or their interactions with and responses to their surroundings, differ accordingly. While the outside reality that exists independently from human interaction remains consistently unaffected by individuals’ perceptions, one’s individual reality can change and shift as a result of changes in perception that can be triggered by events, relationships, and interactions with others. Leslie Bell’s “Hard to Get: Twenty-Something Women and the Paradox of Sexual Freedom,” Oliver Sacks’s “The Mind’s Eye,” and Martha Stout’s “When I Woke Up Tuesday Morning, It Was Friday” collectively address this idea that the realization of individual realities …show more content…
In Leslie Bell’s “Hard to Get,” Bell discusses Alicia’s childhood experiences that skewed her perception of families and, by extension, the portion of her individual reality that concerned her family when Bell states, “The stability, structure, and love of a traditional family seemed to afford all of the experiences Alicia herself lacked in her upbringing. A traditional family became the solution to the problem of instability in Alicia’s mind. And being a good girl was the strategy Alicia adopted to enable her to have a traditional family… [and] a good man who would treat her well” (39). In other words, because Alicia was deprived of a stable “traditional family” as a child, she decided that she would adopt the approach of becoming a “good girl” to achieve such a family during her adult life. It can be inferred from the wording of the first sentence of the passage that Alicia viewed her family as the antithesis of a “traditional family” while she was growing up because her family was unable to provide her with “the experiences” and “the stability, structure, and love” that she desired. This skewed her perception of her own family in addition to shaping her individual reality to such an extent that she created a strategy of interacting with the world, “being a good girl,” solely to eventually achieve a “traditional …show more content…
Because such an individual reality is skewed to a greater extent, it is entirely possible that it will differ drastically from the outside reality that exists independently from human biases and perceptions. In her essay “When I Woke Up Tuesday,” Martha Stout highlights how traumatic experiences negatively shift individuals’ perspectives and, by extension, their individual realities when Stout states, “Later on in [an] individual’s life, in situations that are vaguely similar to trauma… trauma may be “remembered” … when there is no hazard worthy of such alarm. In reaction to relatively trivial stresses, the person traumatized long ago may truly feel that danger is imminent again, be assailed full-force by the emotions [and] bodily sensations… that once accompanied great threat” (422). When making this comment, Stout is pointing out that the impacts of traumatic events remain with a person throughout his or her life and can even dictate one’s responses to the outside reality during certain occurrences. Because trauma lingers in a person’s subconscious even after it has occurred, it has the ability to warp one’s perception of “relatively trivial stresses” and cause one experience his or her individual reality with “the emotions [and] bodily
A totalitarian government relates to a centralized government that does not tolerate parties of differing opinion and that exercises dictatorial control over many aspects of life. In George Orwell’s 1984, the government controls all aspect of the lives of the citizens in Oceania, taking away all individuality. When a totalitarian government gains power, they tend to try and hold onto it with a deathgrip. When a government is given that much power, there is not many things you can do as a citizen, other than sit back and hope for the best. In the novel Nineteen Eighty Four, George Orwell uses the two minutes hate and telescreens to show the importance of keeping your individuality.
Thoreau, Henry David, and Jeffrey S. Cramer. Walden : A Fully Annotated Edition. New Haven:
Hypothesis: “We hypothesize that the performance of individual members in such situations is likely to be highest when the members hold both individualist and collectivist orientations toward their work” (Hollenbeck, Humphrey, Meyer, Wagner, 2012, pg. 947).
The idea of Individualism can be traced all the way back to England before America’s existence. As we know, individualism has been interpreted in many forms throughout history. The 19th century is no different, taking hold of its own idea of individualism, called transcendentalism. Transcendentalism suggests freedom should not be confined to those focused on money and superficial gains. Instead, people should depend on no one but themselves. This movement focused on “greater individualism against conformity” (Corbett et al.). Heavily influenced by the Romantic period, transcendentalism adopted the belief that reason was more important than logic as Benjamin Franklin has believed. Reason must also include unique emotion and spirit (Corbett et
It’s not easy to build an ideal family. In the article “The American Family” by Stephanie Coontz, she argued that during this century families succeed more when they discuss problems openly, and when social institutions are flexible in meeting families’ needs. When women have more choices to make their own decisions. She also argued that to have an ideal family women can expect a lot from men especially when it comes to his involvement in the house. Raymond Carver, the author of “Where He Was: Memories of My Father”, argued how his upbringing and lack of social institutions prevented him from building an ideal family. He showed the readers that his mother hide all the problems instead of solving them. She also didn’t have any choice but to stay with his drunk father, who was barely involved in the house. Carvers’ memoir is relevant to Coontz argument about what is needed to have an ideal family.
The view of identity seems to be defined by facial features and social constructed views. Depending on the recent look of someone it may just be more then just color but also background. In this essay I will explain how I relate to some recent views based on philosophers I may agree and disagree with in order to describe my identity. Identity is much more then just being labeled as a race, it can be based on much more.
Identity can be described as the way we view ourselves; the way that we distinguish ourselves from others while also comparing our similarities. In other words identity is what makes someone unique and average at the same time. To start off with I was born and raised in Jamaica for 6 years with my parents, but due to the fact that my parents were offered an opportunity to attend school in America they dove for a chance of a better life. My first home was in Jefferson, Missouri where it seemed like it snowed every day. White sheets of snow would cover every inch of the city, no stone or rock was left without an inch of snow. The city was so beautiful to me because it would always light up in front of my eyes. The people there was so nice that
A major life event that started me to pursue an education in nursing was my time in basic training. The most life changing event during my induction into the army at ft. Jackson before starting basic training was accepting Christ as my personal lord and savior. When I decided to go into the Army 4 years out of high school I was a student firefighter E.M.T. working towards my paramedic, incidents at the Dept. I worked at both before and after some traumatic emergency responses actually turned me away from practicing any sort of medicine and causing me to seek the military for a new career or to pay for me to go back to school for another career if the military wasn’t my thing. During Basic training as stated above I was already a licensed E.M.T.
My primary personal thinking style is the Achievement Style, which is one of the constructive styles. Constructive Styles pertain to self-enhancing behaviors in ways of thinking, which determine a person’s level of satisfaction. These styles also pertain to the capability of effectively working with people, building healthy relationships, and being proficient at the accomplishment of tasks.
Erik Erikson composed a theory of psychological development that was composed of eight stages. Erikson’s theory focuses on how personalities evolve throughout life as a result of the interaction between biologically based maturation and the demands of society. According to Erikson, “Each stage of human development presents its characteristic crises. Coping well with each crisis makes an individual better prepared to cope with the next.” (Zastrow & Kirst-Ashman, 2013, p. 314) According to Erikson’s eight stages of development, I have only been through six of the eight stages.
On chapter 4 on the textbook, the author explains, “culture provides a member of a society with a common bond, a sense that we see certain facets of society in similar ways. We are living together at all depends on the fact that members of a society share a certain amount of cultural knowledge (Ch4, 132). Individualism and collectivism contribute greatly to the dimension of culture. For example, how many members of the culture define themselves apart from their group memberships. In individualist cultures, people are expected to develop and display their individual personalities and to choose their own affiliations. In collectivist cultures, people are defined and act mostly as a member of a long-term group, such as the family, a religious group, an age cohort, a town, or a profession, among others. This dimension was found to move towards the individualist end of the spectrum with increasing
Each day, people wake up in their beds to find things exactly as they left it. The sky's still blue, the leaves are still green, and the pile of dirty laundry still sits at the bottom of their bed. This world of known qualities, filled with objects we consider to be real, is often referred to as reality. A simplistic definition of the word reality would be “the state or quality of having existence or substance” (Definition). But what exactly does this mean? For example, a world where everything that must be felt, seen, tasted, or heard in order to be considered “real”, does not account for the molecules that dance under our nose or the germs on our fingers. Therefore, when one takes a closer examination of the meanings of the words real, reality,
Who am I? Wrestling with identity— our history, our culture, our language— is central to being human, and there’s no better way to come to grips with questions of identity than through the crossing of borders. The transcendence of borders reveals the fluid nature of identity, it challenges absurd notions of rigid nationalities, and highlights our common humanity. It is no coincidence, then, that my experience as an immigrant has shaped my academic journey and pushed me to pursue graduate studies.
Interpersonal relationships are those that we have with other people. Communication between others is essential to human survival. We communicate to get what we need: food, affection, knowledge, understanding, money, the list goes on. In these relationships, we build our image of ourselves, learn to trust, and sometimes fall apart. This paper will analyze interviews discussing what happens in their real life experiences with relationships and compare how they may differ from person to person.
My aspiration toward a better education starts all the way back to when I started school in Russia. Out of the short educational experience that I had in Russia, I remember that almost everybody wanted to be the straight-A student (or straight-"5" by Russian grading). That, combined with the constant pressure from my family helped me get excited about school and made me want to learn. My education in Russia was cut short, however, when we moved to the United States.