Ideas and Intellect

     All throughout 2020, government decisions have been questioned more and more as they gained more prevalence in the average American citizen's mind after the crisis, and people who weren't political or had no plans to be for this year's election are now suddenly taking stances and have a clear idea of what needs to be done to get through this. There have been bad calls by the United States about the COVID pandemic in particular and not dealing with it sooner, and this happened because the U.S. government had the power to say that it wasn't a big deal to the citizens.  This begs the question, should the government be given power over these types of decisions, or should the citizens handle the issues which will affect mainly citizens?       I was prompted to ask this from our class discussion on Thursday. In the discussion we had in class, we talked about the essay "Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau, and some of the ideas that he presen...

Last week I talked about how having varied perspectives matters when looking at current events and how different minds will have different thoughts on certain things that, while they might be objectively bad or good, some people will think the opposite anyway. I'd like to add on to that notion because of what we read in class this week, the speech "This is Water" by David Foster Wallace. This speech is about how being aware of what is going on in your head helps you enjoy life more. In my opinion, I think some of his points make sense and his reasoning is sound. However, I disagree on the point he is trying to prove in his speech. Being open-minded about the situation of others and looking on the bright side is not always the most positive mindset in life. The main reason I am claiming this is because of how Wallace presents the evidence that supports this claim. He uses multiple hypothetical anecdotes that are just that: hypothetical. In theory, using your mind power to ...

The year of 2020 has been a year of mishaps so far, but whether one thinks the year was relatively good or bad this year depends on one's optimism. Thoughts about this idea popped into my head while I was re-reading the book Think Like a Freak for my summer nonfiction title to prepare for next week and what we might do with these books. That book was all about thinking with an open mind and letting your mind wander at times to solve problems more efficiently. What caught my interest was definitely the open-minded mindset that is talked about in the book, because open-mindedness is a form of optimism, or at least is a trait of optimists. Thinking with an open mind about the year of 2020, many events in the year that we might consider "bad" and made the year a "bad" year could just as easily be viewed in a positive light if we think about them from a different perspective.  Take, for example, quarantine. It might seem dull and really hard to work around if you ha...