Defining Success

        So far, my life has been full of being unsuccessful.Not a single day would pass by without one of my failures being pointed out to me, be it by my parents, friends, teachers, or just any random occurrence that can be tied to a failure. For instance, when I go to Chabot, I realize I've failed in getting me act together. If I had not procrastinated in signing up for universities or state colleges, my parents would not have to lecture me day in day out about attaining he highest grades possible to transfer to an acceptable four year institution. But in order to understand that feeling of being a failure, I must also know what it feels like to succeed. One of which can be described in a form of victory. When you come out to be the victor in a competition that you have trained several weeks for, it leaves a sweet feeling of success. In the early ages of my childhood, my father believed I would be able to go far in playing basketball. At the age of eight I joined the YMCA basketball team. We had practice five days a week for two hours. Each day we would run, do drills, and have practice matches. It was a gruesome practice for eight year old children. At the end of the three month session, we would have a match against other YMCA teams, yes apparently there were other teams in the area. I was not the best at basketball, considering many of my team mates towered over me and the fact that I had almost no ability to make the ball go into the hoop. The only thing I was good at were rebounds and being on defense, when I go into offense I have no ability to shoot but I was able to control the ball and assist pretty well. My team was down a measly two points. My team only needed one three point shot to win this game or two two point shots. Since nobody had the ability actually make a three point shot with confidence, we all decided to go with closer two point shots. There was only five minutes in the game before the coach called in a time-out. He told everyone to just pass it to the person most open near the hoop, so much for any other real advice. The opposing team started the game, they ran down the court in hopes to make a shot to pull away from us, a team mate was able to block it and pass it down, two minutes left. He passed it an open team mate down the court, he was in a pinch, everyone was surrounding him, no chance to make the shot. One minute left, he saw me open so he passed it to me, thirty seconds left. I thought to myself, "Can I really plow through this crowd of people to perform a lay-up? No it's impossible." I was a the three point line, I looked at the hoop and threw the ball. Everyone looked at it in its last seconds, it all counted. *Swish* I made it. My entire team erupted into cheer, and patted me on the back. Well, I'll never be doing that again, because once I made it, I landed on my ankle and twisted it. Oh well, least we won right? That feeling I had of winning by a hair was the feeling of utter success. Though it may seem like luck to me, the people watching were probably thinking that this was all payed off by my hard work.
         Another way to define success is through achievement. A hurdle that must be overcome no matter what the cost. Achievement in anything is a success anyone can feel, through athletics, education, or a goal that has been achieved. Once you have achieved something that you once deemed to be impossible, that itself is a success. In my short swimming career that all started in the second year of high school, I was able to achieve many awards and best times. It all could not have been done without the many months of hard work put behind all of it. I started with times that could easily be beaten by children younger than me, and ended with times that children can still beat, I know it's pitiful, children are way too fast nowadays. I mean look at Michael Andrews, a fourteen year old 6'4" swimming prodigy already going pro quicker than Michael Phelps. He now holds 34 age national age records for swimming. If that itself does not define achievement, I don't know what does. Rather than thinking that he is a "prodigy" or a "genius" it would just put his hard work to waste, he worked hard for those achievements and it was probably not handed to him on a silver platter. We also have the fact that Chris McCandless was able to achieve "ulitmate freedom." Though most people would rather not throw their lives out of the window, Chris was able to achieve something that not many people can have. That would be the idea of "ultimate" freedom. This idea would probably spring from the idea of getting away from society's harsh views on everything. He was able to get away from all the hypocrites and undo the chains of law and order to live out the life he pleased. As people live now, we work slaving away day in and day out in order to make money, we believe that money is out ticket to freedom, but now matter how much we have, we can never achieve enough money. McCandless' father was a very wealthy man. He achieved many things that others only dream of getting, a good job, fame, and fortune. One can only have so much, but Chris' father only sought out for more. As people, achievement is defined by the amount of joy or elation we feel by reaching that goal, that achievement will later turn out to be success if you keep pursuing for that dream.

          Another way to define success is through passion. A passion to follow and a dream to chase is a large goal in life. When you reach your goals and attain your dreams, that would define success in all its glory. Success will always follow after achieving a goal in life, it just means that you were able to push yourself to your limits and achieve something that only seemed like a dream. With said, in Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska, Sara was able to pursue her dreams to be a teacher. In her time period, it was very rare for women to be able to go to college and attain a higher degree, or a degree in anything at all. She being a female and working is something so radical in her family's culture that this dream was seen as impossible. She would literally have to go against the cultural norms that have been followed for decades and become the black sheep of the family. Rather than chickening out on her ambition, she decided to follow through with it and obtain a success that no one her family dared do, the success of passion. She started out with a rough start, running away from home with little money and with little food and no shelter. Rather than giving up like most of the run away children, she kept pushing forward with her passion to become a school teacher. She knew that her life would only get better if she kept it up. When she achieved her dream, her outlook on life was much brighter than it first started when she was with her father. She was able to afford her own house, clothes, and even find the man of her dreams by following this passion of hers that seemed impossible with the little privilege she had. McCandless also had a passion to follow that later led to his success of being free. That passion was to head into the wild and live as one with mother nature. Many people would look down upon his decisions as wasteful or just plain dumb, but it was much more than that to Chris. What he wanted to do was get away from the "fake" faces and fronts that society throws at him. The lies that they lay down in front of each other disgusted him and he hated the fact that he was a part of it. So, he had a passion to get away from it all, to go in to the wild where no one judges you, where you only live on your own accord with your wits and intellect. That passion took him on a journey where he had no regrets, he was actually happy. Rather than having to spend more time in a room cooped up and having no freedoms and only expectations of what to do, he ran away from it all and became something that he wanted to be. This form of success is not something that we see everyday, in fact it might just be once in a lifetime. But with that said, it still is a form of success for he was able to see that his passion was achieved, that's what counts. 

Guy With the Red Shoes

      The guy with the red shoes, or Jeff Bliss, is an individual that knows what is good for the children inside of a classroom. In order for students to be fully engaged and learn, it is the teacher's duty to be able to bring up a discussion. If nothing is brought up, what good will sitting there and handing out worksheets do? As students are more physically and mentally engaged on a subject, new ideas and concepts can be brought up upon it. In my high school physiology class my teacher would put us into groups of four and allow us to converse the topics of how the body works. She would give us homework the night before about a topic, such as how the heart works and what causes the beating. As some people were not able to understand the reading last night, this would allow it to be clarified through not only a teacher's point of view but a fellow peer's point of view. What Jeff was doing was that he was arguing for the hope that teachers will interact with others, rather than just pass things out and expect them to understand. Some teachers believe that they should only teach content rather than actually helping students. Different people have different learning styles, others are better at retaining knowledge by just learning straight from the book, others require hands on attention in order to grasp the concept. I will paraphrase Andrade, a rose growing out of the concrete will only continue to grow if an outside source will help nurture it to health. The student is the rose growing up inside a community that only seems to reject them, the teacher is that gardener that helps that rose to grow up and shine inside the community that only seems to forsake them. If a student cries for help and no one is around, will they make a sound? Yes, but only if you choose to hear it. That's what it means to be a teacher, a guide, a nurturer, a difference.
        Teachers must also be willing to give up some of their spare time to help these students in need. What else does it mean to be a teacher, it means you must teach. They must be able to not only teach content but also how to understand the concept how to grasp it and a bunch of other things that can help the student. Teachers fail to realize that they were once those same students that had those same questions. They also fail to realize that once in their life, a teacher had once made a huge change into their lives causing them to be a teacher as well. There is a passion in being a teacher/professor, that passion is to ensure that all, not just one, but ALL of the students understand the content. A survey shows that students usually enter college with no idea what they want to do in the future.However by the time they leave, something must have touched them in order for them to keep pushing onward with a dream that they have not realized yet. Future teachers are usually inspired by other teachers and realize what they want to do because of what their teachers have done for them. But the future teachers fail to realize this and ask students why they can't decide a future or why they lack inspiration, it's because they haven't found it yet. There's a phrase that goes "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine." In this context the teacher will have to provide the student with something of meaningful value, that being their time and effort to aid their growth and ever expanding curiosity of students. From there, the students will then give their full attention and cooperate with the teachers more fluidly. 
        

Potential Deal Breakers

    I feel that in college, there are many potential deal breakers. Many of which may or may not relate to one another. But either way, even with those deal breakers, I'm still here. One of the deal breakers I had to face was, well, the fact everything was so expensive. Each class is about forty six dollars a unit along with all the books and gas that are needed to attend classes. All of which in two semesters could cost well over a thousand dollars. With all that accumulated in the time span of two years or more, more and more money will have to be spent on classes and books alone. That's a lot of money, with this in mind, you could probably just drop everything and just start working. I had this in my mindset in the beginning, but with the way I was raised, I decided to go through with college. Even though it's expensive, it will all be worth it in the far future if I am able to get a good job. With that potential deal breaker of possible money issues, Sara from Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska, had to struggle day in and day out with her money issues. At one point she had no money to afford food for herself. She worked as an ironer, ironing clothes, but as she began daydreaming about her mother's home cooked food, she forgot about her job. Consequently, she burned the shirt and had to get three dollars deducted from her five dollar pay. Sara, already in a money pinch,  could not say anything it was "either [ . . . her] job or pay" (224). Going to college and working part-time is a harsh experience, especially since you have to pay for not only college, but your living expenses. In this era, jobs were scarce and if something were to happen, you would not be allowed to complain. If you did, then the boss would happily find you a permanent replacement for your leave. When you can barely afford college, what can you afford to eat? Can you live off cup noodles and bread for four years or more? With Sara's case, she was only able to afford bread, when "three dollars out from [her] wages, when every fraction of a penny was counted [. . .] Maybe for weeks [she'd] have to live on dry bread to make up for the loss" (224). Sara had to suffer with all these hardships for several years, but in the end it was all worth it. She could now afford anything she pleased, a house, food, and clothes. All of the material items she had ever wanted as a student is now within her grasps. So what I'm trying to say is, with a little hard work and a LOT of perseverance, money will no longer be a problem.
          Another deal breaker was time management. As a person of the working class, this is rather hard to manage, taking three classes in the summer and working for my parents right after is not an easy matter. Now I'm not saying that my life is harder than anyone else's it's just that, if you work and study, you should be able to understand this struggle. Aside from working, I am also swimming for a private team on the side of that as well, so with classes, work, and sports, I tend to fall behind on homework. But I cannot give up on any of them, without the classes I would not able to graduate and transfer to four year institution. Without swimming, I would be super stressed about school and work with nothing to blow off my steam and keep in shape. And of course, I can't stop working, how else am I going to pay for college? All of these things cost time, money is important, but "time is of the essence."In the beginning of summer, I was thinking about dropping my English 1A course because of the time commitment needed to write essays and reading books. It was too much for me in the beginning, I had to read the book within a night and write out a six page paper minimum. With that in mind, I had to do homework while on break at work. The first assignment was due the next few days, but I had barely written anything down at all. I was just about to give up, when my father decided to say that he would be able to change my work schedule so that I could be given more time to do my homework. Now I work twice as long on the weekends, but at least I have time to do my homework on the days when school is in session. With that, I was able to write a nine page paper in one night and later compose a sixteen page paper right after that. Even with my schedule, I was able to procure enough time to do such a thing and find out my capabilities. In a book, Breaking Through by Francisco Jimenez, a young boy, the author, and his family are illegal immigrants trying to make ends meet in America. Later in the story, the hardest working person, the family, dies. The burdens now lay on top of Francisco, having to work three jobs and study at the same time for high school. It goes to the point where he had to read an article why sweeping the floor at three in the morning in a janitorial job. Working to support a family and having to go to school are very harsh on a young fifteen year old boy, especially since the family isn't "legal." But with his perseverance he was able to go to Santa Clara University and become a successful author. Even if it seems hopeless, keep pushing onwards because you will never know where it will take you.

         The last deal breaker that I had to deal with was with the lack of confidence I had in myself. As time goes on, people become smarter, faster, and even stronger. Expectations grow and cause people to feel lesser of themselves when comparing themselves to other people. With new advances in technology, one must now find something that is even more technologically advanced, and this of course is not a simple task. A couple of years ago, the times in swimming for JO's or Junior Olympics, had always been in my grasp. Time after time, I would keep on making the time standards and feel proud of myself. But not soon after, as I grew older, the time standards became harder and harder to accomplish, pretty soon I was no longer making the cuts for the Junior Olympics. A fifty-three second one hundred free short course was not going to cut it because now there are people who are able to swim forty-six seconds one hundred yard free. My confidence had dropped considerably. Obviously this has nothing to do with education, but what I'm trying to say is that, standards are always rising. Those who already struggle cannot compare to those who always succeed. As you lose more of your confidence, you begin to doubt yourself. When that happens, quality of your work ethic also begin to drop and causes you to give up entirely because of your failures. As Chris states "I read somewhere... how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong, but to feel strong... to measure yourself at least once."(127). Rather than moping around in your own failures, you can always try the opposite and look at your successes. Even the littlest of success can get you right back on your feet because it is an inspiration to reach higher. With a small success you aim to make an even bigger one. With the growing successes that attempt to achieve, an inspiration will grow and cause you to regain your lost confidence. In the movie of Into The Wild the narrator says something that catches my attention, Chris' confidence allowed him to accomplish a feat that many people cannot do. "That's what was great about him. He tried. Not many do." Confidence allows you try and attempt, without it we do not bother. Chris on the other hand had such great confidence that allowed him to experience different feelings. Because of that, the low confidence deal breaker did not affect him. 

       
   

How into the Wild Intersects

           I have not finished reading Into The Wild, but from the few chapters that I have read, I can get a general direction from which it can intersect with our issue of privilege. In the previous works that we have done, we have elaborated about how privilege can be seen directly and indirectly. It can be seen out in the open by people of power, by power I mean money and social standing. In this case Chris McCandless was  a very privileged young man, he was white to top it off. He was also able to live in a fairly close family along with the fact that he was able to graduate from high school and graduate from college. He had a great outlook on the future, but he chose not to go down the privileged path of having that future go into success. Rather, he took the privilege to go into the wild. For a person born into a less privileged family, the first one to college is a great accomplishment. Nobody would just simply throw all of that out of the window. They wasted away for several years and just simply giving it up is something a person of lesser privilege would do. To show how privileged Chis was, his father was "an eminent aerospace engineer who designed advanced radar systems for the space shuttle [ . . . ]" (18). His father held a steady job and also was involved in major projects in NASA which made him a pretty big deal at the time. Any kid would love to brag about their parents and show off what they do for a living. With that comes the inspiration to try to become more like them, even trying to surpass them to later have their kids do the same. Chris, being as privileged as he was, decided not to take that privilege and instead threw it away like a piece of garbage, that being another privilege available to him. Another privilege he had was that his boss offered him to pay for his college. As we all know, college is expensive, if you were given money on a silver platter to be able to pay for you tuition, would you not take it? Chris didn't, he threw that away to travel the world and live in the wild. As a privileged individual, it seems that he did not care what would happen in his later life, he had enough of it and wanted to explore the world. What privilege does is that it allows you to do things that you thought impossible. When given that power, or after finding out about it, it enables to do things that you thought was once unjustified. 
        
       It also intersects in the fact that he is not only privileged in the fact that he was living in the upper class, but by the fact that he was white. By being white, people would judge you less for what you have done. With so much social standing, one can do almost anything. If a poor man were to buy an expensive car that was well over five hundred thousand dollars and live in a house that was only worth half as much, people would look down on this. They would think to themselves that he only cares for accessories rather than what really matters in life. On the other hand, if a richer man were to buy the same car, they would not question it because he has the privilege to buy the car and still provide for his family. People of the upper class have the ability to pick and choose what they want in life. If they wanted to give away tens of billions of dollars for charity, it would not matter since they are so rich. Such as in the event of Bill Gates buying a million dollar horse for his daughter. Sure you can criticize him saying that he can do so much more with that money, but think about this, he donates BILLions of dollars each year to charity. What's the big deal if he blows off that money just his precious little daughter? He earned that money and so he has that privilege to do whatever he pleases with it. In McCandless' case, he has lived a privileged life. He has felt how privilege feels and can do whatever he pleases with that privilege. Gates' privilege was that he can do whatever he wants with his money, Chris is allowed to do whatever he wants with his own life. If he so chooses to make his life better in a way that people see, having a job and living in a nice home with a family, he can so choose so. But if he wants to make his life good in the sense where he has freedom and explore the world on his own accord, he can so choose to do so.

       Being a male also has its privileges. Males can do things that women cannot, such as taking off their shirts in public, making obscene noises in public (burping for instance), and even not having to be in the kitchen (sorry for the stereotype, I was out of ideas). Chris, being a male, had the ability that no other woman could have. That being that he could hitch hike, women cannot do this because, well because they're women. What does a dominant male do to a woman that cannot defend herself? The obvious answer is rape since men do not think with their upper head, you if you get where I'm going. With that said, males have the ability to justify their powers over women, we see this in our everyday lives. The head of the country has been male since the beginning of the United States. Forty-four presidents, not one of them being a female. Sure we have one African American, but he's male. And guess what, it's never the alpha"female" no it's always the alpha male. Yes even in the animal kingdom, males dominate, from gorillas to lions. We have some deviants such as hyenas, but that is one of the few. Even in Bread Givers by Anzia Yerzierska, Reb, the father, abuses his powers as the father. Even when they're in poverty he chooses to give away the majority of their money to charity. It would be much more sensical to save that money and support his own family in need. But because he is male, he can justify his actions as the "man of the Torah." He can use that privilege to use his families life support for some other reason that would make no sense to us nowadays. For Chris, he is able to make these decisions because he is a male, and because he male, he does not have to fear the options of getting raped, sure it's possible but not likely. 

          Another way how it ties into the topics that we have discussed is how it relates to a person's passion. Passion can be defined in a number of ways, a dream, a goal, or even an accomplishment. As we strive to catch our passions, others are faster than others, we continue to strive on and do our best. My passion in swimming has always pushed me forward to strive for a better time, these times allow me to feel better about myself as a person, it tells me that I have not yet reached my peak, I still have room for growth. In Into The Wild Chris' passion was to get away from society and live his life in the wild. Though this passion would seem unruly and very much "stupid" in many aspects, but it still is a passion that drives Chris forward. As he says "It is true that I miss intelligent companionship, but there are so few with whom I can share the things that mean so much to me that I have learned to contain myself. It is enough that I am surrounded with beauty...” (109). People take everything around them for granted, the beautiful scenes around you and the way nature is all there for you, no one ever bothers to take notice and marvel at how amazing the world is. Instead, they take it all for granted and live their lives in an endless loop never making it more interesting by adding more new experiences. Chris left his way of live because of the lack of difference that everyone had, they were all the same in the aspect that they all had expectations. Expectations are always met through the same daily routine of going to school, getting a job, getting paid, and living in society like everyone else. Because of this lack of difference he came up with the idea that "The very basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure." (70) If no one is willing to make a difference, what point is there in life? With change comes a new age, a revolutionary cause. For example, we can use the founding fathers as an example. England held the United States for quite a time period, the colonies were treated poorly and had barely any say in the government. If not for these select individuals, we would still be living the same way we did a couple centuries ago. The reason we are not is because they dared face a new journey, they we passionate in the fact that they could indeed change the course of the world and hopefully make lives if even a little bit better for those around them. They succeeded, but now look where we are, trapped in the society that the found fathers attempted to make better. The lack of new experiences has led man down the wrong path, the path that makes our lives an everlasting loop. We lack the aspiration that the past generations had to make lives better because our lives are already too easy. As passionate Chris was, he was the most radical out of all the people in the world. A man that stoop against society and dared to live out the opposite of everyone's expectations. His passion has led many others to follow their own passion because it brought him joy and it too can bring them joy. 

To This Day Project - Shane Koyczan

          The entire idea behind this video was about, bullying. How this relates to our subject that, in order to bully, one needs to have privilege. The idea that people say that rhyme "sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you" is pure privilege. The people who say this have never felt the effects of bullying. So they are obliged to feel that words hurt less than a broken bone. But what do they know, they've never been through it. You can always get over a broken arm or a broken leg, but how long does it take to get over mental trauma or even a harsh break up. People fail to understand that the physical injury will heal, but the mental injury will keep coming back even in the far future. In recent studies, they showed that mental pain can hurt more than physical pain. They asked participants to relive their past traumas, and the studies show that the mental pains hurt far more than the physical ones. Those with privilege will fail to see this, and tell them to "get over it."  But how can you get over things like the death of a loved one or the mental trauma of having to deal with a bully day in and day out, getting abused and not being able to do anything about it. You just can't, you aren't privileged enough to stand up for yourself because the majority sees you the same way, no one is willing to help you, you're all alone in this losing battle. A person with depression can be looked down upon, you believe you can just get over a depression if you can just stop thinking about it. But how can that be if you keep living through it every single day of your lives. The privileged will not understand the idea of "depression" as if science has the ability to cure this. A single pill can stop you from believing the harsh views of societies are no longer there. People just don't understand that these things will last a lifetime, even follow you into death. This video leads a powerful message about these types of people and their constant struggle against society's views. How privilege allows oneself to stand trample on the lesser privileged.  Not having to listen to their story and why they turned out this way. As he said in the video, "There must be a reason why you're still here." Despite the fact that people kept on bringing you down, wanting you be the bottom of the social ladder. But yet, here you are, persevering beyond their expectations, pushing forward towards your own future. You yourself is an inspiration, you have that privilege.

What am I thinking?

       From Andrade's video, he believed that students, or people in general are living miserable lives. This happens because no one is paying attention to what is happening around them rather, they focus on the things that they can only see never putting themselves in their shoes. They would always believe that they care for each other, that they understand each other, but they never actually do, the schools, bosses at work, they never really care about you as a person, you're more of a tool in their eyes. So, people wondering why the suicide and murder rates in Oakland are where they are, it's because of this reason that this is happening. For example, there are examples of these from literature as well. We have Bread Givers by Anzia Yezierska, three girls suffer from their father's rash decisions. He believes he is making the right choice marrying them off to "good" husbands that follow the holy Torah. However, he is only doing it for his own personal gain. Rather than thinking about their happiness that will lead for the rest of their lives, he would much rather feel his own accomplishment for marrying off his daughters and gaining some sum of money and fame. His daughters come to hate their own father, marrying off to these husbands only to get away from his tyranny. They would much rather live their lives in misery than having to stay with such a father. Andrade's speech states that he wants to help students have a safer environment to work in and hopefully have adults that can understand them. He wants these individuals to have this sense of giving and never taking, hoping to help these students in their social lives lessening in the amounts of suicides and murders. A man by the name of George R. Price was an astonishing individual. He was socially awkward, but a genius in number theory and sense. He was able to formulate a . . . formula . . . for kindness, or altruism. He believed that kindness is only a gene that is passed down from person to person. There is no such thing as TRUE kindness, because kindness is something done out of the good of a person's heart. Rather, he found that there was always an alternative motive between the acts of kindness. When a person performs an act of kindness, it's because they want to feel the self-satisfaction of helping others. This is not because they want to help others, but in order to make themselves feel good, almost like a drug. The reason there cannot be true kindness is because, say there's a person who possess that gene for having the ability to sacrifice their own life for another person. That person will indeed eventually lose their life and that specific gene will be lost forever because they cannot pass it on to another offspring. So from this, the theory of evolution will come into play and show that the idea of true kindness cannot exist because those who had it have already died. This idea comes into play with Andrade's idea of "helping" others succeed in life, and hoping that students will be able to have the access to the "kindness" that teacher's show. Humans are cruel beings, they only think about themselves and only hope others will help them. Sure, you can say people such as soldiers and firemen are sacrificing their lives to save civilians, but it's out of pure satisfaction that they are able to do this. To feel good that they are doing something that will put the idea in people's minds that the soldiers or firefighters are dying for a noble cause. What I'm trying to say is that, no matter how kind a person can be, there will always be an alternative motive behind it. There's a saying "If you're good at something, never do it for free."

         In my perspective, Andrade's speech was more about the social hierarchy rather than the idea of negligence. When he was discussing about Piedmont and how they separated themselves from the rest of Oakland, living in their own protective walls, I believed this was a discussion of class and the constant struggle of social hierarchy. As always in history, the rich are constantly looking down upon the poor. They see them as some kind of disease hoping they can get away from them as quickly as possible. Why? It's not like touching a less fortunate person will bring misfortune to you. From this belief though, they separate themselves from the poor and live next to people of the same social standing, hoping that the fortune will continue to circulate within their area. What they do not realize is, due to this, the poor will only continue to become poorer and rich, richer. For an economy to thrive, money must be circulating through the open market, but how can this be so if the poor have nothing to circulate? The degrading system will only cause harm to those less fortunate leading to worse conditions of higher suicides and murder rates. In order to fix this, we need to harness the ability to work out each others weaknesses. If the rich and invest in some business, the business will soon thrive and allow the money to circulate. The economy will once again rise and the problems will be solved one at a time. It will be a long process, but its the best option we have. But can this really be fixed? History has been a repeating  battle of classes, each leading to a downfall of a civilization. In every history text, there's always a social hierarchy, we saw it in the Mesopotamian age back in 150 BC, we saw it in the Roman age in 31 BC, the French Revolution in the 1800's, heck even now there's a battle of the classes. We see protests for the rich to pay MORE taxes. As if they're not paying enough, we just believe that the rich are wealthy enough to take more of burden so that the poorer folk can have their burden lifted. But let me ask you this, if you have a steady income, and all of a sudden a group of people want that income to be cut in half for their cause, would you allow it? I sure as heck wouldn't. Back in the French Revolution, the entire reason why there was a revolution was because the poor were enraged to the point where they couldn't even buy a single piece of bread for a family of three. The poor literally had no money where the richer folk could dine like gods. The battle of the classes came to point where they started the working class, also known as the lower class, overthrew the kind and queen, decapitated them, and lived on by making another system. Now we're facing the same problems they were having problems of a problem that was developed from over centuries old. The saying goes that we learn from our mistakes, if this is the case, why haven't we solved this thousand year old problem? Simple, power, everyone lusts for power. If you read Animal Farm by George Orwell, it talks about the Russian revolution, but personifies the entire event in the view of farm animals. They talk about being equals and creating a system where the animals can live in harmony with one another. A system similar to communism, but upon doing so, overthrowing the farmer and gaining their independence, the pigs of the farm, being the leaders, take over the position of the farmer. Rather than it being an equal society, they've only redeveloped the old system and polished it to seem new and more equal because the leaders were ones that once were their own brethren. So in order to fix this system, we as a whole have to get into the idea of not standing on top of each other, the idea that is one for all and not all for one. But as we all know, this is not possible.

So here are some questions for you:

1. Why for the last century have we not learned how to cooperate with one another? 

2. Why is it always a constant struggle for classism? 

3. How can the problems be fixed since its been here for centuries, can it? 

How privilege relates to passion

       Privilege, what exactly is privilege? Privilege is society's law on what is acceptable of certain types of people. When thinking of a man, it is socially acceptable for them to go around and about on the beaches topless. When a woman... well... you get catch my drift. We can also see in people who have higher social standing. If a poor man buys an considerably priced car while owning a trailer as a house in the ghetto, he would be seen as a fool. However, if a rich person were to buy the same car, it would be seen as appropriate considering they have the money to afford it. Also with privilege, plain words can manipulate how a person thinks. If the person looks, or seems knowledgeable to you, you would obviously listen to what he or she says. Comparing the views between a college professor to a random homeless man on the streets, you would unconditionally believe that the college professor is more knowledge able in every aspect. This privilege comes from the fact that the college professor is more successful and has a degree in what they are teaching. The credentials are the credibility that lead you to trust in his words, whereas the homeless man does not have anything to show to prove that he knows what he is talking about. In a novel by Anzia Yezierska called Bread Givers, the father of four girls uses the privilege that he is the man of the house. He controls their lives, telling who they can and cannot marry and how they should their lives. Rather than allowing them to live out their own lives, the suppresses their freedom and causes them to suffer. Three of his daughters follow their father's will and live out their lives in total misery, never knowing what true happiness is. The fourth daughter breaks away from the chain and is called a disgrace in the family even though she becomes the most successful. Using his privilege, he is able to control his daughter's lives and manipulate them to play out the way he wants it to. When he marries one off to a wealthy man, he is able to gain from it, be it self-esteem or a part time match making job where he literally sells off his daughter to an old fishermen. When having this privilege is available, you can make anything yours. Be it a spot in a top paying job or the support of citizens for your campaign.
     How this relates to passion is, if you are privileged, you are welcome to follow that passion of yours. Those with less privilege will have trouble doing so due to the lack of power. For a person to become a scholar, one must have time and money. If the individual has neither, the likely hood of them pursuing the dream will be reduced to nothing. Also, if you are only a beginning artist, you have very few connections and your art will be hard to sell off to make ends meet. However, if you come from a more privileged house hold, you will have more connections and sell off your art fairly easily than the guy who has no one. We get a few of those lucky people who start from scratch and end up successful by following their passions. Such as one of the richest people in the world, Bill Gates. Gates dropped out of Harvard later to start a failing business called Microsoft. By following his passion and gaining connections, he was soon able build this electronic empire of Microsoft later earning money up to the billions. But people that want to acquire a job in theater require connections. There are actors that have children that later become actors because of their parent's influence. An example we have is Will Smith's son, Jaden Smith. Just because his father was an actor, he was able to have an acting job while others out there who struggle and dream to perform on the big screen cannot make it because they "lack" certain capabilities.

Passion Project Reflection

      After watching the Passion Project, I realized many things in my life. What it had shown me was that going it alone is not the correct path to success, everyone thinks of themselves as an independent person, believing they can shoulder everything society throws at them. If that was the case, no one would be committing suicide to get away from it all. Even the people who put up the toughest fronts cannot succeed alone. What people do not realize is the fact that road to success is a difficult journey. We must face many failures before achieving a dream. We all know Walt Disney and his awe inspiring movies we watched as children. He was not always as successful before death. He first started as newspaper editor because he "lacked" imagination. Later as he began to start his businesses, they ended up in failures resulting in bankruptcy. He kept chugging along until he reached success, on the road that only seemed to fail, he was able to once, succeed. This is even shown in one of the Disney movies "Meet the Robinsons" a young boy named Lewis is an orphaned child who later becomes a brilliant inventor. Though it's not a walk in the park for poor Lewis, he is required to face the harsh realities in life where things never go the way you plan. His inventions never seemed to work whenever he presented them, but as he grew older and learned from his mistakes, he became an inventor innovating the future's lifestyle. His motto was "Keep Moving Forward" these words still resonate in my head till this day. The road to success is a long and difficult journey, but once you find something you're passionate about, it will all be worthwhile. 

        Another thing the passion project showed me was that, in life, there are two main roads you can take. One road is the passionate road, the road in which you feel like you have an interest in. This road will make you happy for who you are and you will enjoy life. The other road, is road that makes money. This road will not necessarily be the road that will make you most happy, working day in and day out in a cubicle is not a person's ideal work day, unless you are the type of person who stays holed up all day in a room with a computer, for whatever reasons I need not know. The Passion Project showed me that in order to be my own person and break away from the "black armor" that is holding me back, I must keep pushing for MY dreams the dreams that I want, not my parent's dreams, not my teacher's, no one but mine. My passion is to help others, I want to help others indirectly, not having to hear a word because helping others is an obligation. What I want to do is to become a chemical engineer, making medication for those who really need it in third world counties. Where I came from, the medication was all fraudulent and many people had died because of this. I do not want to face any more loss from children who barely knew their mothers or fathers because of an early death. My father lost his mother at the age of three months, he was taken in by his aunt and abused to the point where now his cartilage in the knees have worn down. The aunt would force him to cook food for her and her family only giving my father the scraps of what was left. This was harsh for a child who was barely eight years old. If children are to suffer like this, it would be unjust for me to sit back.