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The true alchemists do not change lead into gold they change the world into words
-William H. Gass
-William H. Gass
Hello again, its me doing yet another in depth blog post for whoever wants to read! The theme this week is all about alternative endings. Specifically, we are gonna analyze a counterfactual, which is a “mental simulation” involving changing a ending to a certain life event. This allows us writers to better reflect and learn from the choices we make in everyday life. This connects to my personal Narrative (blog 5) as I will share how different choices I could of made might have changed my resolution for the worst, or better.
Blog Text-
My counterfactual Reimagining the summer camp conversation I had with my mom takes me in many different directions. I can’t pin down just one way I could change this event, due to the fact my mind loves to spin a situation, out of pure fun or exploration of myself. Yet, certain timelines are more likely than others knowing myself, and knowing from learned situations prior. So, to really look at this with depth, I first want to identify the two main causes and effects of the choices I had made. Looking at the positive side of my experience, I see it taught me important lessons. What caused the conflict was self doubt, I doubted what i wanted to please my mom, and the effect was I opened up to her. I learned it's better to be honest than to push a lie. A counterfactual is I could have kept this all to myself, put myself through camp only to please my mom. Now, in the real situation, the negative side of this experience is it may have prevented me from pushing myself to find out i’m very good or happy with playing this sport. I might have missed out on a really good experience that could have opened me up to a whole new world, and a world of experiences to incorporate in my writing. I wonder if I had gone to soccer camp, I would have made any friends. Considering it was an overnight camp, would I meet people who connected with me so deeply that we would still be in touch today. After all, not only the fact the girls had stayed with each other for over eight weeks, I wonder what the team mentality would be? My mom of course, she had told me being one a team in a sport is like a family. Its a different experience, I wonder how much depth I would have gotten if I had gone. Also, Maybe if I had just gone, faced my fears head I, would it be likely for me to discover any self worth. Self-worth in, doing bad, and then getting redemption. Or maybe past situations had corrupted any strengths or goals I had in sports. For example, towards the end of fifth grade, I had vivid memories of doing bad in sports. Yet the certain moments stuck in my mind were not the only moments I had with sports. I had actually done amazing volleyball and pretty good in field hockey, from what I remember now. It's weird how as people, we tend to let the few bad moments in our lifespan corrupt our egos confidence. On the other hand, maybe it would be a total disaster. Now, after i’ve gone to middle school, experience mean girls, uncomfortable moments, I can fairly say avoiding them, and distancing myself from them is what kept me from de-valuing myself. In other words, if there was a chance I would have to suffer bullying at camp, I believe that would have done way more harm than good. A teenager's self-esteem and value system at that age is dependent highly on social interactions, I have so much more self-esteem because I surrounded myself with people of similar interest. If I had went into the unknown for solely the reason of trying to impress my family again, I may not have put my heart into it. But this is just a extreme alternate ending. A ending in which I at that age, would feel defined by my failure. That could have led me down a path in which my value system had seriously been altered. But, re-imaging a more light-hearted ending, one thing I constantly ask myself when thinking over this time, was what if I just had told mom from the beginning “No, thanks. It's not for me.” Would that make a difference. Looking at it now, from where I am, it probably would have been the best thing to do, because there wouldn’t have been a problem in the first place, I would have spent my energy on something like film-photo, instead of creating non-existing stress in my head. This is something I think I will apply now to my life in the present. I just gotta remember to be honest with myself, I got to look around at reality, and not let the automatic thought systems, beliefs control my life.
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Olivia DeSantis
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