So here's the drill. You have probably been referred here by either a member of the Transylvania Community Engagement Through The Arts Class. This is the portion of our blog where we invite you fine folks to contribute by submitting a This I Believe essay which will then be considered for publication in our annual book of essays. The essays should be organized around a belief that is central to the way you live. They should be kept at around 300 to 500 words so that we see the essential components of your belief. A narrative essay is the most common type because it allows the writer to explain their beliefs with examples specific to them. Submit your essays at anytime and thanks so much for your participation!
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Zoe Strecker's Class
The "This I Believe" essay written by Zoe Strecker's class can be found in the comments attached to this post.
I believe in the cowboy. There is, intrinsic in his nature, a morality that holds so true to the self that existentialists would blush. Something in this romantic hero strikes a chord with me in ways that I cannot understand. Perhaps it is because many are depicted as loners, ignoring the corrupt institutions and fighting the base, wretched gangs that I love them. Perhaps it is because in the end they shoulder their own burdens and mistakes—that too comes from their lonely nature. I have been obsessed with the cowboy character all of my life. Growing up on westerns, loving the Man of La Mancha (though that was a musical and he was a knight), and adoring Firefly, I have found a morality based not in absolute correctness (as the cowboys killed, Don Quixote stole, and the crew of Serenity did all of the above) but in doing the best they can according to what is, well, existentially right. This romantic vision is not always (if ever) politically correct but it is the character that I want to play. There have been examples of this figure in many cultures and he (or she in the case of Zoe) is not always carrying a gun and does not always ride a horse, but, when there is someone in danger he also does not stop to ask questions but charges in, head first, in defense of the weaker.
Jessica Root (“would benefit from having it accepted”) 8 February 2010
I Believe I believe in siblings. Though many people are blessed or cursed with siblings at a young age, my story is a little different. I spent the first nineteen years of my life as an only child, but I always had high hopes of having a sibling. After I was born, my mom wasn’t able to have any more children. I still remember praying every night for a brother or a sister for most of my young life and it never happened. After my parents’ divorce and my dad’s remarriage when I was eight, I remained hopeful, but my wish never came true. I had two step-sisters from the marriage, but I wasn’t satisfied.
My dad got divorced again when I was a sophomore in high school and started dating again. His new girlfriend moved in, but I never thought they’d have kids together. She didn’t come off as the type to want kids and I had basically given up hope on ever getting to finally be a sister. However, near the end of my freshman year at Transy, I found out that my wish had come true.
I have to admit that I wasn’t exactly happy about the whole situation at first. I had been so convinced that it would never happen that I was in shock and denial over the whole situation. I would throw out comments like, “Well, this is the last Father’s Day that I don’t have to share. I’d better make it a good one since everyone knows that footprints and finger paintings are way better than store bought gifts.” I felt neglected and slightly betrayed by my dad, even though this is what I had wanted all along.
It wasn’t until my grandmother sat me down and told me that my wish was coming true, it just took a little longer than I’d hoped. She told me that I would just have to deal with the whole situation and that I’d love them when they were actually here, which really put things into perspective for me.
I got the call from my dad on September 10th saying that I had twin sisters. They’d given them both “J” names to go along with my own and each had seven letters like my name does. Though the difference in our ages are more significant than most, I still believe that they were put in my life for a reason. This is why I believe in siblings.
This I believe... that the best things in life are free. In our society, so many times, people associate success with money and money with happiness. Although money can increase a person's standard of living, that alone does not bring happiness. Sometimes it can actually decrease a person's happiness. During my senior year in high school, I did several internships at various businesses. I shadowed people who had various jobs, from a graphic designer to a science teacher to the president of a downtown business office. I learned what it took to be in each position and what each person did from day to day. One thing that I noticed by the last internship was the correlation between job satisfaction and salary. The graphic designer was probably the most enthusiastic of the three. She loved her job and could not think of ever doing anything else. The science teacher also loved her job and said that she loved coming to school each day especially when she had a new activity planned. However, the president of the downtown firm could not wait until 5:00. He spent all day in meetings and there was honestly nothing enjoyable about his day. He made about three times as much as the graphic designer and probably twice as much as the teacher, but spent all week waiting for the next weekend. The same applies outside of work as well. The best things in life that bring the most happiness are often the free things. A weekend spent hiking and camping and “enjoying the little things” can often be more fulfilling than a weekend spent at Keeneland or going to a theme park. Ultimately, there are many free things in life that bring happiness and do not cost money and things that do cost money are not always the things that do bring happiness to our lives.
I believe in hair – curly, frizzy, suffocating hair. The kind of hair that grips onto every drop of moisture in the air, mutating into added inches of hair volume. I believe in the hair on my head, unable to be straightened, unable to be contained, refusing to stay put. I believe in its curls and its waves, its allure and its completely mortifying days. In every elementary school picture, that chunk that couldn’t be called a bang freed itself of my barrette, jumping into the air like a woop or an embarrassed sigh. I believe in that hair. This hair is a direct result of generations and ethnicities and decades of useless hair products. This hair is my Algerian roots, where my mother’s mothers walked in the sand and where their thick, dark hair glistened in the relentless sun. Their hair is my hair – the absolutely ridiculously thick hair that could easily span five bald heads. Its sheer volume has broken many combs, brushes, and elastic bands. I believe in this hair because its follicles once ran so close together from my great-grandmother’s head, cascading in Spanish waves. These waves are so stubborn and so permanent that no straightener has ever flattened them out. They run seamlessly from my scalp, crimped by nature and turning into wild curls. These curls are Celtic curls – each strand a tightly wound ringlet, never loosening over the centuries, passed on like an heirloom from my father to me. Ringlets of such magnitude that they have scared away many a good hairdresser and attempted to become actually dreads, which is my hair’s not-so-secret desire. This hair isn’t just hair; it’s a string of my peoples from across time. It’s more than stubborn tangles, bad hair days, and broken elastic bands; it’s beyond a mother who tried to straighten her hair with an actual iron and a father whose curls always produced horrible haircuts. This hair is my hair, vibrant and wild like my spirit and the spirits of those within me. I believe in hair, this hair, because it is me.
I believe in scarves. They are so much more than just winter accessories. For me, they are signs of friendship. The great majority of my scarves were gifts. Tokens of trips and friendship. A sign that they thought about me.
Last fall my dad and younger brothers went to New York City during their fall break. My birthday also happened to be during their fall break. My dad, while on the trip, bought be a gorgeous silk scarf from the Met, which had a yellow and blue poppy design on it. He also got me a dark green and black pashmina scarf, something that I have worn to death. It is so wonderfully comfortable.
Over winter break my friend traveled to India to visit family. When she came back she surprised me by giving me a burnt orange pashmina scarf, with a gorgeous silver and tan pattern throughout it.
There are countless other scarves and stories I could recount with them. There’s the fluffy pink one from a local knitter, a hand-dyed silk scarf from a local artist, a thin blue one knitted by one of my good friends in high school, and so many more.
With each scarf that I own, I can recount to you who I got it from and from where. To me they are so much more than just something to wrap around my neck. They are signs of friendship. They hold stories and memories. That is what I like about them. That is why I believe scarves, they have depth to them.
I believe that these essays are a complete waste of time and energy. I believe that if you really want to know about a person’s beliefs you should talk to them, get to know them. In the twenty or so minutes that it will take me to write this essay, I could have had a much more personal, meaningful, and insightful conversation with a friend or even someone I had just met. I would know more about them because I would be able to not only hear the way they speak, but to see their visible reactions to everything that is said. A person can learn a lot more than what is said from another person when they listen to their body language.
How many times have you been talking on the phone with someone and misinterpreted what they were saying? Then, when you see them in person, they say it again and you know exactly what was meant in the first place. Our society has created so many opportunities for us to stop interacting with each other. Texting and email have given us ways to say everything we want to say to people without actually seeing their reaction. Why do we do this? Because we are afraid of putting ourselves out there and letting everyone know: these are my beliefs, this is how I feel about that, I don’t like it when... We’re afraid to let people see us the way we truly are.
I believe these essays are just one more way of hiding ourselves from the world. We are trying to touch the world by telling everyone one thing we believe in, but we will never truly achieve this through an essay. An essay does not have hands; an essay does not have eyes; an essay is a bunch of words arranged on paper or a recording of a voice we don’t know. So, this is what I believe. I believe I have just wasted not only my time, but yours. I believe I would much rather sit down and talk with you, face to face.
I believe in justice. Not only do I believe in justice, but I believe in Mountain Justice. When I say mountain justice, I’m not just talking about justice for the mountains. I’m talking about justice for the mountains, streams, rivers, communities, and people of Appalachia; most importantly the people.
While I do believe in justice for the flora and fauna of Appalachia, I also believe that one day Appalachian people will be granted the right to live healthy and happy in the safety of their own communities. Instead of coal miners and retired coal miners living in fear of black lung, they will be granted green jobs of the future. Jobs that will insure economic protection, clean air to breath, and overall better living for these residents.
I believe that one day; we will all be able to celebrate mountain folks, instead of endangering them with harmful toxins. That instead of looking down upon them as illiterate poor folks, we will be able to understand their lives and trust that their futures are safe.
I believe that one day Appalachian communities will no longer be split between those who work in coal mines and those who own them. That neighbors will become neighbors again letting their children play together in the clean, fresh water streams. Streams that contain living fish, no longer contaminated by mercury and fine particulate matter.
I believe that no long will Kentucky be ranked the 5th poorest state and West Virginia the 2nd. That instead of hauling away our money like they do our coal, governments will be able to protect the wealth of the state. That no longer will coal companies be purchasing politicians, but instead all citizens be provided with equal say in the decisions their legislators make.
I believe in Appalachia. I believe in its land and its people and I promise to never leave it behind.
The only constant thing that we can depend on in this world is chage. Nothing remains stagnet and we must all adapt constantly. So what do I believe in? I believe in forgivness. When we are young we mess up all the time. We break objects around the house, we bring mud in from outside onto the marvelous new carpet, and we say things that we don’t mean. Stuff happens and thats just a fact. So why do we have such a hard time accepting it? Why can’t we forgive and forget like a mother with a young child? As we get older we hold grudges and destroy relationships over meaningless objects and things without the slightest clue of what we are throwing away.
Just the other week I was over at a friends house, usually the house that all my friends congragate at over the weekend. I noticed that one of the usual girls that comes over all the time wasn’t there so I went to ask my friend where she was. Over the next ten minutes I was told that the girl had sent a picture to the friend that owns the house of him with his exgirlfriend (they aren’t on very good terms). My friend who owns the house freaked out to say the least and had told her he was never going to talk to her again and to never come back over (the usual trantum an immature 13 throws). Ever since then she stills hasn’t been back to the house and neither of them have talked to each other. Writing this out is seems way more childish than when I found out, but the fact still remains that he hasn’t forgiven him. They threw away a perfectly good friendship over a picture. It doesn’t get more dumb then that.
Redemption, forgivness, and atonement are essentials to life in my book. Most of the religions that are preahced around the world are rooted in forgivness and the “golden rule”. So why is it so hard to follow them? The fact is that we are scared for ourselves. If someone hurts you what is stopping them from doing it again. So inherently we must trust one another and on the fact that we care for one another. Its a sort of blind trust on the fact that you can never truly know someone else’s intentions, but thats what makes relationships meaningful. In a world where things constantly go wrong and where Murphy’s Law reigns supreme we must have the capacity to forgive one another, or risk living alone.
I believe in Rosie. I believe in her huge feet and her long locks of beautiful golden hair. I believe in the way she trips over those huge feet when she euphorically runs to greet me. “It’s been a while,” she says through a smile. I believe in her enormous head that is most disproportionate to her body. I believe in Rosie for always waiting anxiously at the top of the steps to greet me when I return home, which I seem to do less and less frequently as the years go by. Her eyes never conceal her true feelings, because she has nothing to hide. These kind, brown eyes reveal the type of patience that says she would wait forever, even if I never came back. And when I leave, I feel the weight of an anchor fall upon my heart as I try not to look into those sad, disappointed eyes that beg me to stay. In those eyes I sometimes think I can see a smile, even when her face tells a different story. I believe in her loyalty for the way the hair on her back and arms stands on end whenever a stranger approaches me. When I’m with Rosie, I believe in playtime. I believe in the small things that help me handle the complicated too-muchness of it all. Rosie reminds me that big yards and blue sky are more than just a landscape. She reminds me that people may step on you and yell at you and tell you that you are bad and sometimes ignore you altogether, but ultimately, people are good and have love in their hearts. Rosie shows me that people may not always deserve to be treated with kindness, but you should always treat them kindly anyway. She may only be a dog, but if I was half the person she is, well, that would be just fine.
Neal Kimbell February 06, 2010 This I Believe Essay
I believe in speech, speech is debatably the greatest ability our minds allow us to posses. To be able to communicate and be productive by doing so is incredible. Speech can bring a crowd or a nation together and, vies versa, it can cripple any size population. Without it the world as we know it would resemble the time of the first men, with motions and sounds to impose directions, but without the structure of speech they are unable to coordinate building plans for skyscrapers, invest or trade with countries that very well could be on the other side of the world like we are able to do today. Speech is a great tool and probably the greatest, sure we our separated by our different languages, dialects and accents but with speech we can overcome these differences and speech or languages, for the most part, have changed and evolved, meaning that many languages derive from others, some with small differences allowing use to get by with what we already have. Without speech Martin Luther King Jr. would not have been able to accomplish what he had, in fact, the majority of great people who have done great things would not have been able to overcome their tribulation without the power of speech. Even Though many have chosen to use their gift to bring people down, numerous others use it to life all inhabitants up. For this reason I believe in speech and its awe-inspiring power.
I believe in making mistakes. For as long as I remember, I have never taken the advice of other people, in spite of asking for it. I don’t understand why I do this, especially since it gets me in a lot of trouble, but I never fail to mess up and learn from it. Furthermore, I have always been an independent person—I prefer it this way because then I know I am being true to myself and not merely succumbing to the pressures of society. I’m talking about all the times when I was little and refused to get dressed until my mom picked out my clothes, only to put them back and pick out my own. In the third grade when I forged my father’s signature on a note I didn’t want him to see and was caught by the scariest woman I’ve ever met. When I jumped from a swing and broke both bones in both of my arms as well as my nose. When I lied to my mom after I had just gotten my license and decided that I wanted to go driving and nearly got in a wreck merging on the highway before getting lost for over 3 hours and winding up in a gas station talking to a man who had never heard of my home town. When I confronted my coach in high school and told her she wasn’t doing her job and that I was tired of working hard and getting nowhere because she wouldn’t correct anyone’s mistakes. When I drove too fast on a rainy day and caused $6000 worth of damage to my car. When I pushed my best friend away simply because she cared too much and I didn’t want to depend on her. When I fell in love too quickly and gave up everything for him only to realize he wasn’t worth it. When I stole alcohol from home to stop thinking about my problems because I was too proud to ask for help to deal with them. When I kept too many boyfriends knowing that it would be me who would get hurt in the end. When I started smoking for a few months because I actually wanted a vice. When I purposely don’t study just to see what happens because I know that failing is the only way I will learn to do better and try harder. These mistakes are part of who I am. You are hearing them and thinking, “Man, how stupid can this girl be? Didn’t she know what was coming?” Yes, I did know. I wanted these things to happen because this is how I learn life’s most important lessons—I mess up. This is how I become stronger and I will continue to make mistakes because I truly believe that experience is life’s greatest teacher. I believe in embracing consequence—it shows you what is most important in life.
I believe in the power of an education because since I was very young I have been told a simple line by my mother whose philosophy was, “and that’s why you go to college.” This was her way of telling me that certain people’s conditions were due to the fact that they lacked an education and the opportunities that it held.
When I was little my mother was putting herself through college as a single parent. I often found myself accompanying her to class as well as various other places downtown while she was attending JCC. Anytime we would have to deal with someone who had a bad attitude at their government job because they were holding a position which was below their potential, I’d hear “and that’s why you go to college.” People stood at our TARC stop trying to attract attention from everyone with loud trashy conversations and bad language, I would hear later, “and that’s why you go to college.” Even when we were at home watching day time television’s basic programming like Montel Williams or Jerry Springer featuring a half dressed little girl attacking her sister with a headline that read “my sister stole my man,” I would think to myself “and that’s why you go to college.”
College for me has always been an escape for bitter unhappiness and ignorance. When I graduated from high school and saw some of the other options people had to pursue instead of college, whether it be manual labor or military careers, I was convinced that college was the best decision for me. My perspective reasoning changed when I actually got here. Upon arrival, I realized the great amount of service done by students interested in the community.
These students here on Transylvania’s campus were not trying to abandon poverty and unhappiness, but rather to embrace it and to change it for the better. These students I met did not look down upon those less fortunate but tried to help these people and make more opportunities available for them. This is why I believe in the power of an education and that’s why I went to college.
I believe in skinny jeans; not for their inherent bonus to one’s “scene points” or their proximity to the paramount destination of trendy, but because I believe that everyone should find who they are and make peace with that person. I’m loud, nerdy, and my frame is most commonly compared to that of a small girl. When I was in grade school, I toiled endlessly to be a normal, sports playing, baggily clothed kid denying my passion for the finer nerdy things in life and hiding my stature in my older brother’s hand-me-downs. These were dark times that unfortunately persisted into high school as any ex-angsty teen could hark back to. My past fashion choices are not something to believe in, but the fact that I was undoubtedly not the only one with such sentiments is an unfortunate product of society. I believe in skinny jeans because I believe in who I am even if I’m scrawny by most standards. I believe in being happy with the person you are. Most of all, I believe in those who don’t really fit the norm, not because they want to be a rebel, but because they’re being who they are. Lady liberty should stand on our shores and declare: “Give me your weird, your extremes, your socially awkward yearning to breathe free, the refreshing refuse of your unappreciative culture”. I believe in a pair of jeans because they fit me for who I am, I only wish that all those young folks could find their fit and no longer be ashamed of their music choice, their hobbies, their size, or their appearance because others say its not okay.
I believe in running and taking yourself to new places. I believe in being able to lose yourself in the serenity that comes from hearing nothing but your own breathing and the tread of your feet as the hit the ground. I believe in feeling strong, even when in all other aspects of your life you may feel weak, knowing that my body has the ability to push past any limits that people may set for me and knowing that if I can accomplish this, I can accomplish anything. I believe that when I run, I am transforming the world around me into my own new world, where bumps in the road become ramps that only boost my speed and bushes become a labyrinth that I must find my way out of. The people around me are my competitors and I must not let any of them pass. The trees become full of archers who are watching my every move and preparing to strike when I least expect it. When I am running, the world is my playground. Everything becomes exactly what I want it to become and I am in control of my fate. I believe in running, because it takes away the emotional pains that the world has bestowed upon me and leaves me with only the pains in my body that signal I am working hard and making myself a better runner. When I run, I become numb, numb to the problems in life and the tasks that I have not yet done. I am numb to meaningless arguments and disagreements that have happened and would usually way heavily on my mind. I believe in running because it is a part of who I am and I don’t know exactly who I would become without it. I believe in the things that make people happy and that is why, I believe in running.
I believe in farming. In a day and age when it seems like everything is becoming commercialized and factory-produced, it is hard for many to see the importance or significance of a family-owned farm that does not produce anything on a large enough scale to be considered economically efficient. However, as someone who grew up on a farm, I know that the benefits of farms and farming far outweigh the costs or inefficiencies that small farms cause.
I was not always fond of farms or farming. Waking up at 7:30 every Saturday morning from the age of 13 until I came to college to feed cows, mow fields, rake hay, muck out barns, or repair machinery is not something that I can miss. It is hard work and I spent my entire childhood despising it with a passion. I made it very well known among all of my friends and family that I was not going to farm. I could not fathom what had inspired my dad to do it. He had been raised with basically the same ritual as me (which could not be mistaken for fun), had left home and gone to college in North Carolina, got a degree and a top-notch education, came back home, and took over an insurance company and the family farm. What could possibly inspire someone to do such a thing, I constantly wondered. It simply was not an understandable course of action—or so I thought.
Since I have come to college, I have come to appreciate my childhood experiences on the farm in a way that I never could have imagined. Coming to a place with a group of people with such a wide variety of backgrounds, I see how much I benefited from the farm. You see, there are no options for work on a farm. If you decide that you don’t want to feed the cows, they get weak and die. If you decide that you don’t want to bail the hay, it spoils in the field. If you decide not to mow the fields, they get overgrown to the point of no repair. Work is a must if you are going to survive. And the work is not fun. It is difficult manual labor that sucks the energy from your veins and leaves your body aching at the end of the day. However, there are also rewards and benefits. There is truly nothing like the sense of accomplishment you get after getting the last bale of hay into the loft or seeing a perfectly rake field of hay that took you an entire day to complete. Farming also forces you to have a “tough as nails” mentality. If your cows get sick or there isn’t enough rain or if a tractor breaks down, you just have to go on and do the best you can because complaining or feeling sorry for yourself isn’t going to help anything.
I cannot honestly say that I will follow in my dad’s footsteps and return to the farm after college, but I can say that I now share his appreciation for farming and the strong character that it produces. And I think that if more people could experience the blood, sweat, and tears that go into a family farm, the demand for corporate farms and computerized machinery would lose more than a few advocates.
I used to believe in Santa Clause. I remember waking up ever year on December twenty fifth, and gazing down onto the pile of colorful gifts, thinking that they were al brought to me from a magical man wearing a red suit. It was a childish blissful cocoon of ignorance that I was perfectly content in being the center of. For one day of the year, I was the little warm light of happiness that my family crowded around, raising me to great heights of importance. This jolly old man gave me a day; this day was everyone’s; this day was mine.
I would tear through the parcels; each of them gently wrapped and now laying torn beneath me. The contents of these presents were varied; but for the moment I did not care about the variety of gifts. This day was about a pure joy. A joy like this is almost impossible to find in later adult life. The only way to experience this day to its fullest is with faith. One cannot simply imagine a world where tiny elves will make every child in the world’s dreams come true. This is an idea that must be believed by a child’s mind. This is an idea that makes Santa Clause a hero to every child who believes in him.
I am sad to say that I have grown out of this trance that Santa had once kept me in. My Christmases seem to be lacking a little more every year, as the last grains of my faith seem to be falling through the cracks. My only hope if for one day, me to bring the faith of Santa Clause to my son, and he too can truly believe in something unbelievable.
I believe in local hip-hop. While the media is caught up in discussing whether Jay-Z is an Illuminati or Satanist, Sheisty Khrist, who lives just down the street, is finding a way to rhyme Michel Foucault, Knob Creek, Boutros Boutros Ghali, Lou Dobbs, and a “fully-famished wooly mammoth.” While Gucci Mane is struggling to put together any sentence more complex “Party, party, party, let’s all get wasted,” Deacon the Villain is mastering the art of imagery with lines like, “Seeing the world like Jack with the ax peeking through the door towards the end of The Shining.”
While Comcast, Clear Channel, Def Jam, and the auto tune manufacturers are sitting down in a boardroom to bribe each other and decide what to play on the radio, local hip-hop artists remind me of what this art form is all about. When creativity, hunger, and the desire to get a simple “Damn, did he just do that?” take precedent over money and stagnation, hip-hop is not only relevant, but important.
While 107.9 refuses to play local artists, while my IQ dwindles as I listen to the radio, while I sometimes see no purpose in art and music, I can just go down the street and have my mind blown by wordplay and rhymes worthy to be setting on library shelves. Yet, that just might defeat the purpose of living, breathing local hip-hop, now wouldn’t it?
I believe in optimism. I believe in the hypocrisy of most human beings because we change so much through new experiences. I believe in the truth of a multiplicity of selves. I believe in the inability to apply a black and white standard to everything. I believe in the power of illusions and the longevity of their future. I believe in the abstract as the most powerful aspect of human life, the unutterable meaning behind our symbols that cannot completely transmit a meaning without experience. I believe in doubt and uncertainty as the most certain way of living. I believe in being disappointed, let down while at the same time being supported. I believe that life is a question and not an answer. I believe that the questions I have are relative but the answer is not. I find within myself an acknowledgement of a duality within my life of happy and sad, or violence and peace. And yet I believe in optimism.
This I believe: Legos are the best form of art. For as long as I can remember I have never had a mind for art, but that is art in the sense that most inartistic people such as myself think of art. As a child I would play for hours with my brother or by myself with the thousands of legos that we had. Although I prefer rules with most things that I do, with legos I preferred not to use the instructions that came in the box. I could create anything I wanted and without knowing so I was creating different pieces of art every day. Growing up I always thought of art as a painting or a sculpture, something that was made by an “artist” who did nothing but paint or sculpt. The other day I was thinking back on my childhood and remembering the mass amount of legos forms that were created at my hands. Thinking back on these memories I saw that they in many ways were art. They had no deep significant meaning to me, they were not paintings, they were not sculptures, but they were one of a kind and would never be made the same way again after they served their purpose. That purpose was not art, which is why I think it to be the best kind of art. It was not art for the purpose of art but for no purpose at all. I was simply a child with a thought of something I wanted to build, so I built it. Once completed I would marvel at my creation for a moment or two, play with it for a day or an hour or perhaps even a week, then it would be dismantled and the individual pieces would go back into the drawer with all the other legos only to become a totally new work of art the next time I opened the drawer. This is why I believe legos are the best form of art.
Ian Gunkler
ReplyDeleteFeb. 3 2010
This I believe:
I believe in the cowboy. There is, intrinsic in his nature, a morality that holds so true to the self that existentialists would blush. Something in this romantic hero strikes a chord with me in ways that I cannot understand. Perhaps it is because many are depicted as loners, ignoring the corrupt institutions and fighting the base, wretched gangs that I love them. Perhaps it is because in the end they shoulder their own burdens and mistakes—that too comes from their lonely nature. I have been obsessed with the cowboy character all of my life. Growing up on westerns, loving the Man of La Mancha (though that was a musical and he was a knight), and adoring Firefly, I have found a morality based not in absolute correctness (as the cowboys killed, Don Quixote stole, and the crew of Serenity did all of the above) but in doing the best they can according to what is, well, existentially right. This romantic vision is not always (if ever) politically correct but it is the character that I want to play. There have been examples of this figure in many cultures and he (or she in the case of Zoe) is not always carrying a gun and does not always ride a horse, but, when there is someone in danger he also does not stop to ask questions but charges in, head first, in defense of the weaker.
The cowboy is often mistaken, his efforts in vain. He often, tragically, has a weakness: Whiskey; Age; Pride; Temper. So much of his existence is a struggle with becoming the person that he wants to be, that he is bound to disappoint. As the cliché ending always shows though, he presses on, he finds something to believe and rides confidently towards the sunset, into the unknown, to face the eternal black. He is sometimes shallow, sometimes he surprises everyone around, his hand is quick, but his heart is big, he is always striving for authenticity in a world seemingly designed to press him out.
Jessica Root (“would benefit from having it accepted”)
ReplyDelete8 February 2010
I Believe
I believe in siblings. Though many people are blessed or cursed with siblings at a young age, my story is a little different. I spent the first nineteen years of my life as an only child, but I always had high hopes of having a sibling. After I was born, my mom wasn’t able to have any more children. I still remember praying every night for a brother or a sister for most of my young life and it never happened. After my parents’ divorce and my dad’s remarriage when I was eight, I remained hopeful, but my wish never came true. I had two step-sisters from the marriage, but I wasn’t satisfied.
My dad got divorced again when I was a sophomore in high school and started dating again. His new girlfriend moved in, but I never thought they’d have kids together. She didn’t come off as the type to want kids and I had basically given up hope on ever getting to finally be a sister. However, near the end of my freshman year at Transy, I found out that my wish had come true.
I have to admit that I wasn’t exactly happy about the whole situation at first. I had been so convinced that it would never happen that I was in shock and denial over the whole situation. I would throw out comments like, “Well, this is the last Father’s Day that I don’t have to share. I’d better make it a good one since everyone knows that footprints and finger paintings are way better than store bought gifts.” I felt neglected and slightly betrayed by my dad, even though this is what I had wanted all along.
It wasn’t until my grandmother sat me down and told me that my wish was coming true, it just took a little longer than I’d hoped. She told me that I would just have to deal with the whole situation and that I’d love them when they were actually here, which really put things into perspective for me.
I got the call from my dad on September 10th saying that I had twin sisters. They’d given them both “J” names to go along with my own and each had seven letters like my name does. Though the difference in our ages are more significant than most, I still believe that they were put in my life for a reason. This is why I believe in siblings.
Justin Blackburn
ReplyDeleteWed, Feb 3, 2010
This I believe... that the best things in life are free. In our society, so many times, people associate success with money and money with happiness. Although money can increase a person's standard of living, that alone does not bring happiness. Sometimes it can actually decrease a person's happiness. During my senior year in high school, I did several internships at various businesses. I shadowed people who had various jobs, from a graphic designer to a science teacher to the president of a downtown business office. I learned what it took to be in each position and what each person did from day to day. One thing that I noticed by the last internship was the correlation between job satisfaction and salary. The graphic designer was probably the most enthusiastic of the three. She loved her job and could not think of ever doing anything else. The science teacher also loved her job and said that she loved coming to school each day especially when she had a new activity planned. However, the president of the downtown firm could not wait until 5:00. He spent all day in meetings and there was honestly nothing enjoyable about his day. He made about three times as much as the graphic designer and probably twice as much as the teacher, but spent all week waiting for the next weekend. The same applies outside of work as well. The best things in life that bring the most happiness are often the free things. A weekend spent hiking and camping and “enjoying the little things” can often be more fulfilling than a weekend spent at Keeneland or going to a theme park. Ultimately, there are many free things in life that bring happiness and do not cost money and things that do cost money are not always the things that do bring happiness to our lives.
Natalie Waddle
ReplyDelete2/05/10
I believe in hair – curly, frizzy, suffocating hair. The kind of hair that grips onto every drop of moisture in the air, mutating into added inches of hair volume. I believe in the hair on my head, unable to be straightened, unable to be contained, refusing to stay put. I believe in its curls and its waves, its allure and its completely mortifying days. In every elementary school picture, that chunk that couldn’t be called a bang freed itself of my barrette, jumping into the air like a woop or an embarrassed sigh. I believe in that hair. This hair is a direct result of generations and ethnicities and decades of useless hair products. This hair is my Algerian roots, where my mother’s mothers walked in the sand and where their thick, dark hair glistened in the relentless sun. Their hair is my hair – the absolutely ridiculously thick hair that could easily span five bald heads. Its sheer volume has broken many combs, brushes, and elastic bands. I believe in this hair because its follicles once ran so close together from my great-grandmother’s head, cascading in Spanish waves. These waves are so stubborn and so permanent that no straightener has ever flattened them out. They run seamlessly from my scalp, crimped by nature and turning into wild curls. These curls are Celtic curls – each strand a tightly wound ringlet, never loosening over the centuries, passed on like an heirloom from my father to me. Ringlets of such magnitude that they have scared away many a good hairdresser and attempted to become actually dreads, which is my hair’s not-so-secret desire. This hair isn’t just hair; it’s a string of my peoples from across time. It’s more than stubborn tangles, bad hair days, and broken elastic bands; it’s beyond a mother who tried to straighten her hair with an actual iron and a father whose curls always produced horrible haircuts. This hair is my hair, vibrant and wild like my spirit and the spirits of those within me. I believe in hair, this hair, because it is me.
Kathryn Reaves
ReplyDelete05 February 2010
This I Believe
I believe in scarves. They are so much more than just winter accessories. For me, they are signs of friendship. The great majority of my scarves were gifts. Tokens of trips and friendship. A sign that they thought about me.
Last fall my dad and younger brothers went to New York City during their fall break. My birthday also happened to be during their fall break. My dad, while on the trip, bought be a gorgeous silk scarf from the Met, which had a yellow and blue poppy design on it. He also got me a dark green and black pashmina scarf, something that I have worn to death. It is so wonderfully comfortable.
Over winter break my friend traveled to India to visit family. When she came back she surprised me by giving me a burnt orange pashmina scarf, with a gorgeous silver and tan pattern throughout it.
There are countless other scarves and stories I could recount with them. There’s the fluffy pink one from a local knitter, a hand-dyed silk scarf from a local artist, a thin blue one knitted by one of my good friends in high school, and so many more.
With each scarf that I own, I can recount to you who I got it from and from where. To me they are so much more than just something to wrap around my neck. They are signs of friendship. They hold stories and memories. That is what I like about them. That is why I believe scarves, they have depth to them.
Rebecca Rauh
ReplyDelete5 February 2010
This, I believe:
I believe that these essays are a complete waste of time and energy. I believe that if you really want to know about a person’s beliefs you should talk to them, get to know them. In the twenty or so minutes that it will take me to write this essay, I could have had a much more personal, meaningful, and insightful conversation with a friend or even someone I had just met. I would know more about them because I would be able to not only hear the way they speak, but to see their visible reactions to everything that is said. A person can learn a lot more than what is said from another person when they listen to their body language.
How many times have you been talking on the phone with someone and misinterpreted what they were saying? Then, when you see them in person, they say it again and you know exactly what was meant in the first place. Our society has created so many opportunities for us to stop interacting with each other. Texting and email have given us ways to say everything we want to say to people without actually seeing their reaction. Why do we do this? Because we are afraid of putting ourselves out there and letting everyone know: these are my beliefs, this is how I feel about that, I don’t like it when... We’re afraid to let people see us the way we truly are.
I believe these essays are just one more way of hiding ourselves from the world. We are trying to touch the world by telling everyone one thing we believe in, but we will never truly achieve this through an essay. An essay does not have hands; an essay does not have eyes; an essay is a bunch of words arranged on paper or a recording of a voice we don’t know. So, this is what I believe. I believe I have just wasted not only my time, but yours. I believe I would much rather sit down and talk with you, face to face.
Julia Peckinpaugh
ReplyDelete2/4/10
This I believe
I believe in justice. Not only do I believe in justice, but I believe in Mountain Justice. When I say mountain justice, I’m not just talking about justice for the mountains. I’m talking about justice for the mountains, streams, rivers, communities, and people of Appalachia; most importantly the people.
While I do believe in justice for the flora and fauna of Appalachia, I also believe that one day Appalachian people will be granted the right to live healthy and happy in the safety of their own communities. Instead of coal miners and retired coal miners living in fear of black lung, they will be granted green jobs of the future. Jobs that will insure economic protection, clean air to breath, and overall better living for these residents.
I believe that one day; we will all be able to celebrate mountain folks, instead of endangering them with harmful toxins. That instead of looking down upon them as illiterate poor folks, we will be able to understand their lives and trust that their futures are safe.
I believe that one day Appalachian communities will no longer be split between those who work in coal mines and those who own them. That neighbors will become neighbors again letting their children play together in the clean, fresh water streams. Streams that contain living fish, no longer contaminated by mercury and fine particulate matter.
I believe that no long will Kentucky be ranked the 5th poorest state and West Virginia the 2nd. That instead of hauling away our money like they do our coal, governments will be able to protect the wealth of the state. That no longer will coal companies be purchasing politicians, but instead all citizens be provided with equal say in the decisions their legislators make.
I believe in Appalachia. I believe in its land and its people and I promise to never leave it behind.
Willl Palmer
ReplyDelete2/05/10
I Believe…
The only constant thing that we can depend on in this world is chage. Nothing remains stagnet and we must all adapt constantly. So what do I believe in? I believe in forgivness. When we are young we mess up all the time. We break objects around the house, we bring mud in from outside onto the marvelous new carpet, and we say things that we don’t mean. Stuff happens and thats just a fact. So why do we have such a hard time accepting it? Why can’t we forgive and forget like a mother with a young child? As we get older we hold grudges and destroy relationships over meaningless objects and things without the slightest clue of what we are throwing away.
Just the other week I was over at a friends house, usually the house that all my friends congragate at over the weekend. I noticed that one of the usual girls that comes over all the time wasn’t there so I went to ask my friend where she was. Over the next ten minutes I was told that the girl had sent a picture to the friend that owns the house of him with his exgirlfriend (they aren’t on very good terms). My friend who owns the house freaked out to say the least and had told her he was never going to talk to her again and to never come back over (the usual trantum an immature 13 throws). Ever since then she stills hasn’t been back to the house and neither of them have talked to each other. Writing this out is seems way more childish than when I found out, but the fact still remains that he hasn’t forgiven him. They threw away a perfectly good friendship over a picture. It doesn’t get more dumb then that.
Redemption, forgivness, and atonement are essentials to life in my book. Most of the religions that are preahced around the world are rooted in forgivness and the “golden rule”. So why is it so hard to follow them? The fact is that we are scared for ourselves. If someone hurts you what is stopping them from doing it again. So inherently we must trust one another and on the fact that we care for one another. Its a sort of blind trust on the fact that you can never truly know someone else’s intentions, but thats what makes relationships meaningful. In a world where things constantly go wrong and where Murphy’s Law reigns supreme we must have the capacity to forgive one another, or risk living alone.
Holly Milburn
ReplyDeleteFebruary 4, 2010
I Believe Essay
I believe in Rosie. I believe in her huge feet and her long locks of beautiful golden hair. I believe in the way she trips over those huge feet when she euphorically runs to greet me. “It’s been a while,” she says through a smile. I believe in her enormous head that is most disproportionate to her body. I believe in Rosie for always waiting anxiously at the top of the steps to greet me when I return home, which I seem to do less and less frequently as the years go by. Her eyes never conceal her true feelings, because she has nothing to hide. These kind, brown eyes reveal the type of patience that says she would wait forever, even if I never came back. And when I leave, I feel the weight of an anchor fall upon my heart as I try not to look into those sad, disappointed eyes that beg me to stay. In those eyes I sometimes think I can see a smile, even when her face tells a different story. I believe in her loyalty for the way the hair on her back and arms stands on end whenever a stranger approaches me. When I’m with Rosie, I believe in playtime. I believe in the small things that help me handle the complicated too-muchness of it all. Rosie reminds me that big yards and blue sky are more than just a landscape. She reminds me that people may step on you and yell at you and tell you that you are bad and sometimes ignore you altogether, but ultimately, people are good and have love in their hearts. Rosie shows me that people may not always deserve to be treated with kindness, but you should always treat them kindly anyway. She may only be a dog, but if I was half the person she is, well, that would be just fine.
Neal Kimbell
ReplyDeleteFebruary 06, 2010
This I Believe Essay
I believe in speech, speech is debatably the greatest ability our minds allow us to posses. To be able to communicate and be productive by doing so is incredible. Speech can bring a crowd or a nation together and, vies versa, it can cripple any size population. Without it the world as we know it would resemble the time of the first men, with motions and sounds to impose directions, but without the structure of speech they are unable to coordinate building plans for skyscrapers, invest or trade with countries that very well could be on the other side of the world like we are able to do today. Speech is a great tool and probably the greatest, sure we our separated by our different languages, dialects and accents but with speech we can overcome these differences and speech or languages, for the most part, have changed and evolved, meaning that many languages derive from others, some with small differences allowing use to get by with what we already have. Without speech Martin Luther King Jr. would not have been able to accomplish what he had, in fact, the majority of great people who have done great things would not have been able to overcome their tribulation without the power of speech. Even Though many have chosen to use their gift to bring people down, numerous others use it to life all inhabitants up. For this reason I believe in speech and its awe-inspiring power.
Melanie Gruen
ReplyDelete05 January 2010
This I Believe
I believe in making mistakes. For as long as I remember, I have never taken the advice of other people, in spite of asking for it. I don’t understand why I do this, especially since it gets me in a lot of trouble, but I never fail to mess up and learn from it. Furthermore, I have always been an independent person—I prefer it this way because then I know I am being true to myself and not merely succumbing to the pressures of society. I’m talking about all the times when I was little and refused to get dressed until my mom picked out my clothes, only to put them back and pick out my own. In the third grade when I forged my father’s signature on a note I didn’t want him to see and was caught by the scariest woman I’ve ever met. When I jumped from a swing and broke both bones in both of my arms as well as my nose. When I lied to my mom after I had just gotten my license and decided that I wanted to go driving and nearly got in a wreck merging on the highway before getting lost for over 3 hours and winding up in a gas station talking to a man who had never heard of my home town. When I confronted my coach in high school and told her she wasn’t doing her job and that I was tired of working hard and getting nowhere because she wouldn’t correct anyone’s mistakes. When I drove too fast on a rainy day and caused $6000 worth of damage to my car. When I pushed my best friend away simply because she cared too much and I didn’t want to depend on her. When I fell in love too quickly and gave up everything for him only to realize he wasn’t worth it. When I stole alcohol from home to stop thinking about my problems because I was too proud to ask for help to deal with them. When I kept too many boyfriends knowing that it would be me who would get hurt in the end. When I started smoking for a few months because I actually wanted a vice. When I purposely don’t study just to see what happens because I know that failing is the only way I will learn to do better and try harder. These mistakes are part of who I am. You are hearing them and thinking, “Man, how stupid can this girl be? Didn’t she know what was coming?” Yes, I did know. I wanted these things to happen because this is how I learn life’s most important lessons—I mess up. This is how I become stronger and I will continue to make mistakes because I truly believe that experience is life’s greatest teacher. I believe in embracing consequence—it shows you what is most important in life.
Elliott Foote
ReplyDelete02-05-10
I believe in the power of an education because since I was very young I have been told a simple line by my mother whose philosophy was, “and that’s why you go to college.” This was her way of telling me that certain people’s conditions were due to the fact that they lacked an education and the opportunities that it held.
When I was little my mother was putting herself through college as a single parent. I often found myself accompanying her to class as well as various other places downtown while she was attending JCC. Anytime we would have to deal with someone who had a bad attitude at their government job because they were holding a position which was below their potential, I’d hear “and that’s why you go to college.” People stood at our TARC stop trying to attract attention from everyone with loud trashy conversations and bad language, I would hear later, “and that’s why you go to college.” Even when we were at home watching day time television’s basic programming like Montel Williams or Jerry Springer featuring a half dressed little girl attacking her sister with a headline that read “my sister stole my man,” I would think to myself “and that’s why you go to college.”
College for me has always been an escape for bitter unhappiness and ignorance. When I graduated from high school and saw some of the other options people had to pursue instead of college, whether it be manual labor or military careers, I was convinced that college was the best decision for me. My perspective reasoning changed when I actually got here. Upon arrival, I realized the great amount of service done by students interested in the community.
These students here on Transylvania’s campus were not trying to abandon poverty and unhappiness, but rather to embrace it and to change it for the better. These students I met did not look down upon those less fortunate but tried to help these people and make more opportunities available for them. This is why I believe in the power of an education and that’s why I went to college.
James Filchak
ReplyDelete5 February 2010
I believe in skinny jeans; not for their inherent bonus to one’s “scene points” or their proximity to the paramount destination of trendy, but because I believe that everyone should find who they are and make peace with that person. I’m loud, nerdy, and my frame is most commonly compared to that of a small girl. When I was in grade school, I toiled endlessly to be a normal, sports playing, baggily clothed kid denying my passion for the finer nerdy things in life and hiding my stature in my older brother’s hand-me-downs. These were dark times that unfortunately persisted into high school as any ex-angsty teen could hark back to. My past fashion choices are not something to believe in, but the fact that I was undoubtedly not the only one with such sentiments is an unfortunate product of society. I believe in skinny jeans because I believe in who I am even if I’m scrawny by most standards. I believe in being happy with the person you are. Most of all, I believe in those who don’t really fit the norm, not because they want to be a rebel, but because they’re being who they are. Lady liberty should stand on our shores and declare: “Give me your weird, your extremes, your socially awkward yearning to breathe free, the refreshing refuse of your unappreciative culture”. I believe in a pair of jeans because they fit me for who I am, I only wish that all those young folks could find their fit and no longer be ashamed of their music choice, their hobbies, their size, or their appearance because others say its not okay.
Sara Erfani
ReplyDeleteFebruary 4, 2010
This I Believe.
I believe in people letting people be people.
I do not believe in embarrassment, for I believe that one should be proud of who they are,
whether it be perceived as different to others or not.
I believe you should stand up for what you believe in,
and not sit down because you are embarrassed or ashamed,
for I do not believe in embarrassment.
I do not believe in judgment,
for I believe that should be left for God and only God to do.
Whether you believe or disbelieve in a higher power, judgment, I believe,
should be non-existent in the human race.
I believe you should sit down when another stands up for what they believe in,
for I do not believe in judgment.
I do not believe in hiding oneself,
for I believe one should be shown,
whether one is accepted or not accepted.
I believe one should express oneself,
the way one wants to be expressed,
for I do not believe in hiding oneself.
Although I find myself embarrassed for traits I possess,
it still does not change the fact that I wish it were different;
where one can stand free of judgment and ridicule
and express themselves the way they want to be expressed.
Times may change, and times may not,
but what I do know will not change
and that is what I believe in,
for I believe in believing.
I believe people should let people be people,
and that is what I believe,
and I will say that until I am no longer able to,
and by that time I hope it will no longer need to be said,
for this I believe.
Believe in yourself. Believe in others. Believe in us.
For this I believe.
Victoria Elrod
ReplyDelete4 February 2010
I believe in running and taking yourself to new places. I believe in being able to lose yourself in the serenity that comes from hearing nothing but your own breathing and the tread of your feet as the hit the ground. I believe in feeling strong, even when in all other aspects of your life you may feel weak, knowing that my body has the ability to push past any limits that people may set for me and knowing that if I can accomplish this, I can accomplish anything. I believe that when I run, I am transforming the world around me into my own new world, where bumps in the road become ramps that only boost my speed and bushes become a labyrinth that I must find my way out of. The people around me are my competitors and I must not let any of them pass. The trees become full of archers who are watching my every move and preparing to strike when I least expect it. When I am running, the world is my playground. Everything becomes exactly what I want it to become and I am in control of my fate. I believe in running, because it takes away the emotional pains that the world has bestowed upon me and leaves me with only the pains in my body that signal I am working hard and making myself a better runner. When I run, I become numb, numb to the problems in life and the tasks that I have not yet done. I am numb to meaningless arguments and disagreements that have happened and would usually way heavily on my mind. I believe in running because it is a part of who I am and I don’t know exactly who I would become without it. I believe in the things that make people happy and that is why, I believe in running.
Ben Costigan
ReplyDelete5 February 2010
I believe in farming. In a day and age when it seems like everything is becoming commercialized and factory-produced, it is hard for many to see the importance or significance of a family-owned farm that does not produce anything on a large enough scale to be considered economically efficient. However, as someone who grew up on a farm, I know that the benefits of farms and farming far outweigh the costs or inefficiencies that small farms cause.
I was not always fond of farms or farming. Waking up at 7:30 every Saturday morning from the age of 13 until I came to college to feed cows, mow fields, rake hay, muck out barns, or repair machinery is not something that I can miss. It is hard work and I spent my entire childhood despising it with a passion. I made it very well known among all of my friends and family that I was not going to farm. I could not fathom what had inspired my dad to do it. He had been raised with basically the same ritual as me (which could not be mistaken for fun), had left home and gone to college in North Carolina, got a degree and a top-notch education, came back home, and took over an insurance company and the family farm. What could possibly inspire someone to do such a thing, I constantly wondered. It simply was not an understandable course of action—or so I thought.
Since I have come to college, I have come to appreciate my childhood experiences on the farm in a way that I never could have imagined. Coming to a place with a group of people with such a wide variety of backgrounds, I see how much I benefited from the farm. You see, there are no options for work on a farm. If you decide that you don’t want to feed the cows, they get weak and die. If you decide that you don’t want to bail the hay, it spoils in the field. If you decide not to mow the fields, they get overgrown to the point of no repair. Work is a must if you are going to survive. And the work is not fun. It is difficult manual labor that sucks the energy from your veins and leaves your body aching at the end of the day. However, there are also rewards and benefits. There is truly nothing like the sense of accomplishment you get after getting the last bale of hay into the loft or seeing a perfectly rake field of hay that took you an entire day to complete. Farming also forces you to have a “tough as nails” mentality. If your cows get sick or there isn’t enough rain or if a tractor breaks down, you just have to go on and do the best you can because complaining or feeling sorry for yourself isn’t going to help anything.
I cannot honestly say that I will follow in my dad’s footsteps and return to the farm after college, but I can say that I now share his appreciation for farming and the strong character that it produces. And I think that if more people could experience the blood, sweat, and tears that go into a family farm, the demand for corporate farms and computerized machinery would lose more than a few advocates.
Logan Burchett
ReplyDelete1/29/10
I used to believe in Santa Clause. I remember waking up ever year on December twenty fifth, and gazing down onto the pile of colorful gifts, thinking that they were al brought to me from a magical man wearing a red suit. It was a childish blissful cocoon of ignorance that I was perfectly content in being the center of. For one day of the year, I was the little warm light of happiness that my family crowded around, raising me to great heights of importance. This jolly old man gave me a day; this day was everyone’s; this day was mine.
I would tear through the parcels; each of them gently wrapped and now laying torn beneath me. The contents of these presents were varied; but for the moment I did not care about the variety of gifts. This day was about a pure joy. A joy like this is almost impossible to find in later adult life. The only way to experience this day to its fullest is with faith. One cannot simply imagine a world where tiny elves will make every child in the world’s dreams come true. This is an idea that must be believed by a child’s mind. This is an idea that makes Santa Clause a hero to every child who believes in him.
I am sad to say that I have grown out of this trance that Santa had once kept me in. My Christmases seem to be lacking a little more every year, as the last grains of my faith seem to be falling through the cracks. My only hope if for one day, me to bring the faith of Santa Clause to my son, and he too can truly believe in something unbelievable.
Grant Buckles
ReplyDelete5 February 2010
I believe in local hip-hop. While the media is caught up in discussing whether Jay-Z is an Illuminati or Satanist, Sheisty Khrist, who lives just down the street, is finding a way to rhyme Michel Foucault, Knob Creek, Boutros Boutros Ghali, Lou Dobbs, and a “fully-famished wooly mammoth.” While Gucci Mane is struggling to put together any sentence more complex “Party, party, party, let’s all get wasted,” Deacon the Villain is mastering the art of imagery with lines like, “Seeing the world like Jack with the ax peeking through the door towards the end of The Shining.”
While Comcast, Clear Channel, Def Jam, and the auto tune manufacturers are sitting down in a boardroom to bribe each other and decide what to play on the radio, local hip-hop artists remind me of what this art form is all about. When creativity, hunger, and the desire to get a simple “Damn, did he just do that?” take precedent over money and stagnation, hip-hop is not only relevant, but important.
While 107.9 refuses to play local artists, while my IQ dwindles as I listen to the radio, while I sometimes see no purpose in art and music, I can just go down the street and have my mind blown by wordplay and rhymes worthy to be setting on library shelves. Yet, that just might defeat the purpose of living, breathing local hip-hop, now wouldn’t it?
Alexander Barton This I believe
ReplyDeleteI believe in optimism. I believe in the hypocrisy of most human beings because we change so much through new experiences. I believe in the truth of a multiplicity of selves. I believe in the inability to apply a black and white standard to everything. I believe in the power of illusions and the longevity of their future. I believe in the abstract as the most powerful aspect of human life, the unutterable meaning behind our symbols that cannot completely transmit a meaning without experience. I believe in doubt and uncertainty as the most certain way of living. I believe in being disappointed, let down while at the same time being supported. I believe that life is a question and not an answer. I believe that the questions I have are relative but the answer is not. I find within myself an acknowledgement of a duality within my life of happy and sad, or violence and peace. And yet I believe in optimism.
This I Believe Essay
ReplyDeletePaul Finley
This I believe: Legos are the best form of art. For as long as I can remember I have never had a mind for art, but that is art in the sense that most inartistic people such as myself think of art. As a child I would play for hours with my brother or by myself with the thousands of legos that we had. Although I prefer rules with most things that I do, with legos I preferred not to use the instructions that came in the box. I could create anything I wanted and without knowing so I was creating different pieces of art every day. Growing up I always thought of art as a painting or a sculpture, something that was made by an “artist” who did nothing but paint or sculpt. The other day I was thinking back on my childhood and remembering the mass amount of legos forms that were created at my hands. Thinking back on these memories I saw that they in many ways were art. They had no deep significant meaning to me, they were not paintings, they were not sculptures, but they were one of a kind and would never be made the same way again after they served their purpose. That purpose was not art, which is why I think it to be the best kind of art. It was not art for the purpose of art but for no purpose at all. I was simply a child with a thought of something I wanted to build, so I built it. Once completed I would marvel at my creation for a moment or two, play with it for a day or an hour or perhaps even a week, then it would be dismantled and the individual pieces would go back into the drawer with all the other legos only to become a totally new work of art the next time I opened the drawer. This is why I believe legos are the best form of art.