Mary Boatwright 4/26/12

Journal
I chose to listen to the essays Life is an Act of Literary Creation by Luis Urrea, I Am Still the Greatest by Muhammad Ali and Dancing to Connect a Global Tribe by Matt Harding. . I chose these essays because they stood out to me as a reaffirmation of the concepts I believe and the ideals I hold true to my life. The first essay by Urrea posed a very intriguing point of view on how life works. He believed that life was more than an event. It was all one thing, and that thing was: story. His perspective has a nice metaphor that we are all narrators for our own lives, relative to the saying that states we are the masters of our own fate, which I believe. In Muhammad Alis essay he opens up about his fight with Parkinsons disease and how [his] confidence and will to live life as [he] chooses wont be compromised. This strong, encouraging statement gives so much hope to people who know his life story, and the hardship he must have encountered after being the world heavyweight boxing champion three times to losing his ability to control the functions of his body. His story is one that will continue to inspire people from all walks of life, throughout many generations. The accidental internet sensation, Matt Harding, has gotten a more personal look into the challenges of society as we all pay more attention to the differences in one another as opposed to the things that make us more alike. Matt uses the term primitive caveman to describe humans because of our nature of only being able to handle small social networks without being overwhelmed and that the problem isnt that the world has changed, its that my primitive caveman brain hasnt. He goes on to state that people want to be seen and heard, and theyre curious to hear and see people from places far away. [He] shares that impulse, but its constantly at odds with another impulse, which is to reduce and contain [his] exposure to a world thats way too big for [him] to comprehend. Hardings essay has the most truth in my life. Living in a world that is so vast and full of scrutiny, life can be very overwhelming at times. Dancing to Connect a Global Tribe really captured my interest most of all because of the language Harding uses and the point he was getting across to the listeners and readers of his essay. He goes on to refer to the society each individual lives in as a tribe and that whether we like it or not, our tribe has grown into a single, impossibly vast social network. The population of the world around us continues to grow and I believe that it is accepting that change that will help our tribes connect, and as individuals, become more diverse and respectful.

Since I am a visual learner, listening to the essays was a more difficult for me to go through, but after listening to each essay a couple times I enjoyed getting to hear the speakers voice with the inflection they wanted to impose on each sentence.

THIS I BELIEVE
Pack a bag for the weekend Mary, we need to leave soon. These were the words my mom woke me up with at 5 AM as I took a few possessions and put them into a suitcase, unaware that it would be an entire year before I would return. It was late August of 2005 and Hurricane Katrina was on her way to flood the area I was born and raised: New Orleans, Louisiana. I was only eleven years old, and had just entered the sixth grade, when Katrina made her way through Louisiana and other southern states, kicking my family and everyone elses out of their homes. Since then my family has sold that house, moved around Austin and settled in a home fifteen minutes from downtown. After having lost just about everything I held dear to me, the only materialistic object I care for anymore is my cell phone. The things I treasure most are the relationships that I have built in this new city. Old relationships from my previous life in New Orleans are more important than any amount of stuff I possess. Hurricane Katrina certainly displaced me and my family, but it was a blessing in disguise. Over time I have come to realize how sheltered and ignorant I was when I lived in New Orleans. I have gained much wisdom since then and I reserve the right to keep learning from my life experiences, but so far this is what I believe: I believe that I have truly been blessed by the family I was born into, for they are the pillars that hold me strong in moments of shaky ground. With the love I get from my family, I have a constant support system of individuals who are truly their own character that have all different kinds of knowledge on a wide spectrum of varying backgrounds. I believe that a good foundation for children is so important for a well rounded, respectable individual. As a child, I grew up in a neighborhood that was a minority white people and the thought never crossed my mind that because my skin was many shades lighter, that I was better or more privileged based solely on that one difference. My parents have given me their wonderful perspectives on the true importances of life: morals, strong values, responsibility, respect, treating yourself as well as you treat others which has to do not only with ones actions but also with eating right. I believe I have the knowledge to learn from my mistakes to avoid getting smacked in the face by life. I believe that wisdom not only comes from time but from the mouths of the ones we love. I believe that each day is a gift and we get to call it the present.

The experiences had by every individual shapes who they are, whether they realize it or not. And through my experiences I believe that everyone should be given the benefit of the doubt until shown otherwise, everyone deserves a second chance, and everyone should be given the opportunity to do anything they want because a life worth living is a life of adventure.