Heads or Tails?- Hamlet

Throughout the play of Hamlet, characters die and most importantly Hamlet tries to decide the death of his father, King Claudius, and even himself. What is death? What does it hold? What does it mean? What does it result in? Hamlet claims it to be “a sleep to say we end” as well as a more transcendental view from King Claudius of “passing through nature to eternity”. Many wonder upon how much death hurts. Personally I’ve always had the mindset to die in my own sleep. A “painless sleep” so to say. However, Hamlet seems to stab down the fear of death’s pain (haha, get it? stab). What Hamlet seems the most frustrated with is the pain in life. He sees that the need for life ironically takes away the life within a person. When Hamlet “loses” his father’s life, it eats away him from inside out. An internal decay. He finds that living is the exact thing that is killing him. Strangely enough, it seems that he wants to stay alive for the sake of the love of his mother and revenge. Hamlet remains torn for both life and death. With views as polar as the sides of a coin, it’s no wonder that Hamlet has driven himself mad.

What if we knew everything? By that I mean, when we met somebody, we knew everything about them; if we knew all of their memories, past, and childhood. What if we felt the feeling of failure, the vision of misty eyes, the movement of the chilly wind. What if we held the soft doll in our hands, opened the book to the aging smell, tasted the sweet salt of the sea. What if our mother never came home, the ringing never stopped, the cold tear-washed blade on our chest. We slip on the rocks, climb till our hands rub bare, read our tired eyes to sleep. Would we ever judge anymore? Could we criticize somebody else if we had felt and experienced what they had? Would we even be ourselves anymore, unique? David Sedaris’s intake of Hugh’s childhood seems to make himself rather more dynamic. He has his own memories, but now he has a greater variety to choose from for enjoyment. He has a larger selection to create his adventure. Sedaris’s thinking has become more exciting in this way, but he didn’t have powers. He didn’t have some supernatural ability to take somebody’s memory. He listened. He conversed and took. He claimed to be a thief, but what kind of robber is notorious for taking what is willingly given? All we have to do is listen.

Discover Our End - Raymo Restraint

Since childhood, we are all told to watch out for chemicals. We have to watch out for laundry detergent, bleach, and dishwasher fluid. Even the health inducing handsoap was considered a fatal execution in the mouth. The unknown was always dangerous. Naturally, most children’s curiosity outweigh the thoughts of consequences and harm is done. This sort of experimentation is done consecutively throughout childhood, learning lessons of what not to deal with. Unfortunately, the main lesson is never learned. The caution that needs to be tied with venturing seems to always fall short. Chet Raymo’s piece “A Measure of Restraint” addresses this problem. It seems that humanity will never learn its lesson. Humans will always strive to be better, faster, flashier, and stronger. So often is does the gung-ho mentality backfire and can sometimes hurt more than it helps. Radiation alone contributes to many of these mistakes. Enhanced foods and pesticides harm the necessities of food. Even the air we breathe is contaminated for the want of speed and convenience. If this trend continues, the Earth and even all living beings will begin to deteriorate. Things that were not meant to be discovered could ultimately discover our downfall. The curiosity really could kill the cat this time. The child burnt by the stove. The mouse too far in the mousetrap. The human too deep into science.

Just Try And Move Me - Sanders

Sanders claims that migration has taken over the minds of society and that “settling in...[has] a chance of making a durable home for ourselves...and our descendants”. But what claim can this possibly be? Had all mankind followed this principle, Africa would hold a lot of people. In fact, ALL people. Both common religions and science agree on one thing: humanity started in one place. If the human race had followed Sanders’s mentality, the word “opportunity” would have no meaning. Referencing a more recent situation, the foundation of America was built on immigration. The early settlers immigrated. The later settlers immigrated. People still immigrate today. Even the Native Americans migrated within their country! If they had stayed, “rooted” in their territories, they would have starved. They moved because of opportunity. Even Sanders’s mother was the daughter of an immigrant doctor. If there was no immigration, would Sanders have been able to write Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World? Even more so, would Sanders himself even exist? One might say that it’s all based on chance anyways. That it was just chance by chance that Sanders and all descendents of the start of humanity was chance. How are all of those chances possible though? What makes them viable to happen? I am the son of immigrants. I believe in the opportunity of moving. I am the opportunity of moving. I can’t stay put.

I am Dangerous - Black Men and Public Space

Women are often perceived to be the innocent, the victims. Although many females could take offense to this, men do as well. With every victim there is a culprit. It seems ironic that it is usually males that are assumed to be the culprit, even before there is a victim. Most people would assume this phenomenon to be true for most older males ranging from teenagers to adults. That is false. Ever since young boys are able to talk and walk, they are blamed. Broken vase? Probably the younger brother. Snacks disappearing around the house? Again, the brother. Broken lawn equipment or wreckage outside? Those rascal boys down the street. Recently, I’ve noticed in my work place (Kumon, a well-known children’s english/math tutoring center), I have received a symptom of this judgement. I am not directly affected with the kind of blame from before, but rather a cursory preference that leaves me feeling unwanted. There are both boys and girls working at my Kumon center, all around my age, but on my certain workday, I am the only male worker. Many times, I’ve seen parents that guide their children to ask help from another worker, which in my case, is always female. This happens even if they’re busy or is helping another student, while I am closer, (attempting to be) sitting calmly and patiently to be asked for assistance. This doesn’t happen all the time, but I recognize a look that parents have, one where you can see their minds acting quickly to analyze that it would be safer to have their children with the nice girl rather than the potentially dangerous boy. I surely am not there to harm their children, I merely want a paycheck and quite enjoy seeing children successfully tackling academic barriers. I can relate to Staple's piece, Black Men and Public Space. Although, I am not African-American, I can compare myself to the "sketchy" male stereotype that he is included in. Like Staples though, I’ve learned to accept this fact and move on. My judgement of the parents do not change and in the end it’s about the child’s needs. Not mine.

Cannon-shooter Wannabe - Shooting Dad

I’ve never had much to relate to with my father. He’s an engineer. I’m an artist. As a full-time worker supporting a family of 7, he works long hours throughout the entirety of the day. Our relationship is quite silent and very awkward at times. I often find our interaction relatable to the limited relationship of Brad Manning and his father. I look more forward to a relationship with my father like that of Sarah Vowell’s. Reading Shooting Dad makes me long to talk to my father, even if it is just petty talk like political arguments. I’ve had a few times where I’ve “shot the cannon” with my dad. It’s when we talk and laugh, almost like friends. It’s at those times that despite the generation gap, my dad can still be like me. Or rather, I can be like him. I find that our generation is too boiled up in social media. Technology has created a larger space between parents and their children. I can most definitely see that I spend a significantly larger amount of time on the computer than talking with my father. At this rate, moving out into college will result in minimal contact with him, if any at all. I really hope to be able to be like Vowell in her last paragraph. I hope that when I let go of my dad, it will hurt. I hope I will miss him, that I will miss our interaction and relationship. I want to be able to love him.

There are usually two things that teenagers complain about these days: school and parents. While school is understandably complainable about (tests, unfair teachers, homework etc.), it seems almost paradoxical that teenagers would complain about their parents, the ones that take care of them. This behavior tends to lead to distrust and even rejection, often known as “rebelling”. It often seems that teenagers go through their rowdy phase with their parents and as they reach their latter years in college, they soften and seem to get along better. Why is that? It could be that the college independence and natural growth of time lets these students understand adulthood, and ultimately their parents. Or possibly they finally realize what their parents have done for them to get as far as they have. According to Brad Manning, in his piece “Arm Wrestling with My Father”, he claims this acceptance comes from and understanding of love. Through his retelling of his interaction and realization with his father, Manning expresses that he truly found who he was through his father’s love. It was when he and his father realized this love did Manning accept responsibility for his parents and gain the strength his father had so lovingly bestowed upon him.

Who Am I - Fish Cheeks

A culture that's commonly depicted as "different" from the american lifestyle is the Chinese. China in general is on the other side of the globe. The Chinese culture is often berated with stereotypes such as the "tiger" parents and the emphasis on respect for authority. Although they are overused, these kinds of pre-classifications are to some extent, true. Small things like taking off shoes before entering a household, cooking meals at home often, and spending sparingly seem to separate the Chinese ways from our familiar american ones. Growing up in this kind of atmosphere wasn’t exactly painful, it just seemed dissimilar. Often it was things like Chinese New Year (which is today, as I am writing this) that seemed to puzzle my friends, urging them to ask why I did the things I did. It was these things that also made myself question who I was. I most dearly wish that I had been able to read and understand “Fish Cheeks” during my elementary school years, as this would have created an understanding, a knowledge to accept who I was. Although I know now, it was important to learn that my culture was always going to be a part of me and it was part of my purpose to combine it with the culture around me, just as many others have, are, and will do as well.

The Fight- Champion of the World

We are the strongest people in the world. And yet we are the weakest. A punch to the jaw. A strike straight to the gut. Why does it matter, if he’s still standing? It’s the 21st round, and the fight keeps on going. The blows continue to rain down on your closed fists. Your face. Your back. Your people. The Liberty Bell keeps ringing, but he doesn’t stop. Injustice lifts his gloves back up, and cracks punches like whips. Beatings against protest. It’s a heavy fight, but we’re not done, no. Rise up, my arms. Hands clad together. We are the Black underdogs. Surmounting injuries that scar history’s back. Release the chains, brothers! Right jab. Left hook. Cross. We are just one person now, laid upon this wood as sacrifice. But we overcome, risen again on the third chime. The pulse does not stop now. All the suffering and all the pain, it’s in our fists now. Our revenge is relentless. This is our time now. One moment we’re fighting. The next, our arms raised, staring down at the limp body beneath us. We’ve won the fight, but the war is not over. Each of us is weak. But tonight, tonight we are strongest in the world.