Letter to Mr.McCarthy

Peace and happiness homes! Thank you for writing The Road, it was a truly beautiful piece. The idea of the world coming to an end filled with destruction and death has been throughly explored on several occasions, but your writing style completely transformed the topic into something different for me. The abrupt nature of it at times made it read to me almost like poetry. You would be short and vague and then punctuate that passage in the end with some beautiful epiphany. Those realizations would leave me with this errily wonderful feeling of seeing something for the first time. Like, how did I not notice that before...how did I not see that in myself even.There was also the way that you brought the reader into the minds of the characters through your descriptions of the settings; the way that the tone of their enviornment was projected into their individual thoughts.
 I'd never before seen the prospect of survival in a world of nothingness in such a raw and gritty ...way. It was interesting to see the ways that the father adapted to his situtation. How eventually he came to see dreaming as a sign of a weaking morale. What most surprised me about that was that I would think that anyone in that situtation would be happy to be provided with an escape, even if it only be in sleeping. I was also surprised that the father, who saw dreaming of what was as something negative, encouraged the survival of that "fire" that existed within his son. If he felt there were nothing better than what he had known his whole life...should he not prepare him to be faced with that forever?....

God in 2010

Forgot this one...forgot God? Like many other people in todays world, I let God fall to the bottom of my list of priorities as my level of responsibilty mounted. I am just recently recongizing how important it is to my quest for peace within myself, to stop denying God's place in my life. Through reading "The Spirituality of Liberation," I saw how all of this darkness and negativity had manifested itself in my life because of my disconnection with God. God is truth and reality. I began to realize that I had gotten so far off in to my own way of being, a web of lies, that I had begun to basically create my own reality around me. My truth became my lies. Those lies eventually envolped me in their darkness and consumed me. I became an angry person. I couldn't even understand why it was that I became that way...I couldn't understand myself and I didnt know where to begin. When things started to occur in my life that I could only explain through the power of God, whether they be good or bad, I could no longer deny Him. I felt the weight of all that anger and those lies lifted from me. God is my peace. Whenever I am feeling troubled or lost and weak, I call upomn Him as my source of strength. All that being said, I am non-denominational. Its like my mans Com(mon) said "I lecture how I got God but dont got religion."

Father...Son....Sister...Uncle...Baby Mommas Aunties Cousin

Developing strong relationships with members of your family is crucial to leading a fufilled and less diffucult life. This is a lesson I am presently learning myself. As I have gotten older and started to yearn for more independence, I have become more disconnected from my family. This is an important part of growing up because you have to learn things for yourself so that you will be able to function once you are on your own. However, I was trailing off so far away from my family that I was forgetting that those were the people who taught me when I wasnt able to figure the world out on my own. At the basest of all my ideals, are those of my mother...those of my father. Whether I chose to embrace or combat them, is a part of my individual journey. Still when I make decisions, when I percieve things, it is always influenced by what my parents have taught and continue to teach me. It was after I made that realization, that I began to listen again. I realized that just because I had began to formulate my own opinions, that didn't mean that my parents were devoid of all knowledge as far as I was concerned. Now I work to re-establish the bonds that once existed between myself and my parents, so that they will be willing to teach and see that I am more than willing to listen and learn.

How Do I know What I Know?

Most of what we believe is based on the physical. What we can touch, feel, hear, see. A part of the seeing aspect of that is coupled with that which we have read and been taught (hearing obviously). Reading is the way which we are taught about the vast ammount of things that we have no way of actually witnessing. Those facts that we intake are then reinforced by someone who we trust as an authority figure or educator. These things are from there, taken in as fact, and not questioned. I reason that people are often reluctant to question what they are taught because they doubt their own knoweldge of the subject or are entirely ignorant of it. It is as the saying goes, "Those who satnd for nothing fall for anything." This is not to say that those people are always easily swayed out of sloth, but also to suggest that one should not be so eager to learn, that they take everything handed to them, from whatever source, as fact. I have, on several occasion, fallen victim  to an over-eagerness to learn from those who I've encountered. This is where the pursuit of knowledge becomes dangerous. As I considered myself a student of all those around me, I was neglecting the fact that not everyone has the best intentions. Reflecting on this lead me to be more careful giving individuals the role of my educator.

Our Meaning

I believe our meaning as human beings in general is to aid and enrich each others lives through whatever gift we have been given. It is through that method of existing that one can pick up where the other leaves off and we can build as a race altogether. A part of that is also recognizing that the Earth is a member of our Universe as well. Humans have to treat the Earth with as much respect and care as they should another human being. Give back to it and replinish it as it gives to us, this is how we will be able to reach our full potential. However, I do think that because many of us have become so disconnected from one another as well as our surroundings we have stifled our own growth, and therefore forgotten our meaning.
The individuals meaning is interwined with that of our universe and the realization of this comes through the journey of life. I believe that once a person realizes that the meaning of life is to figure out what your power is...your purpose, then you take the journey to use that power to reach your full potential. However, in order to do that you must interact with others and recieve their gifts and relay to them yours. That is how you find your individual meaning and relate back to that of the race simultaneously.

Modern Socrates

Saul Williams is my modern Socrates. He is more than just a poet, I like to describe him as a painter. He has the ability to paint pictures with his words. He is the very essence of what it means to be an artist and philosopher. He dissects even the most simple of human behaviors in an effort to make us question why it is that we do what we do. The first time I sat down to listen to one of his poems, I found my beliefs shaken. The poem had beeen about victims of rape and completely transformed my view of them. He used his words to restore their innocence and virtue. Another of his pieces, "Five Senses", reminds me alot of Descartes because he tells you to questiion everything that is presented to you as fact as well as the things that you determine to be factual through the use of your senses. Saul suggests that there is no such thing as fact because of the differences brought on by perspective.
As a poet it is his job to ask questions, but what sets Saul apart from other poets is that he begins his line of questioning from the point of existence, then progresses to more complex ideas. This is why he has the ability to reach so many people, despite the fact that some of his messages are considered radical. Another reason that I look to Saul as a modern Socrates, is his belief in the importance of mans relationship with the universe as a whole. Saul recognizes that in order for us to come together, we must first connect to the Universe (or God), because it is where we all began.

The Unexamined Life

The statement that "the unexamined life is not worth living," is true in my opinion because everything in life happens for a reason. Those who dont go back and reflect on why it is that certain things happen to them or around them are allowing these things to go on in vain. In order to grow as human beings, we must learn, and the only way to learn is through listening to and observing those around you, as well as through personal experience. However, we gain the most from these situations when we take the time to analyze their relavence to our own lives. To go through life without ever gauging the importance of life itself is to have lead a life unappreciated. This is because when you take the time to understand life, you come to realize that it is not as trivial as we make it out to be. Just the facts of our conception are quite amazing if you think about it. Just ten months before, we were nothing but microscopic seeds. Never having been thought of or imagined. Then out of practically no where, comes this brand new human being...the fact that we have the ability to breed life, is amazing. However, those who fail to "examine" even the simplest facts of our existence could never be baffled by this power that we possess. This goes to say not that those who dont spend time reflecting on the purpose or meaning of life dont deserve to live. In fact, it goes to say that those who dont, should. They just might find themselves floored by the fact that the grass grows all on its own, or that their fingers have the ability to move seemlessly with little to no command.

Eulogy

  Born to children, her mother only sixteen and her father a mere fifteen at the time, Ashanti was adored by all those around her from the day she arrived home from the hospital. Rambunctious as a child,  Ashanti discovered that she had talent as a singer through her afternoons spent singing along to the radio with her mother. Music became an important part of her life during those earliest years, during which she used it as a means of communicating and bonding with both of her parents.
   As she grew, Ashanti began to abandon her strictly academic-driven goals and embraced her more artistic side. From the time she was in grade school she wrote poetry as a way to release some of her boundless energy. She would also entertain her friends and family by constantly keeping them laughing with her never-ending jokes.  Ashanti was the life of the party at many family functions.
   Upon reaching high school, however, Ashanti began to veer away from her family as she took the first steps toward self discovery. She began to act out in ways that her parents had never anticipated, as she was a well behaved child.  Again, she was forced to rely on the gift of poetry to express the feelings that drove her to misbehave, and found her voice once more on the stage. She had discovered that poetry was her way of communicating with the world.
    Ashanti had an eye for style, an ear for music, and a voice for poetry. She dedicated her life to making people feel as beautiful on the outside as they were on the inside through her sewing, and to the uplifting of the oppressed through spoken word. She was the first person her friends would call when they needed advice or cheering up, for she always fought for the elevation of those closet to her heart. Championing for freedom and love, with a smile that resonated with the desire for both, Ashanti left her mark on everything she touched.