Lyrebird Lament I am the laugh of a kookaburra. I am a currawong. I am a galah. I am a liar because I am a lyrebird. I am a performer and I am superb. I've performed every winter of my life. I was born into the drama, into the bellowing music of males I looked up to, or down on, depending on my position in a nearby tree. They were inspirational from the start, with their five-foot feathery tails draping over their heads like stage curtains or a giant fringe of netted hair, almost tribal in their side-to-side and circling footsteps. They looked alive. That was how I learnt so much, by observing, by remembering and recording: seeing their fifty minute shows provided me with entertainment, but also something to look forward to, something to achieve. I was told I would have the chance to sing out like the others, eventually. At the moment, you're just a plain-tail, they said. Competition was always drilled into me. I knew you had to have a good memory, but also needed to be a good listener, which meant a high level of self-interest was impossible. I needed to remember everything so accurately to impersonate it properly. One note wrong, they said, and the audience could end up on someone else's side. And who was the audience? They were plainer birds, brown like pheasants and never quite as noisy as the rest of us, but I knew I liked them, females were good. They were what I wanted. When I realised that, I was about three years old and even though my feathers had been falling away every year, they had grown back longer each time they returned. At that point, I was ready. Practice makes perfect, was another thing they said. So that was mainly what my life consisted of: I am this, I am that. From high up in a tree, it all looked... ... middle of paper ... ... Whose side are my audience on now? That's when I close my eyes and run. Then I wake up again, having lost myself for a second time. I'm at the zoo now, in Adelaide. I regained my health after they took me in, which of course I am grateful for, but it seemed that even when my ability to make sounds returned, I had lost all my previous identities: I couldn't laugh like a kookaburra; I definitely couldn't laugh. Instead, I cry the cry of a human baby. I have learnt every one of a writer's words: he visits and sits alongside my fence every week and reads my story aloud as though he is me; as though he is stealing my identity. Now, I am the horn of a railway. I am a lumberjack. I am a car alarm. I am the shot of a rifle. I am a dog barking. I am a human voice. I am a camera with a shutter open. I am a liar because I am a lyrebird. I am a performer and I am superb.
The purpose of this story was to illustrate the importance of how people view themselves and their abilities.
“I have lived every day of my life asking myself ‘is what I’m doing reflective of who I am? Or who I want to be?’ If not...”
Let me make an inquiry – If you were to depict yourself in one word, what might that word be?
What started out as a hobby transformed into a passion for an art form that allows me to use movements and expressions to tell a story. Whether I’m on stage in front of an audience of just friends and family, hundreds of strangers and a panel of judges, or the whole school, performing over thirty times, has helped me build lifelong
Of all my positive attributes, creativity is not one of them. I think of creativity as the ability to come up with new things, using one’s imagination to create beauty, induce laughter, and/or provoke emotion. My jokes are always corny, my drawing skills are comparable to a toddler’s, and I suck at telling stories. “Creative” definitely does not describe me.
Do you know why people compare your actions and characteristics to animals? In the book I read a few weeks ago-called Touching Spirit Bear, there is a boy named Cole Matthews. Cole has been in trouble with the law half his life, and he is sent to an island in the middle of nowhere to learn how to get rid of with his anger. With the time he spent on the island, he did many dances and other tasks to help himself. Some of the dances were: the whale, wolf, mouse, and anger dance. In the process of doing these dances/tasks, he learns many things about himself, nature, and what animals he is like. This has also made me think about what animals I, and my friends think I am most like. In addition to that, the three animals I am most like is a penguin, monkey, and a sheep! First, one of the animals is the Penguin because this species is known to be witty, Meticulous, and Inscrutable. Second, is the monkey because it is known to be curious, have many interests, and always have good intentions. Third and finally, the sheep because they are know to be supportive, servile, and boring. I think that my personality and actions are most like a penguin, a monkey, and a sheep.
I was born a bastard, but that never stopped me from being the best in town. My one goal in life, from day one, was to be more powerful than anyone. I created competition in every situation, and I always won. My brothers and I did not have the best relationship, although my tutors, Paulo Pompilio and Giovanni Vera, recognized my
So, who am I? Should I describe the person I see when I look in the mirror or the person I am working to become? The person I am changes with each new experience, with every person who enters or exits my life, and with how I handle the challenges placed before me. So, the person I am, that is something I will spend the rest of my life discovering.
With competition, people have incentive to improve. Last fall, my father had the idea for the two of us to have a competition and see who could do more sit-ups by the end of the year. This would be part of my offseason baseball training and his normal exercise. We were both doing hundreds of sit-ups a day, and I eventually won. In the end, we were both the winners because this was very good exercise for our body, which probably would not have been done without the competition. At the end of each of my basketball lessons, my coach and I would play a short game of one versus one. At first, he would always win. I grew tired of always losing to
Not knowing who I was for many years led to a series of bad decisions and choices. However I began to notice that I had a gift, a talent of making others feel good and found myself wanting to be an emboldening model for others. Often my friends and family looked to me for advice and answers. I later realized that it was not about giving advice but helping them find the answer that are locked away in their subconscious mind. Helping them discover who they were; the irony I discovered who I was, my life purpose, my calling.
“I just want to be someone, mean something to anyone, I want to be the real ME”, by Charlotte Eriksson. The quest of my journey is to discover my real purpose, my real goal but most importantly, find my real identity. This is known as the “Identity versus Role Confusion Stage” or as described by psychoanalyst Erik H. Erikson, the fifth stage of the Eight Stages of Man. It occurs between the ages of 12 to 18, where every person battles to establish a certain roll or skill that provides one with a sense of a sturdy foundation in the adult society. I too am currently going through this stage of life, dodging many obstacles in order to seek out my identity. The hardest obstacle- my attempt to fit in with my peers, but the extremes I took to find it, may have scared me for life. Nonetheless, it showed me a piece of my real identity and helped me figure out how to grow through it and better myself; it showed me the real me. In the past as well as today’s society, individuality is vital. Each teen wants to create a unique identity for ones’ self, and the start to creating that identity is in high school.
There is a misconception that competition is bad, if a child can experience the thrill of winning and the disappointment of losing, they will be well equipped for the reality of life. Competition provides stimulation to achieve a goal; to have determination, to overcome challenges, to understand that hard work and commitment leads to a greater chance of success. Life is full of situations where there are winners and losers; getting a job; a sports game; not getting into a desired college. People need to learn how to cope with disappointment and then to look forward to the next opportunity to try again. Competition also teaches us to dig deep and find abilities we never knew we had. The pressure to win or succeed can often inspire more imaginative thinking and inspire us to develop additional
Although this drive to always be better has become an integral part of my character, through my high school career it was not, and I derived my drive to succeed from other’s disbelief. When my track coach told me I was too short to be a triple jumper, overcoming his doubt became the driving force in my life. I toiled endlessly in
“Survival of the fittest” is a notion that I firmly advocate. Competition brings out the best in people, and I am a very competitive person. Competitiveness whether with one's self, or with others arouses the desire to succeed. My mother has taught me that competing with yourself is even better than competing with others because you struggle to become the best person you can be, without settling for exceeding the limitations of others.
...ere is no competition, our minds would remain idle. Competition also helps us to get back on our feet. There can be no failure without competition and not all failure is bad. Learning from failure and overcoming it also helps us with future hurdles in life. Although we might be setback by many obstacles on the way to achieving what we want, we should not brood over such minor matters. Instead, we should find out where we wrong and change for the better. We should not be stubborn and try to do things our way but search for alternative methods that will help us to obtain success. Competition may also do good for our character and personality. An over-confident person may keep doing things his or her way in hope of getting what they want. However, after experiencing many disappointing failures, this proud and narrow-minded person may be humbled in the process of attempting to reach his or her goal.