Self Reflection

2. What does it mean to be human? Did your concept change after reading the book?

The ingenious and vigorous use of metaphors reveal to the reader how crucial division between the laudable ones and those who live in contempt is and the role that possessing a unique identity plays in that. The book explains that each man should be left alone "in the temple of his spirit", and one should let it be “untouched and undefiled”, distinguished by their personalities and traits. (Rand 79). By likening a man's spirit to a temple, it establishes that every man's spirit exhibits sacrality. This comparison implies that a man may not dirty others’ hearts just so their own soul shines brighter by contrast. Soon afterwards, these thoughts are tied to the word "we" when it is written that the pronoun should "never be placed first within man's soul" or else it will "become a monster", one that is inherently evil (Rand 79). When the word “we” equates to a monster, the reader sees that not retaining individuality and submitting to the will of many leads to being like a monster taking root inside of men,

Many literature authors use writing techniques such as Characterization within their writing, which allows the reader to envision a character’s personality and their thoughts. Unfortunately, our world is filled with people who are given the choice of right and wrong. However, often people choose the wrong path and hurt one another in the process. Furthermore, when an individual’s actions rely on negativity a person tends to lose the better part of themselves. From the beginning of the short story “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”, Flannery O’Connor paints Mr. Shiftlet and Mrs. Crater in a negative light. Throughout the story these characters manipulate one another despite the consequences. Although, both characters hide their intentions,

“I knew that what I was seeking to discover was a thing I'd always known. That all courage was a form of constancy. That it was always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this all other betrayals came easily.” (Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses) Humans are fallen, they have a tendency to be self centered and for one to take themselves out of their own body and see themselves, in the way they think and process images and words is

“No matter what we’re doing on the outside, people respond primarily to how we’re feeling about them on the inside. And how we’re feeling about them depends on whether we’re in or out of the box concerning them” (P. 32). In other words, Bud explicated that being in the box is being closed in your own world. Sometimes we do not do it on purpose or with the intention to cause in issue. There situations where we try to do our best and in reality everyone around us do not see it that way. Nevertheless, if we do not open our eyes to try to see it out of the box, we start to believe that

One must form his own identity by himself, not allowing external forces to prevail, or he will detrimentally entangle himself in real and imagined conflicts. Throughout the novel’s beginning,

This becomes what the book calls your “judge”. If you do something you feel is wrong you will judge yourself and in turn you will reward yourself for something you feel you've done correctly. The morals and values we were brought up with control our “judge”. If you make a mistake your mind punishes you. As humans we may punish ourselves repeatedly, this is called doing ourselves an injustice. I have been going to therapy for a mistake that I made when I was younger. I punish myself repeatedly for the same thing. In my mind I do not see it as an injustice, only I’m learning I'm doing myself an injustice. How do we know how much we are supposed to suffer for something we have done. A mistake, hurting someone else or just turning an assignment in late. In this first chapter I really learned that I need to work on my inner judge.

I am currently a student at the University of Texas at San Antonio for almost a whole semester now. I came to this school straight out of high school, not knowing what I was getting myself into. During my high school years, I was good at every subject except my writing class. Coming to UTSA, I knew I was going to struggle in my writing class, but that didn’t discourage me from not trying my best in the course. Going through the English program, I realized that I have some strengths and weaknesses in the class, and it encouraged me to do better. The essays I have written for this class demonstrate that I have developed a strong thesis, organization skills, and detail; however, I still need to improve on grammar, keeping the POV, and citing.

We’re all in our private traps, trapped in our own minds. Subsequently, we see ourselves as the protagonist, all of our actions easily justifiable. We know ourselves best—our strengths, our weaknesses—for the most part. We may joke we are never on time or we take too long to text back, all bad habits of which we are aware, but these are much easier to recognize than our major character flaws. We examine ourselves from one perspective: our own. We are familiar with the shock of seeing our faces from a new angle in the mirror or hearing our voice on a recording, but few of us have examined our character from the perspective of others. We should consider the opinions of those we value. Failure to do so can result in a variety of repercussions

The ability to disassociate themselves from their actions allows the reader to understand the ideology of exceptionalism. The ideology is saturated with an inconsistency that Warren purposely places in his narratives to exemplify the morality of the characters. The isolated spirit of the characters exemplifies various contradictions in the outcome of their lives and in the end the dual views of the world around them brings forth a sense of superiority. The Southern man struggles with a sense of identity and a place within their own community yet the fictitious dominance of their surroundings pacifies the unfulfilled quest for gratification in a chaotic world.

I had read other books by this author and seem to prefer the other books as if he had still been repetitive in others books just not as much as this one. I think by getting what you need from this book you may have to read it a couple times and you will look at his writing in a different way each time. We are all born innocent then we develop a thought process an all theses words that are based on “lies” and this is when we are no longer pure. We start to judge people for being fat or not pretty enough but who decided what fat was and who agreed that the word fat means what it does now?

Human nature is paradoxical as it encompasses the essence of one’s being—otherwise known as the human condition. No one is entirely reducible because contradictory impulses and shades of ambiguity in oneself is inevitable. In Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train and The Blunderer, each character is extensively diverse. Through various demonstrations of intrapersonal, intimate, and interpersonal interactions, it is evident that the human condition can be manipulated into contradicting states. To begin, examining oneself by means of intrapersonal thought is a vital part in one’s development.

The society’s assumptions of what should and should not be significant reaches a high level to a point where the individual’s identity is impacted, which makes him belief that the assumptions are truth even if they are not truth as it is seen later in the story. Society’s pressure are so strong that an individual stops a self-discovery identity journey, instead, it pressures the individual to assumes the identity that society is imposing to him, creating a unnatural cycle to be what society wants him to be, and not who he really is, suppressing what he is suppose to

During the presentation, the team adapted the demonstration method inside of welcoming, did not perform encouragement for the audience to join the movie night and help out the charity. The plain slides style did not provide secure engagement and visual appeal. Ticketing system explanation was made

Starting from a very young age, before preschool, I hated crayons. I exhibited myself with fine art skills. I always cut out shapes and various images perfectly, along the thick black borders and colored completely inside the lines. In my 5 year-old-mind, crayons symbolized everything undesirable in the world. The dull wax lines left by the crayon when I drew was always uneven and bumpy, so it was nearly impossible to color completely inside the lines. The crayons always smelled like burnt rubber mixed with expired cheese and would break if I put a bit too much pressure on them. After every use, they would leave a permanent smell on my fingers and the wax was difficult to scrub off. They were absurdly hard to sharpen, even with the special sharpener that came in the crayon box, to get them back to the way they had come out of the box. I have felt the need to push myself to be perfect in every way possible. Through my preoccupation for perfection, I have learned the unfortunate consequences of attempting to make an abstract ideal a reality, finding that it not only prevents me from enjoying aspects of life that all people should experience but also keeps me from getting the satisfaction of fulfilling the unrealistic goals I have set for myself.