First of all, the song itself is amazing, and that beat like literally makes my heart so happy (aghhh yassss). Also, these dancers are actually flawless. Like, without flawless. Perfect. You're welcome.
When I read the prompt for this blog post, I thought to myself, "Wow. This is going to be easy. My whole personality is basically a collection of flaws." I mean, the hardest part for me is going to be trying to narrow it down to just one -- which is what I'm going to attempt to do in this post.
My problem is that I'm too nice. Now, before you get all angry and say, "Gosh, Stephanie -- what are you, one of those interviewees that answer 'I'm a perfectionist' when they ask her what her greatest weakness is?" But let me get one thing straight -- I'd rather be mean and be respected than be nice. And when I say "nice," I'm not talking about holding doors open for old ladies or donating to charities (although I do those things as well) -- I'm basically saying that I'm a pushover. I tend to keep my feelings and opinions to myself ; for example, I'm pretty much cheerful and happy all the time at school, which, frankly, is a facade that can get a little difficult to keep up sometimes, and even if I've shown my sadness at school (thank you, grades), I don't think I've ever been outwardly angry before. Mix in my fear of conflict, and I'm beginning to sound like a doormat because everyone basically walks over me. I can't count how many times I've been pushed around by other people or talked over because I'm just not used to standing up and speaking for myself. It hasn't been a problem in the past, but as I continue in my high school career and start thinking about moving up into leadership positions, I've begun to realize just how important being assertive is. As president of Creative Writers of Consol (shameless self-promotion -- but seriously, if you're interested, please talk to me: we have good writing and lots and lots of double-stuffed Oreos), I've run into plenty of problems trying to control a scarily large amount of talkative freshmen, and while I'm getting better at it, I still have a long way to go. I think this character flaw is mostly due to my upbringing. My mom has always been the rule-enforcer and punishment-giver in my family, and the last thing any five-year-old wants to see is an angry Chinese woman screaming at her. So from a young age, I've been taught to never talk back to my parents and to just keep silent when they reprehend me. This isn't totally bad; I now have respect for authority, and I'm good with staying calm in tense situations. But on the other hand, I have trouble expressing anger and confronting people when I have problems with them. For example, I've had several situations in the past where people spread rumors or talk about me or people close to me behind my back. And do you know what I've done about it? Absolutely. Nothing. Didn't mention it to them, didn't try to solve the issue, just sat there and acted like everything was normal. And I've tried to change, believe me, I have. But the worst things about flaws is that they're amazingly difficult to get rid of. Writing this blog post has been strangely cathartic in a way; I've been aware of this flaw for a long time, but I've never gotten the opportunity to actually write it out and sort through all of my feelings and emotions. So this year, I'm going to challenge myself. Stand up for yourself, speak up for once, and gosh darn it Stephanie, be a little mean. {mr. lindner, if you see this i'm just joking... real blog post is coming later on tonight}
Yesterday, I finally finished The Scarlet Letter, a fairly interesting, yet pretty difficult book. The Scarlet Letter describes the events that take place after a woman named Hester Prynne is found to be an adulterer and refuses to release the name of her lover. As adultery is a prominent part of the book, it would be reasonable to consider how Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author, thinks about this topic.
Even though Hawthorne does not necessarily encourage adultery and still believes that it is immorally wrong, he never really says whether he condones or condemns it. Rather, his main commentary is about the hypocrisy of Hester's Puritan community. Even though adultery may be more serious compared to venial sins, Hawthorne points out that everyone has faults and flaws. Hawthorne condemns the actions of the Puritan community and how they isolate Hester and Pearl for their "sins." In "The Governor's Hall," Hester and Prynne are walking to Governor's Bellingham's house when some children see them and say to each other that they should "fling mud" at the "woman of the scarlet letter [...and] the likeness of the scarlet letter running along by her side" (The Governor's Hall). In this, Hawthorne demonstrates to his audience how deeply this unfair stigma has penetrated the town -- it has gone so far as to affect children, who are usually symbols of innocence and kindness. Even though Pearl has done nothing wrong, the children still see her as a sin, a product of adultery, and attack her. This is ironic because although the children want to throw mud at Hester and Pearl because they have sinned, they are sinning themselves by assailing another person. After Hester leaves Governor Bellingham's house, Mistress Hibbins, the governor's sister, pokes her head out of the window and asks whether Hester "wilt [...] go with [them] to-night" because she "promised the Black Man" that Hester would come (The Elf-Child and the Minister). Despite the obvious signs that Mistress Hibbins isn't so innocent herself, the townspeople fail to condemn her or bring her to trial due to her high stature in the community as the governor's sister. Hawthorne criticizes the town's actions by showing the irony between her situation and Hester's. Even though witchcraft definitely more worse than adultery, nobody does anything because she's important, while they isolate Hester for years for a much more venial crime just because she isn't in a high position in the community. Although I had mixed feelings about The Scarlet Letter (especially while trying to finish The Custom House), I do agree that the book has very interesting commentary that is both relevant to the Puritan age and the modern one as well. Today, people can often be hypocrites when judging other people's sins, failing to realize that they themselves have sinned. Hawthorne realizes this and clearly demonstrates it in The Scarlet Letter. Somewhere in the back of my garage likes an old, ripped-up, partially destroyed book by the name of "Amelia Bedelia." The story's pretty simple: a really dumb maid fails in cleaning up her employee's house because she takes every instruction literally. And when I say literally, I mean literally. When she's told to "draw the curtains," she draws the curtains. On a sheet of paper. With a pencil.
Some may find it surprising that a fairly intelligent child like me chose to entertain herself through such an unrealistic book (seriously, even a five-year-old knew what "dress the turkey" meant), but it's not as strange as it sounds. I hate-read "Amelia Bedelia." By "hate-read," I mean that I pored over the book, searching for every instance of implausibility and giggling to myself over how stupid I thought the book was. (Also because there was a nice drawing of a meringue pie, and as a child who didn't get desert very often, I got excited over any semblance of sweets in literature.) I still remember complaining about it with my sister when she gave me a confused look and a simple, "So what?" "What do you mean, 'so what?'" I asked, exasperated. "This book is terrible! Look at how stupid Amelia is!" She frowned. "So what? It's still funny." I walked away from that conversation feeling more confused than I had in a long time. Could something be unrealistic and entertaining at the same time? Was it possible to like an illogical book? I realized that it's okay to have a some "stupid" fun in life, jokes that are way too cheesy to make sense, that it's okay to make bad puns and that every single thing that you say doesn't have to be articulate and perfect and literature-worthy. And all that from a ripped up book with a slice of pie. Call me a heretic and burn me at the stake, but when I was younger, a part of me used to almost be glad that Adam and Even ate from the tree of knowledge. (Sorry, God!) It wasn't like I didn't know it was bad or hated going to church or something. But a small voice in the back of mind told me that if it hadn't happened... life would be boring. Now, I'm not saying that I wouldn't love living in a world without wars, death, or SAT tests (because those things are definitely from hell), but I've discovered that most of the happiness that I experience wasn't gained without difficulties that somehow make the joy even sweeter. I kept these thoughts to myself for years, thinking that no one would ever have the same idea as me, but John Ciardi's essay, "What is Happiness?" proved me wrong.
In his essay, Ciardi discusses the causes and definition of happiness. He describes the "happiness market," a whole industry based convincing people that certain items, whether it be makeup, clothes, or sports cars, will make them happy, and then goes on to explain his ideology that happiness cannot be attained without difficulty and that these troubles and obstacles are what make happiness so... well, happy! In the first half of the essay, Ciardi discusses the "happiness market," specifically in women's magazines. As a girl myself, I can attest to the immense amount of unrealistic advertisements we see every day. "You'll be happy as soon as you use our brand new liquid foundation -- makeup so good that it looks like our model is photoshopped! *nervous laughter*" We're bombarded every second of every day with companies and corporations that promise us pleasure just as soon as we buy "x" product. As Ciardi points out, modern day advertisements center around making society unhappy and promising them joy as soon as buy their product. I totally agree with this statement. Our culture teaches young people, especially young woman, that their happiness is based on their material belongings. Ergo, the more items you own, the more happier you are... which, of course, is totally wrong. This statement sounds obvious when it is stated like that, but when you think back on your life, it's easy to see that we tend to ignore this basic rule in our day to day life. I can't even begin to imagine how many times I've wanted to buy new clothes or try makeup because I thought it would make me more prettier, more popular, more happier. So then you ask: Well, what can make me happy? According to Ciardi, difficulties are a big component in the journey to happiness. Now before you start posting angry and confused comments (or not posting because I doubt I have any readers other than Mr. Lindner -- HEY LINDNER!), let me explain. Basically, everyone experiences obstacles and problems in day-to-day life. (No duh.) Sure, they might be a pain in the bleep when they occur, but people often get a little burst of joy after they overcome these issues. Now, this concept is a bit more controversial. On one hand, I agree that life would probably be pretty boring, and therefore unhappy, without problems that we can all work together to overcome. In addition, our lives really revolve around our troubles once you think about it. I'm not sure about you, but I often think of my lives as segments leading up to stressful events, whether they are finals or auditions. Sure, my life might be pretty hectic the closer I get to these dates, but nothing beats the rush after finishing a hard test or challenging project. On the other hand, though, this doesn't mean that happiness is not possible without the existence of some sort of difficulty or problem. Plenty of simple actions and events in every day life, no matter how pedestrian, can bring small levels of happiness. For example, seeing the sun rise always seems to brighten my day, as does a nighttime bike ride with my family. Just because you're not working to overcome some kind of problem does not mean you can't experience happiness. All of the arguments that Ciardi has made up to this point are perfectly valid and well-expained; however, my favorite point is how true joy won't come from receiving fancy gifts or rewards, but from searching what makes you happy and doing it. Often, the journey to finding your passions and loves are what make you the happiest. This is the reason why our founding fathers gave us the right to the "pursuit of happiness," and not happiness itself. Happiness can be a pretty cheesy topic, and I think that it's best summed up in a cheesy quote from a once-cheesy Disney star: "Ain't about how fast I get there, ain't about what's waiting on the other side. It's the climb." |
Stephanie PalazzoloThe girl with the obnoxiously long URLs to match the obnoxiously long name. Archives
October 2015
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