Significance

In reading the first part of the essay “How do you see it?” by Chelsie Stevens, I found myself looking at significance in a different regard. In a sense our existence must be validated by something, whether that be through other people, ourselves, sports, leadership, or even our looks. I was a little confused in her essay as to whether or not she was talking about how we see our selves significant or that there is a general rule of significance. It seemed as though she was talking about a general view of significance, as it is a very subjective term. We find significance through our own eyes and as she said, “Someone who makes it into the history books for the impact they made on the world is just as significant as a person volunteering at the animal shelter” (Stevens 34). I believe that to be true, our significance and success are very loose terms that depend on a plethora of subjective criteria. A person can be significant in their own mind if they raise their child right as opposed to others who are totally career minded and must make a dent in that dimension of reality.
In my opinion I find that so many things that are done and considered to be significant are somewhat trivial. So what if someone got the Nobel Prize or was awarded employee of the month. Who will remember them in 100 years from that very moment of time? Not many. Our lives are so very short and what really is the point if the only thing worth living for is the now? I’d like to suggest that there is perhaps something more to life than living for the now. What if there was something after this life, an eternity after this life and that everything in this life would, in turn, affect that life. This would drastically change the context of what was and was not significant. If we were living life for a larger purpose other than the direct future or even just the future of our children then we would certainly be living differently. When life is at stake there isn’t much to loose because when it is over, it is over. When eternity is at stake then there is something more to live for than a sudden cut off from all that we know as reality.
Significance would then be measured by how you affected your eternity depending on how you view eternity. Some choose to view eternity as a cyclical chain of life where we are just reborn on to earth again. Others choose to believe that there is a heaven and a hell after this life. Others also believe that only their spirits live on to affect the lives of their children and those before them. There are a variety of views on life that contextualize significance in another way.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/significance
http://ezinearticles.com/?A-Life-Of-Significance&id=790995
http://www.alternativeeducationindia.net/education_ch1.htm
http://www.purposedrivenlife.com/en-US/Home/home.htm

Writing expression

I have read several papers from our class and they have shown me so many different ways to express ideas in writing. Writing is really a form of self-expression and everyone seems to have their own style. Some papers read in a more textbook manner while others read in more of a journal manner and highly opinionated. I found that I enjoy reading something more when I don’t have to try and guess what the author is trying to tell me. Papers that have a very clear cut and straight forward thesis are much easier to read than some that prefer to dance around a thought with their words. This is something I regularly find myself having issues. Yet there are also papers that read more like a story with an amazing amount of flow and great composition. There don’t seem to be any breaks in thoughts or ideas even though they shoot from one idea to another, it still reads smooth. It is almost like comparing smooth peanut butter to crunchy peanut butter. Although it is a matter of preference the smooth peanut butter has the same texture throughout the entirety of the peanut butter, while crunchy peanut butter is smooth in some instances and crunchy and rough in others. The texture is constantly changing and sometimes it is surprisingly more so smooth than crunchy. I like to think that writing should be slightly crunchy, because when ideas are being presented in speech they go through a pattern of thoughts and sometimes surprising and interesting thoughts that change the texture or tone of the idea, yet it can still be quite smooth and flavorful.
There were also many ways of telling the reader what they want to know with word choice. Transitions and word composition definitely gave papers some different tones. There were some papers that used fairly complex words that seemed only to make the author sound more educated. Others used very simple transitions that allowed for the paper to read at a more casual level. I enjoyed reading these a bit more than challenging my mind with sometimes-pointless vocabulary that I would never use.
As writing is a way of expressing one’s thoughts on a topic it seems like writing styles don’t always match with the way a person speaks or acts. The mental process that someone goes through when they are writing takes on a different shape than that of thinking or speaking. Although writing sometimes needs to be a bit more formal so that it is in the bounds of educational and professional writing it seems like it is much different form of expression than some other ways. There are so many ways to say something and how to get to the point it is really interesting to read how people write what they have already expressed in discussions.