The main purpose of this chapter is: to explain how each one of us has a Mindless Monster and some more than one. The role of our Mindless Monster is to keep us in a negative thought process, what prevents us from "being in the moment" and enjoying life to its fullest. Mindless Monsters transpire from negativity and stress; when we find ourselves struggling, these monsters prosper. While every individual’s Mindless Monster reflects different connotations, they tend to reflect two mindsets – perfectionism or self-neglect. In the perfectionism mindset, an individual’s Mindless Monster pushes them to their breaking point by flooding their minds with the concept that in order to obtain acceptance from others, and themselves, they must go beyond
Fear prevents us from embracing the present moment. While fear does serve as a protective force, as individuals would not consider consequences without it, it also damages an individual 's ability to live mindfully. Fear prevents risk; it prevents individuals from taking risks that could move them from despair to fulfillment. We stand dissatisfied with the present, yet afraid of the unknown. The Mindless Monster that we possess provokes fear; negative thoughts such as “You are not good enough,” “You will fail,” and “You are not worthy,” flood our mind, causing an altered mindset. The problem with our Mindless Monster rests on the notion that it only provides negativity consequences, disregarding possible rewards. This fear halts our progress, trapping us in a mindless
Individuals retain preconceived beliefs about individuals, places, or objects based on their experiences. By going into an experience, with preconceived beliefs, we prevent acknowledgement and acceptance of reality. For example, individuals tend to avoid foods that those around them do not like, as they perceive the food to taste awful, despite their own experience. While these preconceived beliefs do help alter our perspective, they should not dictate it. We must accept these beliefs, but still be willing to change our perspective as the experience arises. No two individuals retain identical likes, beliefs, and values; every individual should live through their experiences, rather than living with another individual’s
The Monster by Toby Litt, is an experimental piece lacking many conventional and typical parts that include an easily followed plotline, an honest and open narrator, and a clear theme or point. It is a short passage created to prove that a point is not needed within a story in order for it to be seen as such. It is the idea that a point is not needed for something to exist. A being can exist without knowing who or what they are, or what they are there for. Purpose is an unnecessary driving force. Lack of purpose, or knowing of it, may lead to resignation towards one’s situation. The monster does not move forward with his existence to try to find his answers. He is perfectly content with where he is, even if is unsure. The narrator holds back on detail purposely to focus on the bigger idea of the story, which is that there isn’t one.
Skipping ahead of the monsters causes quite a bit of trouble and strangles a lot of people, and this is all caused by him not being provided with a connection with anyone. Now before he really starts his strangulation spree he spies on a family (the Delacy’s) that teaches him unknowingly how to speak, read, and of general human connection and relationships. This moment of distant watching and learning has left him wanting things even more, he then reveals himself the Father who is blind and he is kind to the monster when the children arrive they terrified and reject the monster. Throughout the tale of the monster is reminded of his indifference by others resulting in him stating: Humans thrive off of connection with other beings, this allows them to indeed grow and exceed happiness most of the time. Within our species and even outside, we are all searching for one thing; this is indeed a sense of purpose and pursuing happiness.
Fear is a powerful emotion. Wikipedia.com describes fear as “an emotion induced by threat perceived by living entities, which causes a change in brain and organ function and ultimately change behavior, such as running away, hiding or freezing from traumatic events.”Most people tend to avoid fearful situations, not realizing that something positive may come out of the event or experience. Victor Villaseñor focuses on the topic of fear in his novel titled Burro Genius. Villaseñor demonstrates to readers how growing up he was extremely fearful of any situation. Victor also tells his readers how he turned his fear into motivation into motivation to keep going and reach his ultimate goal of becoming a published author.
Fear is an everyday emotion that the human race must face, and it can bring out the best and worst of us, but its how we choose to deal with it that truly defines us.
The balance between fear and foresight is a necessary component for an individual to maintain a healthy lifestyle, an imbalance of these components can potentially put people in difficult situations as it relates to their survival. Fear can be a humbling experience when it is not balanced with foresight, the nuances of that particular experience instills a subconscious thought in an individual that resonates with fear, in terms of people realizing their mistakes and making the necessary adjustments in life.
I agree, in my view, fear is very powerful “it paralyzes you from doing the work” , it makes everything seem “harder” or impossible to do when
The monster tried to understand the meaning of “beauty”. He somewhat understood why people he had interacted with had treated him ill, and he realized that it was because they were frightened by his hideous appearance. “The absolute other cannot be selfed, that the monster has properties which will not be constrained by proper measure”(Spivak). This goes back to the idea of “other”, now the monster himself understands that he is different from human, that he doesn’t have the properties as human do so he must be interior to them.
When we are created into this world it’s not by the choice of our own. However, we are created most times out of love from our creator. Like a baby just newly born into this world needs to feel its mothers touch, scent, and security. The bonding makes you feel a connection to your maker of the world and without it a person may feel lost, abandoned, and unloved. From the beginning we hope to build our self-esteem through the love of our creator. Sadly, most people are not loved or accepted by their creator. This leads to a person lashing out in a number of ways that society views unconventional due to the lack of understanding that person suffers through abandonment alone. In the novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley illustrates the theme of monstrosity
In the words of Bertrand Russell, “Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom” (Russell). Fear causes many problems in our lives. Fear influences many of a person’s actions and decisions. However, people usually regret the decisions or actions they made out of fear. Also, these actions and decisions can cause problems for those people in their future. Fear is a harmful emotion, for it clouds people’s judgement, disables them from taking action, and causes them to make decisions that they will regret later.
Like a child longs for a mother’s love, the monster longs for the love of his creator. When the monster was first created, Victor says that the monster looked at him “while a grin wrinkled his cheeks.” The monster looks at Victor with love and instead of receiving love in return, he receives complete rejection. The monster cannot understand why his own creator does not love him like God loved Adam. The monster believes he should be like Adam but is “rather the fallen angel.” God made man in his own image and loved Adam even with his flaws. Yet, victor made “a monster so hideous that [Victor] turned from [his creation] in disgust.” This rejection from Victor makes the monster angry and
According to Devine (1989), automatic processing involves the unconscious retrieval of obtained associations that develop through memory repetition; this process links with stimulus cues in the environment. The intense nature of automaticity is that an individual cannot escape or try to ignore the process (Devine, 1989). People build and enforce stereotypes through this automatic process and have no conscious control of memory retrievals. Human bodies take a lot of effort to function, but automatic processing requires little effort. People, therefore, mostly rely on automatic thinking, rather than controlled. This is why some researchers argue that automatic processing is why stereotyping is inevitable; because automaticity is easier, it does not mean controlled thinking cannot disband stereotypes (Devine, 1989). Controlled thinking is intentional and requires active participation of an individual. This proce...
In a real life situation one may subconsciously use perceptual choice when seeing and meeting other people, such as, “through the process of selective attention, the brain picks out the information that is important to us and discards the rest” (Folk & Remington, 1998; Kramer et al., 2000). For a better understanding of how the mind works, an experiment was done to confirm the perceptions that people create. Three subjects were chosen to prove that people are mindlessly creating judgment and generalizat...
The Monster’s confusion about the world and his inability to understand why he cannot simply be accepted in society drives his actions. Dutoit elaborates on the not so apparent truth that The Monster goes to great lengths to assimilate by acquiring language, understanding mannerisms and participating in customs. The Monster grows fond of a family, at first he watches them carefully, paying close attention to the details of their life and even steals food, unaware of their poverty. Supporting evidence which allows for the conclusion that he is innately good and simply longing for domesticity is shown by The Monsters willingness to help the family with chores, in secret of course. Nevertheless, he is universally shunned by everyone he encounters, except for the old blind man who was willing to have a social connection with him, until his family returned home and in fear rebelled against The Monster. This constant exile only leads to a greater alienation from the social world he deeply longs to be a part of. Unfortunately, due to his outward appearance, his good intentions are ill received by the people he
Individuals’ mechanical systems for evaluating the world developed over the course of evolutionary history. Such mental operations provide tools for understanding the circumstances, assessing the important concepts, and heartening behavior without having to think or actually thinking at all. These automated preferences are called implicit attitudes.
This instance of blood flowing to the brain creates fear in order to express one self`s purest form. According to J. Sage Elwell an assistant professor at TCU, has concluded from his book Crisis of Transcendence, “fear is releasing control of our data selves to unknown forces” (Elwell). Around the aspect of all human lives will always lie lurking variables. Variables in which we have no control of because things occur so fast in life human`s identity must always continue to change and grow. However, through fear our identity becomes personified as newborn babies embracing light for the first time, constantly blinking, constantly adjusting. This transcendence of self identity rose to the forthcoming of one 's self, during the dilemma of decision making. Creating a new sense of fear, which transpires in the underlying concept of risk. Following this same thought Pema Chodron an American, Tibetan Buddhist, stated “Fear is a natural reaction moving closer to the truth” (Chodron). The truth which all humans fear knowing. Due to the fact the truth brings more than what is called for, especially for humans who already fear themselves. Since, no human wants to know their true self because it can cause mentally devastating actions. One true self identity might either be good or bad, yet; humans fear this truth for the reasons of their identity is not what