I Did Not Intend to Be Here
A certain German philosopher once wrote that because we have only one life, we can never know whether or not we have made the best decisions in our path. No one can truthfully say what he should or should not do, nor can he say what he should or should not have done. He can only say, and even then with little assurance, what he will or will not do. With this knowledge, according to the philosopher, I could not express intention in this statement, past or present, having no knowledge of the outcome of any decision I have made. This summer, I composed the following passage, drawing upon an earlier experience in South Africa, somewhere else entirely. Rifling through my past writing, I found that the excerpt aptly applies to a discussion of intention within this context.
“He kneeled at the bank of the river and stared at his reflection. A bearded man stared back. As he dipped his hands into the brown water, his arms disappeared beneath the surface. He shook his arms in the water, cleaning them, and then gathered some water in his hands to splash his face. He looked down again, and now the reflection rippled, fractured by the movement of the brown water. He could not see into the depths of the
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It becomes relevant only through interpretation, intention and meaning distilled from the murky waters of an obscure art and an opaque soul. This essay and the passage come to reflect the formless deluge of an intentional heart taking shape through the damming and distillation of my mind and its decisions. The thrashing about of an arm in the water becomes the decision to transfer schools, and with the trashing comes a new clarity in the river. If I am here, I did not intend to be and therefore cannot say why I am. I can only cast about for an interpretation of my conscious decisions and wonder if I really know myself at
When a wave crashes against the shoreline, it leaves change in its wake. One’s frame of mind is an assemblage of their thoughts that have come into existence as a result of the amalgamation of their emotions and logicality; in other words, the coalesce of pathos and logos interlace with one another and create the culmination of ethos. In the following texts written by Amy Tan, and Perri Klass, Pathos, Logos, and Ethos can be found within their passages from beginning to end. In Amy Tan’s article, “My Mother’s English,” Tan starts of stating how she is a writer rather than an English scholar, then it transitions off to describing her self-consciousness that she had carried when she had delivered an articulated speech toward her mother. Eventually,
The Merriam-Webster dictionary states that an intention is “a determination to act a certain way” (merriam-webster.com). Each and every human being living in this world has intentions. Every day we set out to act and accomplish things in a certain way. These intentions, however, are merely for the benefit of our own minds. They are little more than the thoughts that one possesses about what the intend to do with their lives.
“For a second, he seemed to be looking at himself in the soup, looking for his ghostly reflection there. Then, for no apparent reason, he let out a terrible scream, a death rattle such as I had never heard before an, with open mouth, thrust his head toward the still steaming liquid.” (Page 59 & 60)
For me, writing this essay was difficult — I had to find my passion, or something I am passionate about, at least. And I had never really given this much thought. Even though I am in a high school, where the primary goal is to get you to find what you care about, I had yet to have that moment of realization. All I’ve been doing is drifting through high school, passing all my classes, with no predilection for any particular subject.
Though written in a very light and simple manner, the poem comes across as something very profound, laden with meaning through its incongruities. The persona, wanting to see something, often goes to the well and looks down at the water to see it. This certain search below the water's surface can be compared to man's search beneath the human experience for meaning, for certainty.
The purpose of this critique is to analyze the various aspects of a modern family through the film, “This is Where I Leave You”. Different components of marriage, families, and relationships will be explored to better understand the central theme of the movie.
In this writing, Emerson’s meaningful metaphors proclaim the sheer importance of individuality and how much it is longed for, saying that “every heart vibrates
"The meaning of a word - to me - is not as exact as the meaning of a color. Colors and shapes make a more definite statement than words. I write this because such odd things have been done about me with words. I have often been told what to paint. I am often amazed at the spoken and written word telling me what I have painted. I make this effort because no one else can know how my paintings happen. Where I was born and where and how I have lived is unimportant. It is what I have done with where I have been that should be of interest."
As told in Rosenblatt’s essay “Man in the Water”, “If the man in the water gave a lifeline to the people gasping for survival, he was likewise giving a lifeline to those who observed him.” While Rosenblatt is aware that everyone who knows the story of these outstanding acts of courage and selflessness is in awe of this unknown man, Rosenblatt portrays him in a light that the rest of the nation cannot ignore. There are ways to leave humans with a feeling of emotion that they don’t normally feel, and one of those ways is to appeal to their relation to their own lives. When looking at the acts of the Man in the Water, each and every human is moved in one way or another. Whether it is used for self reflection to cause us to reevaluate the kind of actions we are taking for others, or to remind us of what kind of good things all of humanity is capable of, Rosenblatt depicts these messages in a way that can attract all
"It is with considerable difficulty that I remember the original era of my being; all the events of that period appear confused and indistinct. A strange multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt, heard, and smelt at the same time; and it was, indeed, a long time before I learned to distinguish between the operations of my various senses. By degrees, I remember, a stronger light pressed upon my nerves, so that I was obliged to shut my eyes. Darkness then came over me and troubled me, but hardly had I felt this when, by opening my eyes, as I now suppose, the light
“He peered at his reflection and disliked it. He bent down, took up a double handful of lukewarm water, and rubbed he mess from his face.” Pg 63
?-He stretches out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and as far as I am from him I can swear he is trembling. Involuntarily I glance seaward-and distinguish nothing except a single
Prompt: Write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how the poem's organization, diction, and figurative language prepare the reader for the speaker's concluding response.
Metaphors in this poem allow for the reader to recognize that decisions are linked to the overall theme.
Another important thing is that like all the other writings, this essay cannot be digested well without getting one’s own self involved in