Analysis Of Having A Life Less Ordinary By Casey Neistat

The Art of the Commonplace is a book with gathered essays written by Wendell Berry, a novelist and also a farmer. A variety of published papers distributed thematically over five sections in this collection. It is an inclusive inside at Wendell Berry’s beliefs and an overview about the routine with agriculture and how it can help society. Before he dedicated himself to farming, Wendell Berry was a successful teacher and writer in New York, but returned to his birthplace and home in Kentucky to reconnect with himself and his land. This decision gave him inspiration to write and inspired many readers with his philosophical views of the connection between agriculture and a healthy society.

Rethinking Normal is a coming-of-age story about transcending physical appearances and redefining the parameters of “normalcy” to embody one’s true self. Katie Rain Hill memoir on her transition discussed what normal is and how she came to understand that normalcy was completely based on what each person individually makes of it.

Humans in society are like musicians in an orchestra. Solo, their parts sound odd and out of place, lacking the harmonies mindfully composed for the rest of the orchestra. Humans are interdependent, social creatures by nature. We rely on each other to survive. We rely on each other to do jobs that might require a certain skill set or jobs that we might not have time to do ourselves. We even rely on each other to bring a sense of familiarity and security to our communities just by knowing one another. If we all remained anonymous, then we could not rely on each other to satisfy these vital societal needs. Scott Russell Sanders, in his essay “The Common Life”, states that the more people in a community who prefer to live isolated and reclusive lives, the more susceptible the community is to a division that impedes its ability to live together, interact synergistically, and thrive. He correctly believes that this division can lead to a total “breakdown” in society.

In chapter 4 of The Sociologically Examined Life, Michael Schwalbe discusses “Relationships, Groups, and Interdependence.” This chapter covers several topics in-depth of relationships and why we categorize things the way we do.

Ordinary people can have an extraordinary impact on the world. At the top of Mount Hira in the year 610, Allah spoke to a humble merchant named Muhammad Ibn Abdallah, stating that He, Allah, was the one and only God. Within a hundred years of Muhammad’s death in 632, Islam, a religion that taught the importance of charity and “submitting to the will of Allah”, had sparked a new empire. The empire originated in the Middle East and quickly expanded across North Africa and into Europe (Background Essay). For an era that did not have the modern technology that made it easy to spread new ideas and beliefs, Islam dispersed rapidly due to active trade, the clear laws presented in the Qur’an and other religious texts, and an active army that allowed

The author, Leslie Fiedler writes about the differences in what it means to be normal. She discusses this in a professional manner that opens eyes to what we have disguised and even been ashamed of. “The Tyranny of the Normal,” we learn much about what we perceive as abnormal and what society seems to portray normal as. We discover what we believe is normal and also what has changed through-out the history of this subject. Our minds are opened and exposed to the world of abnormalities and how we see them.

People are often told to be themselves as a way of embracing their uniqueness. This seems to not be true since conformity and lack of individualism is a big issue with society. The issue of what led Christopher McCandless, main character from Into the Wild by John Krakauer, to go on a search to find himself. In the author’s note of the novel, Krakauer introduces the term ‘schools of thought’. In the case of this book, there are two; one being that some people said it was a suicide mission and the other being that others disagreed saying he was ambitious. The story demonstrates one man’s attempt to define a lifestyle and find meaning in his life that came from something outside materialistic and civilized contemporary

The Essentials of a Good Life by Diane Ravitch was an essay that really got me rethinking what we call the school system today. It felt extremely relatable since I have spent over 13 years in school and I recognize almost all the points she made about the problems with school today. Many of her main points have to do with how schools are too focused on standardized testing and how they don’t teach creativity in school. This is a big problem in today’s society because school seems to be doing a lot less of what it was first meant to do which is prepare their students for the future. After reading her essay I believe we shouldn’t be focused on standardized testing and we should be spending more time teaching students how to be leaders, independent, and creative because these are qualities that promote success in today’s society.

When previously thinking of how to describe myself, the word that came to mind was “ordinary.” I grew up in a small town, went to an even smaller high school, and both of my parents showered me with love. I had a charmed childhood, but I never thought there was anything extraordinary about myself. I felt as though I had the same-old story as everyone else. I had always felt pretty simple – pretty ordinary.

Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s film The Lives of Other’s (2005) is set in East Berlin during the socialist reign from November 1984, up until the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. The political context plays a significance role not only in the film’s subject matter but also in its cinematography, which exploits the voyeuristic tendencies of the audience, reflecting the surveillance of the Stasi Secret Police officers. The film follows a loyal socialist and playwright, Georg Dreyman who becomes subject (along with actor girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland) to extensive Stasi surveillance due to his association with subversive artists such as Paul Hauser and Albert Jerska. Hauptman Gerd Weisler is the accomplished Stasi officer assigned to

The Jarrett's' have always believed themselves to be ordinary people, but after a their firstborn son, Jordan "Buck" Jarrett, drowns and their second born son, Conrad, attempts suicide their whole world is turned upside-down. When Conrad comes home from his mental institution he feels that things have changed. Conrad's relationship with his parents has changed. The relationship that Conrad has with his parents change throughout the novel and are shaky all the way to the last page.

As people live their daily lives, they have an effect on others whether that is knowingly or unknowingly. These effects can be positive or negative, but either way they contribute in the making of individuals identities. People that have the advantage of having someone come into their life, and help them form a healthy identity are quite lucky. In Ordinary People, by Judith Guest, Conrad was an adolescent who was severely depressed until he met that person that helped him form a healthy identity. The person who did this was his psychiatrist named Dr. Berger, and he helped Conrad transform his identity from a confused to a confident person. Conrad’s psychiatrist prevented him from self harm, helped reduce his guilt and influenced him to

Socrates was considered by many to be the wisest man in ancient Greece. While he was eventually condemned for his wisdom, his spoken words are still listened to and followed today. When, during his trial, Socrates stated that, “the unexamined life is not worth living” (Plato 45), people began to question his theory. They began to wonder what Socrates meant with his statement, why he would feel that a life would not be worth living. To them, life was above all else, and choosing to give up life would be out of the picture. They did not understand how one would choose not to live life just because he would be unable to examine it.

Institutionalized ideas of a successful lifestyle have been perpetuated in society throughout time. Each generation faces newly refined perimeters of righteous behaviors that have been affected by progressive ideas, technological advancements, and traditional beliefs. These components and more, play a role in creating a public image of a family structure. Essentially, families are key representatives of society. The posterchild family structure of society depicts values held by a generation, and promoted throughout the means of mass marketing during that time. Every citizen is considered to be held accountable to the societal standards of correct human behavior and ideology. These standards have an impact on freedom, marriage, work, education and children. My family structure is grass rooted in Punjab, India. The dominant religion, political structure, public institution, and societal ideology have differences and similarities with those of America’s.

The article Born to Be Happy, Through a Twist of Human Hard Wire by Richard A Friedman addresses both psychiatric and scientific aspects of physiological disorders. The main concern of this article in tales what makes individuals happy or obtain happiness and also explaining how psychiatric illnesses alter their happiness. Friedman’s main disorder explained is a temperament disorder called hyperthymia a mental illness that is rare in America. Friedman’s definition of hyperthymia states, “Constant joyous temperament, energetic and productive and are often the envy of all who know them because they don’t have to work at it” (Friedman par 3). Prior to this definition Richard provides two of his