The Self, By Robert Thurman

“My Appearance”, written by David Foster Wallace, revolves around a 40 year old female actress, Edilyn, who has made notable achievements in her acting career- including an Emmy nomination- and has been invited to David Letterman’s late night show. Her second husband is against this as he is worried that her appearance on the show could be problematic and terminate her career in the film industry. He believes that the sole purpose of Letterman’s show is to ridicule people and thus wants Edilyn to ridicule herself before Letterman has the chance to do it. Along with his friend Ron, they prepare Edilyn for the show and provide her with an earplug so that they can control how the show goes. They both believe that such a television appearance can either make you or break you depending on how well one handles David Letterman. At first the show is a disaster as things do not go as planned, but once Edilyn sets aside the acting and becomes her true self, the show ends up being a success. However, her husband still believes that she was acting and insists on the idea that no one is as they appear to be. In the end, despite her husband’s objection, Edilyn is convinced that Letterman is a sweet guy misunderstood by her husband and his friend.

Anthropology and genetics are two fields that, when put together, discover some amazing things. Most of these amazing things are written in the book The Journey of Man, by Spencer Wells. In it, he explains where humans originated from, and how we came to populate the entire globe. It is both humbling and riveting, and a great start to understanding how much work truly goes in to studying our past.

In society there are still differences in classes such as higher class, middle class, and lower class. In sociology, we observed a film called The Pursuit Happyness, where we witnessed the struggles a father went through to succeed. Chris Gardner, who was played by Will Smith, is living in his apartment with his wife and his son. Due to their struggles, the mother walks out on and leaves Chris struggling alone with his son. In the film Chris Gardner applies for an unpaid internship for a competitive stockbroker company where out of twenty men, only one gets the job. While he is on his internship, we see the hardships of getting kicked out of his apartment to staying at a shelter home to then sleeping in a subway bathroom with his son. Viewing the movie through a sociological lens, The Pursuit of Happyness will be analyzed according to the major three sociological paradigms: structural functionalism, social conflict theory, and symbolic interactionalism.

“Last Sunday the host of a popular news show asked me what it meant to lose my body”(Coates 5). The phrase “lose my body” is reiterated numerous times in Between The World And Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. The topic/theme of this piece of literature may be discernable as innocence as Ta-Nehisi profusely speaks of how his upbringing changed and affected his perspective on life. Coates uses a multitude of examples to portray this from how he witnessed another boy almost being shot at a young age to him learning and understanding the laws and “culture of the streets”(Coates 24) as who and even more who not to mess with(Coates 23). Coates effectively uses these examples as perfect representations of living in an American ghetto as well as how since birth blacks do not “own” their body and are susceptible to lose it.

In the poem “Fear and Fame by Philip Levine, readers gain insight into the struggles of a blue collar worker. The intimate description of the worker highlights the dangerous and monotonous work he performed but also accentuates the pride of the blue collar worker. Levine’s use of meter and rhythm, irony, figurative language, and tone provide an understanding of the difficulties faced by blue collar workers.

The small city of Brownsville is small in both population and mind. Even though there are individuals who commute morning and night from country to country, there is no unity. Growing up, I had never experienced a “diverse” city. In the city of Brownsville, Hispanics are the majority. As a result, individuals who saw somebody of a different race or ethnicity would make negative and offensive comments towards them. At times, these offensive comments were accidental. Other times, the offensive comments were on purpose and intended to appear humorous to friends. Apart from discriminatory remarks to outsiders, this happened amongst people of my Hispanic community.

Howard Thurman removes the window dressing in the African American experience of segregation in America. Thurman in his book, “The Luminous Darkness” paints an obscure portrait that delved deep into the consciousness of Black men, women and children freshly freed from chattel slavery. Two hundred years of slavery and one hundred years of darkness seeping into each soul perpetuated by an evil explained only through the Word of God. Although this book was published in the 60’s, the stigma segregation continues resonate in the souls of those who remember and perhaps even in the souls of those who do not.

Depression is something serious that ruins the lives of many. In “The Depressed Person” by David Foster Wallace, he introduces the reader to a person who suffers from depression but also is narcissistic; someone who hungers for attention and makes and situation about them. There’s a difference in depression alone and depression that is accompanied by narcissism. Being sad and keeping to yourself is symptomatic of depression, but being sad accompanied by the need to blame others as well as having a grandiose view of one’s self would be more representative of depression with narcissism. This combination brings an unhealthy lifestyle and burdens ones around the sufferer. The Depressed Person may not reach out

“Project of the self" is one of the most significant concepts created by Anthony Giddens. The author bases his ideas of self-identification upon influence of the modern world and changes created by the process of globalization (Giddens, 1991). The main argument is strong. However the study seeks some further explanations of the role of identity in the social life of individuals.

Self is consists of perspectives, characteristics and personalities of an individual which makes them different from others. Robert Thurman discusses the importance of achieving interconnectedness to find inner peace in his “Wisdom”. Thurman implies that "self" does not exist and individuals have to become selfless in order to achieve a “fulling life”. He encourages individuals to self-exploration, which can lead to becoming selfless and to find “nirvana”. Beth Loffreda describes the effects of the violent act have on the town of Laramie in the selection from her essay “Losing Matt Shepard: Life and Politics in the Aftermath of Anti-Gay Murder.” Loffreda discusses the towns self-perception and how the minority community reacted to the murder

The Solitude of Self is a speech that was given by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who was a leader of the women’s suffrage movement. This speech mainly discussed gender equality in every situation, including education and suffrage. Stanton clearly was opposed to the idea of inequality and believed that every person, man or woman, deserved to have the same rights.

“Master and Man” by Leo Tolstoy is a story that explores the dynamics between a peasant, Nakita and his master,Vasillii Andriech. Andriech foolishly risks both of their lives, when they venture to another town in inclement weather to secure a business deal. Unfortunately, Andreich's impatience and greed ultimately leads to his demise. At the end of the story Nikita dies and is denied the same bliss that Vasillii Andreich experiences in death; in order to solidify the dichotomy between these two men, demonstrate how Andriech cheated Nakita, and he uses Nakita's lackluster death to amplify Andriech's extraordinary passing.

In the novel, The Stranger by Albert Camus, Meursault the protagonist, becomes drawn into a “senseless” murder that has to face the absurdity of life and because of his actions, Meursault is presented as a danger due to his lack of “morality” to society. Meursault who is not able to take control of his life but respond to what life offers him believes in the simplicity of life. He tries to understand the living through logic and objectivity, which ultimately turns futile, as he himself cannot maintain proper control over his thoughts and emotions. From the interactions between Marie, to the murder of the Arab, and the meeting with the Chaplain, Meursault overcomes his indifferent views to form an opinion about what life really means. The central theme presented by Camus is how the threat of mortality becomes a catalyst for understanding the significance of life.

The Stranger by Albert Camus was a very interesting book that dealt with the importance of the material world. Camus is a philosopher, and was able to express his views through Meursault, the main character. Albert Camus has an absurdist touch in his philosophy, and this really showed through in this work. Many of Meursault's actions reflect ideas that life is meaningless, and that sometimes the world is just absurd and strange. This novel takes place in Algiers, in North Africa around 1940.

The essay “The Naked Face” written by Malcom Gladwell is about the ability of recognizing the meaning behind someone’s facial expressions. He starts the essay with a life or death situation between an inner city police officer and a suspect that both are pointing guns at each other. The officer clearly has the right to shoot the suspect, but decided not to base on a hunch that the armed suspect was not a threat (Gladwell 24). Gladwell then demonstrates that the police officer is one out of a thousand people that scored really well on a psychology test to determine if someone is lying or telling the truth based on facial expressions (Gladwell 59). Gladwell’s essay then continues with