...‘Reality is based on the people and experiences we encounter.’ I see the shadows of this We base our reality on the experiences we have which is a direct effect of what the media does in portraying what individuals my age are supposed to look like and behave. After reading Michael Leunig’s article ‘Thou Shalt be attractive’, I have come to realise what the media does to my reality and how it makes me alter my identity. The important questions raised in the article shows exactly how reality is based on the experience we have with the media. As a teenager trying to go through high school I am surrounded by the media altering my reality. The media acts as ‘dictator’; someone who has complete control over me and an overwhelming pressure to be something that it wants me to be. In the magazines I read and the shows I watch on TV, an image is portrayed to me of what beauty is. In the words of Leunig “the limbs are longs, the smile loaded and the eyes with promise, the bottom tightly bound”. However, after reading Leunig’s article I have come to realise that this image the media portrays is nearly impossible. I now see that the media affects the way I view my reality. How am I supposed to look like that? I often question looking at these beautiful women and handsome men. The media have an overwhelming command that ‘thou shall be attractive’, but Leunig’s article teaches me that beauty is subjective and the task of trying to be like the people in the magazine is a huge weight that...
Words: 903 - Pages: 4
...Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that is concerned with the nature of existence. Metaphysics is concerned with explaining the ways things are by trying to answer the question “What is”, “what is reality”, what is free will”. It encompasses everything that exists, as well as the nature of existence itself. Compared to other branches of Philosophy such as epistemology that deals with things like the sources of justification, knowledge, metaphysics is concerned with explaining the way things are in the physical world. This is not the origin of the term The term “Metaphysics” comes from the Greek term “meta” meaning “after the Physics”. Although the term metaphysics generally makes sense in the way that it partially refers to things outside of and beyond the natural science. Instead, the term was used by later editors of Aristotle. Aristotle had written several books on matter and physics, and followed those volumes with works on ontology and other broad subjects. These editors referred to them as “The books that came after the books on physics” or “metaphysics”. Aristotle referred to metaphysics as “first philosophy”. This term was also used by some other philosopher like Descartes whose primary work focused on the subject of metaphysics. Metaphysical systems come in three main component: Physical system such as Kant’s, ideologies which are usually political, moral or other practical philosophical systems; and other religions which in their theologies attempt to create...
Words: 379 - Pages: 2
...us to the universal clock & the symphony tells us, we are tuned with a 'wrong sense of time’... its got a lot to do with our "state of the heart"..."so keep it in good shape folks"... We are not programmed to sleep at night by birth, but by habit...and our lifestyles…try working in night shifts and the boundaries of night and day dissolve from the mind...the time you get for the rest (watever and any amount) becomes then night for you. Our mind is trapped in this Virtual reality created by us…its not true…there are boundaries beyond just day and night...there is openness...open space...waiting to be known..."FREE THE MINDS" E=MC2 explains, If we are able to travel faster than light then the distance travelled would be lesser in time...time would appear slow to us and travel through space, back and forth in future and past would be easier. It reminds me of the movie MATRIX. Its so true, what NEO said 'our minds are enslaved, trapped in the reality created around us. We never try to break this reality…a virtual one. I saw the free runners (Parkour) on discovery channel...these guys can run on any surface...horizontal or vertical...
Words: 692 - Pages: 3
...Literature – Henrik Ibsen Abstract: In this essay, Ibsen’s plays, The Wild Duck, and Ghosts are considered in relation to themes of illusions and realities. In both plays, families are held together by illusions, yet torn apart by truths that have been concealed to protect the children. Ibsen’s use of artistic realism is an ironic art form where illusions and realisms are contradicted to reveal the deeper conflicts of ordinary lives. Ibsen presents the complicated realities of ordinary lives and emphasizes the fact that there are always many realities -- just as there are many illusions. Title: Illusions and Realities in Ibsen’s Plays The Wild Duck and Ghosts Introduction In Ibsen’s The Wild Duck, illusions and reality are set into a conflict within the story of a son’s personal desire to confront idealism. Throughout much of the play, the son, Greger, argues the value of truth with the reluctant Dr. Relling. Relling insists on the importance of illusions, but fails to discourage Greger’s intentions and a play that begins as a comedy quickly turns into a tragedy because of these conflicts. At the heart of the illusions in this play are the ways that people assume many roles in a family, impersonating multiple ideals as ways for managing their relationships. This theme of impersonation is also developed in Ibsen’s Ghosts, where family relations are slowly undone as the illusions and deceptions are stripped away. In both plays, deceptions are strategic...
Words: 922 - Pages: 4
...John Locke was a 17th-century English philosopher whose ideas formed the foundation of liberal democracy and greatly influenced both the American and French revolutions. His contributions to philosophy include the theory of knowledge known as empiricism, which addressed the limits of what we can understand about the nature of reality. Locke held that our understanding of reality ultimately derives from what we have experienced through the senses. The political implications of his theories included the notions that all people are born equal and that education can free people from the subjugation of tyranny. Locke also believed that government had a moral obligation to guarantee that individuals always retained sovereignty over their own rights, including ownership of property that resulted from their own labor. We may remark, in passing, that the modern theory of the transmutation of species is nothing but an application of Locke's teaching that species have no objective reality. Let us also note the important fact that this extreme nominalism closely approximates extreme realism. Scholastic nominalism denies the reality of species, and absolutely affirms the reality of individuals to the exclusion of everything else. In this sense Leibniz is a nominalist. English nominalism, from which the theory of transformation takes its rise, denies not only the existence of species, but also the stability of the individuals themselves. All things, says Locke, besides their author, are liable...
Words: 1276 - Pages: 6
...Is there a set distinction between reality and illusions? Can someone’s illusions be their reality? What happens if one is lost within the abyss of such a struggle? Magical realism is somewhat of an explanation for such struggle. Magical Realism is a form of art, which allows people to view the world differently. It deals with emotions, meaning, and mystery in trying to figure out what life is, but only through a distinct imagination and willingness to learn can someone understand such feelings and actions. Both Pedro Paramo, from Pedro Paramo, and Will Atenton, from the movie “Dream House”, are lost within the lives that they believed to be reality but are in fact illusions. Both characters live within a life with their wives that are perceived to be true, but are in fact completely wrong. Do they figure it out? Will Atenton lives in this illusion in which him, his wife, and two daughters have just moved into a new home whose previous owners were killed and the father was sent to a psychiatric ward. The father, Peter Ward, allegedly killed his wife and two daughters only after being accidently shot in the head, himself, by his wife. Atenton searched for the answers just to be told by the psychiatric ward, which once held Peter Ward, that he is Peter Ward. He had created a new identity to cope with the death of his family. Upon figuring out that he in fact is Peter Ward, he also realizes that his perception of his children and wife were all illusions. How could it...
Words: 914 - Pages: 4
...morally and spiritually polluted. Eugenides writes that “Winter is the season of alcoholism and despair” (175). If this is the case then the entire novel seems to be one eternal winter. Or one could consider summer in comparison to winter, as the season of suicide, and no matter what the season, the world in the novel is a cruel, dark, hopeless place. The world is viewed in the novel as a sort of wasteland from which mankind has attempted to escape, moving to Suburbia seeking perfection and thus salvation. Only perfection is an unrealistic goal, and is therefore naturally unobtainable. Part of the American ideal of happiness is to strive for the unobtainable. The suburbs only exist as an attempt to cover up reality, hiding problems, worries, anxieties, realities, and skeletons behind the monotonous lawns, and closed doors. This theme is repeated throughout the novel. For example, in the line that reads: “What my yia yia could never understand about America was why everyone pretended to be happy all the time” (175). Perhaps Eugenides is encouraging us to question this American Value of perfection and perfect happiness. “Old Mrs. Karafilis…lived in the basement waiting to die”...
Words: 4308 - Pages: 18
...in a temporary shelter. Afterwards she is place in EAU emergency assistance unit which was not a very comfortable place, all this while trying to finish her associate’s degree. You can easily see how Bader uses specific details in people’s life she is writing about. Bader not only notes by quoting the people who say the need of statistics to prove the astonishing number of homeless college students. She also utilizes real names and ages of real people, so the reader can feel and see the reality. Bader continues to focus on the lack of programs of day care that are out there for people who are homeless and with kids. She uses quotes that clearly show how unprepared this country is when it comes to homeless students she strategically inputs the following quote “As far as I know, no college has ever asked for help in reaching homeless students,” Another way Bader could have made her point a bit more explicit is by writing her experience as a professor and having to deal with a lot of students whose home situation is affecting their schoolwork. As a professor that took the time to write this piece we can clearly see her concern about her students. Bader could have giving the reader personal experience to further prove her point, and about how she deals with this type of...
Words: 310 - Pages: 2
...Gabriel García Márquez: Life Influences and Magical Realism September 19, 2012 Introduction The goal of this project proposal is to present background on the subjects of realism, magical realism, and Gabriel García Márquez. It will go in depth into Gabriel’s life as well as define the difference between realism and magical realism. The ultimate goal is to present a valid project idea pertaining to the three subjects previously mentioned; the project being a combination of a well-researched paper and other supplemental pieces. Background Gabriel García Márquez Gabriel José García Márquez, born on March 6, 1928, is an accomplished story writer, journalist, screenwriter, and novelist. He has been presented with several awards and honors, including the 1972 Rómulo Gallegos Prize, the 1972 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the 1981 French Legion of Honor, and the 1982 Nobel Prize in Literature. García Márquez was said to be one of the most significant authors of the 20th century. Not only are his works of literature successful, he is also noteworthy for the style with which he writes. He uses a magical realism style which takes realistic events and places, and adds an aspect of magic to them. García Márquez is the first widely known user of this style; he is often credited with commercializing it. Gabriel García Márquez was born in Aracataca, Columbia on March 6, 1927 to Luisa Santiago Márquez Iguarán and Gabriel Eligio García. García Márquez was raised...
Words: 1310 - Pages: 6
...More Than One Reality By: Ethan Caldwell Reality is kind of like a memory. Everyone has their own different ideas of what it should be but none are necessarily the truth. For example two people who were both in the great depression could have totally different thoughts on the difficult times. While one could have lived on the streets struggling every day to find food and water, the other could have been among the few rich people and lived in luxury. Both of them would have very different memories about how times were back then. The same goes for reality. While we all might agree on what is real or not our thoughts on reality could be on different sides of the spectrum. The definition of reality is “the state or quality of having existence or substance.” If something is real to me then that’s my reality and same goes for someone else, so who’s to say that there isn’t more than one reality and why is humanity so interested in reality? I believe that humanity is so interested in reality because we are naturally curious. They say curiosity killed the cat and I believe that saying is very true. We as humans always want our questions answered be it a simple question like two plus two or a complex question like what is reality with no real answer yet. This curiosity is just part of our nature and it can lead to obsessions. Some people are so obsessed with finding the answer to questions that they devote their whole life to it and this obsession consumes them. Even if we...
Words: 1220 - Pages: 5
...Name: Loknath Koirala Section: D Roll No.: 30 Instructor: Mr. Bal Bdr. Thapa ENGL 552 (Ideas and Themes in Poetry) 15th Sep 2015 War as a Medium to Freedom in Stephen Crane's "For War is Kind" The poem "For War is Kind" has been interpreted several times as a satire on war. War is portrayed as a medium that brings life to the end. Death has been taken as something that is cruel, something that is evil. With the insights from the teaching of Eastern school of philosophy, looking into the lines of the poem, new directions can be provided to the vision towards death. This paper drags the poem out from the stream of satire and portrays death as a force responsible for ultimate freedom and realization. Stephen Crane, in "For War is Kind", tries to portray war as a medium that makes the span of illusion short. In the darkness, one easily gets frightened believing rope a snake because of illusion. Because of illusion death seems as an end to everything and life only truth. Life appears as the only 'ultimate truth'. We believe after life everything is put to an end. If so, where were we before the birth? We were nowhere. We are expressed for a moment of time as the air and water are manifested into a bubble for a couple of minute. This manifestation is temporary and illusive and they are "neither permanent, nor the possessions themselves everlasting" (Goyandaka 58). Life is like a tide, which arises from the same bottom of ocean where it settles. Just for a moment of time we distinguish...
Words: 1332 - Pages: 6
...standardized in a sterile and bureaucratic operation. This is not a gratuitous assertion. We will later clarify the radical distinction between knowing and memorizing and the reasons why we attach such importance to the adult literacy process. But first, some words about the socio-historical conditioning of the thinking presented here, as well as an explanation of the necessity for critical reflection on such conditioning. From a non-dualistic viewpoint, thought and language, constituting a whole, always refer to the reality of the thinking subject. Authentic thought-language is generated in the dialectical relationship between the subject and his concrete historical and cultural reality. In the case of the alienated cultural processes characteristic of dependent or object societies, thought-language itself is alienated, whence the fact that these societies do not manifest an authentic thought of their own during the periods of most acute alienation. Reality as it is thought...
Words: 6021 - Pages: 25
...it’s still in controversy As parents and teacher, we must aware of this. Because young children are naïve- they believe all that they are told. The world is a new and wonderful place for young children, and one marked by ability to absorbed seemingly endless amounts of information from the environment around him or her. Fantasy characters are not only unnecessary, they also quite damaging. Because children believe what they are told, and because they lack the experience to it information within accurate beliefs about how the world works, they will accept our fantasy explanations with such as much legitimacy as if we’d offered realistic one. Are angles really bowling when thunders are? Do acorns and caterpillars really sing? What Is Reality? Reality is what you perceive through your senses, what is recognized by the cerebral cortex. This means that the only way we can tell whether something is...
Words: 2755 - Pages: 12
...One of our beginning Youth Pastor, whose name is Mark, over heard me talking to one of our youth’s parents. The parents stated that they feared the college in which their oldest daughter was attending, was turning her against God. However, her daughter assured them that God is still important to her, but she still believed in some different things from in which her parents believe. Overall, after hearing the conversation, the beginning Youth Pastor had asked me, “What is the reality about today’s youth culture & their view of Christianity & truth?” My first quote to him was from chapter 1 of McDowell textbook, “Much of what they believe about Christianity, truth, reality, and the church comes from a distorted view they have gleaned from the world around them . It’s not that they haven’t embraced a version of Christianity; it’s simply that the version they believe in is not built on the true foundation of what biblical Christianity is all about. In saying that, today more and more kids struggle with Christianity, our young people have distorted views of Christianity. Before we can reach today’s youth with the truth of the Gospel, we need to see what they see and hear what they hear, quote chapter 3 of Mc Dowell textbook. We need to catch the messages encrypted in their culture and understand what’s really being communicated. Each generation on youth has a culture of its own. To an outsider, it can be puzzling at best and frightening at worst, but we cannot roll over...
Words: 523 - Pages: 3
...twentieth-century American poetry. In addition, Bronk is always explicit visually and resonant musically. His work keeps alive a New England poetic tradition, evoking nature and the seasons, winter most of all, and delving into the nature of reality or truth. These concerns were firmly established early in twentieth-century American poetry by the New England poets Robert FROST and Wallace STEVENS, then later by, along with Bronk, Robert CREELEY and George OPPEN, and in the nineteenth century by Henry David Thoreau (an especially strong influence on Bronk), Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Emily Dickinson. Bronk was born in Fort Edward, near Hudson Falls, New York where he lived his entire life except for his student years at Dartmouth College and Harvard University, a period of military service during World War II and a brief stint as an instructor at Union College. Even after he gained a wide readership, Bronk shrank from public attention and concentrated on his immediate surroundings. His writing expresses his refusal to compromise his life style and point of view as in his poem "The Abnegation" (1971): "I will not / be less than I am to be more human." He believes that what he knows of the world is only a semblance of the truth at best. Reality exists and he is able to intuit its existence, but it is finally beyond his grasp. Despite Bronk’s asceticism, he was constantly sought out by readers and many poets who would journey to Hudson Falls to visit; for young poets, this trip was...
Words: 1485 - Pages: 6
