...general idea of passion has a positive connotation in our society, being perceived as something that motivates us and helps us focus on a certain subject. However, Helvétius found the darker side of passion, which is quite unexpected due to passion’s association with positive essence. As a philosopher in the 18th century, Claude-Adrien Helvétius focused on the human’s mind and how we should behave as an individual who has full capability to resist temptations, thus living a “better life”. In this short essay Grand Illusions, Helvétius presents his idea of why passion blinds people and how it makes people short-term thinkers rather than thoughtful thinkers. Since his idea of passion is so different from what the society have been perceiving, it could have been much easier for him to use impactful words and try to force his idea through the readers’ minds with strong essay, but Helvétius rather chose to present his topic in a personal, easy-to-approach, but intelligible, persuasive, and coherent way which...
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... The most important point that author Russell Baker, made in his title essay, “On Becoming a Writer”, was he wanted to become a writer at the age of sixteen. He said, “that coming out of high school most sixteen year’s old didn’t think about becoming a writer”. But being a writer was the only thing he had interest in. In some obvious ways of thinking he perceived writing was done by the rich but, he considered writing not to be a job that you can make a good earning from. The notion of him becoming a writer was self-explanatory because, he already thought of himself as a writer where it gives him a sense of identity. Being that he was a skillful, and talented great writer. In his thoughts of becoming a writer he was unsure that could be a passion of his. It wasn’t until his third year that the possibility of becoming a writer took hold. By then he was bored with English, and everything associated with it. Why is that? He thought the English grammar was dull, and buffing because of the assignments he did. He felt his assignments turned out to be compositions. Meaning they was leaden with lackluster paragraphs that was not appealing to the teachers once they read them. Except for one teacher Mr. Fleagle, it was an essay that he read, “The Art of Eating Spaghetti.”, that he took interest in his essays. Mr. Fleagle was describe by Mr. Baker, as a teacher who was dull and didn’t have the ability to insight his classroom...
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...DiAngelo ENG112 March 31st, 2014 In Favor of Love Laura Kipnis, in her essay Against love, touches many aspects of love. It is a sensitive topic simply because love brings out many different opinions and beliefs. The author argues the fact that in order to have a good relationship and love we need to meet creating requirements like good communication, coherence and close relationship or intimacy. It is an interesting essay. What quite caught my attention is that at the beginning of the essay, the author says “Love is, as we know, a mysterious and controlling force. It has vast power over our thoughts and life decisions. It demands our loyalty, and we, in turn, freely comply. (Kipnis 734). This is the simplest way to explain what love is about. When people realize that you really love someone we do and say things you never imagine. Love is an important part of life. Life without love is like an ocean without water. Love is not something you find on the streets or stumble on. It grows on you with time. On the essay, the author, also refers about passion. “Of course, the parties involved must work at keeping passion alive ….. (Kipnis 736). Passion can be described in two words: strong and uncontrollable. We can’t control how we feel about the people, activities and ideas in our lives. Passion unfortunately is not always a good thing especially it can make a person incompetent. Everyone has a passion of their own and their pursue it in different ways. Love can and will make...
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...her essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Laura Mulvey argues that Classical Hollywood cinema encourages spectators to look at women and identify with men. Female stars receive the look, while male stars control the narrative and dominate space. She writes, “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness,” (205). What kind of looks, gazes, or points of identification structure (or destabilize) The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Th. Dreyer, 1928)? Your response should engage Mulvey’s claims. The Passion of Joan of Arc is a silent film directed by Carl Th. Dreyer made in France in 1928. In Laura Mulvey's essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” she argues that the female stars receive the look, while male stars take control of film space. She also points out that the women’s role in the Classical Hollywood cinema is to satisfy the viewer and to be a passive character, i.e. being pleasant to look at. This essay will argue Mulvey's analysis such as: active/man and passive/female, a woman/actress being looked at as an attractive object and the female role in the cinema industry depicted by The Passion of...
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...Introduction to the General Paper Essay I was literally eating chicken rice one afternoon when I suddenly realised eerie parallels between the General Paper essay and dating. From there, I set out to detail the 5 stages of dating and apply these lessons to writing the General Paper essay. For the uninitiated, this is meant to an accessible. informal introductory guide to acquaint you with the General Paper essay. For the more experienced, you may still pick up some pointers. For everyone, I hope you have a few laughs. (Disclaimer: dating advice is semi-questionable, follow at your own risk; essay-writing advice is not questionable, ignore at your own risk.) Stage 0: Grooming your self yourself At this point you are not even ready to step into the game yet. Don't be overzealous! If you want to make a serious entrance into the dating game you need to first work on grooming yourself into someone you have self-respect for. This means exercising. Bodybuilding. Learning how to dress tastefully. Engaging with your passions. Being active, up-and-about, doing things for yourself and not -...
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...Summary of “I Was a Teenage Hijabi Hockey Player” In Shema Khan’s essay “I Was a Teenage Hijabi Hockey Player” she humorously defends some of the stereotypes associated with her religion. As she begins a casual conversation about hockey over lunch, Khan notices her colleagues’ disbelief. Female Muslims aren’t expected to follow or be interested in hockey, or any sport for that matter. In response, Khan goes on to display her knowledge and passion of the Montreal Canadiens. She lists players, stats, and facts just like any true hockey fan would. Furthermore, Khan recounts playing street hockey as a child; choosing a player she idolized to play as. Lastly, Khan further shows her passion for the sport as she describes her efforts to start a women’s intramural league at Harvard. Khan concludes her essay in the present; playing street hockey with her kids as she did in her childhood. Thus, further proving her passion for hockey, and shattering a stereotype. Summary of “What We Are Fighting For” In his essay “What We Are Fighting For”, Rex Murphy clarifies the reasons for Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan. To begin, Murphy states Canada’s aid in eradicating the Taliban Government was because of our country’s alliance with the USA, as well as in retaliation of the Candians killed on 9/11. He continues on to say that in order to protect against future attacks, the afghani citizens would need assistance in building a new type of government. In addition, Murphy explains that Canadian...
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...Thank you for allowing me to read your essay. I feel that I know you after reading it, in fact I felt that we had sat down over a coffee and had a chat. I felt throughout reading it that you were exploring your personal experiences and what you had learnt about yourself through the years. I enjoyed your anecdotes that give strength to your reasons on why you feel this area of your work is a strength. I enjoyed how you discussed your previous work career and all its perks and how this all lead from personal experience into a new career path for you. This showed how much passion really is important to you and something that should be valued in the care community. I would like to note that I did not feel that I knew your personal strength until half way through the essay. I felt that you needed to identify this in your introduction . Maybe add it to your first statement: Making my career switch recently…that I possess strengths such as my passion for my work. Not sure how you would like to word it, just that it is needed in the introduction. I feel you may also benefit from splitting your introduction around the area that you state : However, I never truly felt I had strength or ability in any of it. I feel that this could be your first paragraph, see how you feel I just think it will make it a stronger essay. It would need to be slightly re worded such as : Working in corporate management I never felt like I had any strengths (i would leave out abilities). I found...
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...Reaction Paper - Nonfiction ENG/125 - Literature in Society Reaction Paper - Nonfiction In class this week our discussion was about nonfiction and some differences from fiction. Google dictionary (n.d.) states “nonfiction is prose writing that is based on facts, real events, and real people, such as biography and history.” For our assignment this week we were asked to select two of the five nonfiction texts from our week four readings. After thoughtful consideration, I have chosen to write my reaction paper about “On Going Home,” by Joan Didion and “Who Will Light the Incense When Mother’s Gone?” by Andrew Lam. In any form of writing the reader can find various literary elements such as plot, character, setting, theme, and point of view. Also when a writer writes they have a purpose in mind. The writers purpose might be to inform, persuade, or entertain their readers. The writer may also want to describe something to the reader. In both “On Going Home,” by Joan Didion and “Who Will Light the Incense When Mother’s Gone?” by Andrew Lam I consider the theme to be the main element of both essays. In “On Going Home”, Didion’s theme is that of belonging and family. In Didion’s text, she makes use of three of the four main purposes of writing. Didion’s very first sentence is informing the reader as to why she is going home. The sentence reads “I am home for my daughter’s first birthday.” (Barnet, Burto, & Cain, 2014, 20111, 2007, 2005, 2003, p. 636) Didion...
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...Enlightenment in Fifth Business: The Beauty of Change Fiona Doomasia West Carleton Secondary School Ms. Bell (e-Learning with O.C.D.S.B.) ENG4UT Monday, July 13, 2015 Enlightenment in Fifth Business: The Beauty of Change Millions of people devote their entire lives to achieving enlightenment; however, very few people truly understand how to do this, and what it feels like. Enlightenment is an abstract concept of attaining knowledge and reaching self awareness. Despite the ambiguity in the meaning of enlightenment, today’s society believes that it will guarantee self satisfaction. In Fifth Business, Robertson Davies portrays a man’s quest for enlightenment through his unpredictable life journey. Every change in Dunstan Ramsay’s life journey teaches him a valuable life lesson, and changes him for the better, resulting in his discovery of enlightenment. The road to enlightenment is paved by the insight on life that Dunstan gains as he changes his physical locations over the course of the novel. It is also clear that change can be enlightening when looking at the important characteristics that Dunstan develops from the variety of people that he surrounds himself with throughout life. Lastly, the knowledge that Dunstan learns through his many ambition changes proves to help him find personal enlightenment. Through the principles that Dunstan learns from his perpetual changes in setting, friends and ambitions, Davies uses Dunstan’s life journey to show that in order to...
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...Liking is for cowards. Go for what hurts Jonathan Franzen, an American novelist and essayist, wrote the essay “Liking is for cowards. Go for what hurts” in The New York Times in 2011. Franzen’s essay is mainly about the increasing relationship between humans and technology, where he criticizes the development of the narcissism in the modern time. He writes about how to love and like in real life and in consumer technology. Franzen begins the essay with his own example of his relationship to his old smartphone and his new one. He describes his own addiction to the new Blackberry and he “wanted to keep fondling” the new blackberry even though he didn’t have anybody to reach. He finds safety in the smartphone because it won´t hurt you and it’s always available and writes that the “beloved object asks for nothing and gives everything, instantly, and makes us feel powerful, and doesn’t throw terrible scenes when it’s replaced by an even sexier object.” ll.49-53. Franzen describes therefore his blackberry as a girlfriend. But vanity has become more popular these days and the term “liking “ someone’s picture or status on Facebook is stated as “commercial culture’s substitute for loving” (ll.84-84), and is a superficial way of saying that you “like” the person. Franzen writes that we can form our own lives through the media and make it more interesting for others to see and he blames it because of its increasing narcissism and the fakeness of “liking”. But as I mentioned before, this...
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...Rhetorical Essay Rock Star and AIDS activist, Bono, in his commencement speech to the ’04 class of UPENN (entitled “Because We Can, We Must”) explains that since we are able to, we should find a cause and fight for it. Bono’s sole purpose is to inspire the UPENN graduates to make a difference in this world.. He adopts an informal tone in order to connect with and motivate his primary audience, the graduates, and to engage his secondary audience, the family (parents, grandparents, etc.) of the graduates. Bono begins his speech by explaining why he is at UPENN giving this speech and by sharing a personal anecdote (a pattern that is seen throughout his speech). His first sentence is a simple, declarative statement, “My name is Bono, and I am a rock star.” He opens with this kind of sentence to not only catch the attention of the audience, but to also establish his informal tone which is continued throughout the entire speech. His use of first person also makes the essay in entirety more relatable. While contemplating why someone like him was being honored with the title Doctor of Law and allowed to give a speech, Bono compares the situation to “[a] King Charles spaniels in little tartan sweats and hats” claiming “it’s not natural.” This self-deprecating statement is effective in establishing an informal tone because it sets Bono up to be seen as equal, to anyone sitting in there listening to him. He goes on to share a story about how he came to realize his passion for music...
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...Once Upon a Shop Once Upon a Shop Is an essay, written by the British Writer Jeanette Winterson. The essay was published in the newspaper The Observer, June 13, 2010. The essay centres around her shop, Verde, in East London. Jeannette Winterson talks about the changes in London and huge firms overtake of smaller individual shops. Politics of the world is influenced money. Huge cooperation are the ones with the big money. The government decides through taxes who pays more, and who pays less. The government would benefit far more from huge cooperation, adding jobs and benefits the BNP positively. This makes the conditions for small businesses unsustainable. Small businesses build by passion and hard labour are insignificant for the government. Passion doesn’t provide profit. Profit which the huge companies hungers for. Huge cooperation’s competition is also too though for small private businesses. “I started the shop because I believe working from the bottom up is a good idea. Verde can’t tackle Tesco round the corner, nor can it change the fixed supply chains and discounting that make it so hard for small shops to compete with big business.”(page 10 line 249-255). In the beginning of her essay, she talks uses an historic view to tell the story of her shop. She starts by telling that she opened her first veg shop in Spitalsfields in 1805. This is clearly not true, but she explains that it is because of her townhouse age and history. Her house was built in the 1790’s and has...
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...dispute between two people. It is the role of the leader to organize people into groups, and according to their skills to make sure they fully participate in problem-solving. They ensure peoples acknowledge the problem and work toward finding the solution. Consequently, everyone in this world requires leadership qualities at one point in their lives. Thus, personal leadership philosophy is an important tool that defines peoples’ value, behaviors and what they can do. Articulating personal leadership philosophy helps in telling others what they expect from a person. In this essay, I will develop and articulate my personal leadership philosophy, and integrate it with human resource management theories to bring up a well argued stand point. While I was working on an industrial attachment at Deloitte Company, we contracted an oil and gas company, to create and execute an email migration strategy that involved about 1500 employees at their various branches. In the initial stages, the contracted company introduced Smith, who was the project leader. While, in the workshop, the contracted company explained to everyone that, as part of their culture, leadership opportunity was open to all participants. This was intended to allow everyone to guide in the execution of the project. However, it was Smith opportunity to oversee the implementation process. After Smith lead the project for a short while, it became obvious that he did not possess the natural skills for leading a group of informed...
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...variants, such as Jeanette Wintersons’ vegetable shop” Verde”, which she writes about in her personal essay” Once upon a shop”, aren’t able to cope with. An analysis of “Once upon a shop” shows which challenges small private shows have in the food industry today, and through Jeanette Winterson’s argument-tation we get an insight into her attitude toward the subject and what she advocates for. As modern people we might take it as “that’s how the market works”, but Winterson’s see the domi-nance of big food chains as a problem. Her personal essay is an advocating essay where she ex-presses her opinions about food industry and how it has changed. Thereby, it is interesting to take a look at how she argues. Is her arguments present in a way that works advocating and actually makes the reader think and act different in proportion to the food industry? If you look at her way of arguing, then the most prominent element in the argumentation is her way of using own experiences and making it clear to the reader that it is her own view on the situation, which is clear when she writes: “We do not do as other countries in Europe do and implement a sliding-scale business rate, so Verde has to pay the same money as an estate agent or a mobile phone outlet. I think this is wrong. If we want the delightful sustainable small shops we all adore in France or Italy, we have to persuade the government to be realistic about the rates.” (page 3, line 13-16) Her argument is that the...
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...I really enjoyed reading the essay by Kim Zorn Caputo. As I began reading the essay, I immediately imagined myself in her place. I then thought of my own memories of going to community pool entered my mind. When Kim spoke about artists yearning for the past, I interpreted this as her speaking of artists (including herself) wanting to rewrite their own history through their art and wanting to go back to yesteryears. When creating art, you can create any feeling or illustration you wish. When she talks about Thamyris and her feeling of great loss, I imagine her speaking of being punished for longing. She speaks about longing and wanting something so badly and being punished by not being able to have them. I really liked what she said about the drive to remember and that the creation of art is driven by memory. This is true, I suppose because without memory, how would you create art. In photography, I think this applies really well because your photographs are your memory, they are your creation. I love being creative and expressing myself through art, so what she wrote really spoke to me. I sometimes find myself with the desire to create art and find deep meaning in life and I felt this feeling being explained in her essay. She talked about the many years of ancient voices, sacred texts, laboratory rats, Capitol Hill, and CNN and I believe this shows her passion for history and for finding purpose. Every generation learns more and discovers more and passes this on, benefitting...
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