Following My Dreams

I sit here all alone on a park bench on this chilly, November day with the bitter northeasterly wind biting at my face. Normally I might have noticed the pealing green paint on the bench, the lady from two apartments down out briskly walking her handsomely trimmed golden retriever, and the children playing together on the playground. However today I just sit here thinking back on the last seven and a half years. What had gone wrong? Had I not studied enough? Is there something wrong with me? Should I try again, or just give up? The last nearly third of my life I have spent studying for nothing. I remember nights studying until, exhausted, I fell asleep at my desk. I remember not being able to go on outings because I had assignments to finish. Now what am I to do? Should I study for another occupation? Do I just settle for a blue collar job? Life seems so unfair. Then I hear a sound. It is not the sound of children playing or of dogs barking. No. This is a different sound, one all too familiar. It is the bringer of fear into my tired, weary bones. With a start I wake, then lazily roll over and hit the snooze button.

Like every other person on the planet, I have a dream. My dream is to become an architect. Having recognized this dream, my parents encourage me to pursue it. However, many goliath sized obstacles lie in the way of becoming a licensed architect. Will I be able to conquer these giant sized obstacles, or will I waste precious years of my life chasing after the wind? This is a question I ask myself day and night.
For as long as I can remember, architecture has fascinated me. I am enthralled by the concept of having an enormous idea in my head, drawing it, and having it built. That is not to say the job of an architect is an easy one, but to me it seems extremely gratifying. Do I get this passion from a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, or a family friend? No person I know is an architect. In fact, my parents have unknowingly somewhat aggravated my architectural passions. My parents are extremely practical people; we have dreadfully little design elements in our home. Everything must have a “purpose.” While I love my parents incredibly, I believe architecture should be artistic. It seems no human has influence my architectural interests.
My love of building does not in any way keep me tucked inside all day. I am an outdoors person. Hiking, backpacking, and biking are some of my favorite activities. I believe buildings should showcase pieces of nature. Cedar, stone, and bamboo, are the best building materials in the world. What I do not love, and down right despise, is the elements. There is nothing more irritating than having to be outside, getting soaked in the rain. Buildings were initially built for the sole purpose of keeping out the elements. Maybe I love architecture because I dislike the elements so much. Maybe it is the art form I love. Maybe I love architecture because I love creating things. Maybe, but where do my desires truly come from?
My desires are placed there by God. God uses some of them to show me what he wants me to do. My highest concern throughout this decision making process is to follow God’s will.
God has given me many gifts, one of which is architecture. The gifts God has given me should be used wisely. I don’t want to waste a gift, but since I have been given many gifts, which ones should I utilize in my career? What about my gift of music? I have played the violin for over ten years. Does God want me to bless others through a career as a musician, or with the gift of architecture? Can I use my gifts besides in a career form? I enjoy playing old-time music at senior homes with my band. Should I utilize my musical gifts in this way, or as a career? I wish I knew.
There are plenty of other occupations with similar qualities as architecture. Manufacturing, for example, designs and sees things built, but I am not attracted to manufacturing. For some reason I am attracted to buildings. I honestly have no idea why. My parents dread when we drive by an interesting building because I always glue my face to the window to see out, thus leaving breathe prints on the window. Whenever I walk into a building and notice a floor plan on the wall, I am drawn like a magnate to the plan. Those who are with me think I belong in a mental institute; I mean who actually reads those building maps? I do. I don’t know why. I just do. Once, while visiting a friend in the hospital, I became fascinated by the hospital’s architecture. What normal person notices the architecture in a hospital? I do. Or how about when I go to a museum and am more fascinated by the way the walls meet the ceiling than I am with the exhibits. Sometimes my interests seem extremely weird, even to me.
When I consider career choices, money is not a big deciding factor for me. Sure I want a sweet car, the grandest house on the block, and a dream vacation every summer to Hawaii just like every other American, but being at a job where I belong is more important to me than money. When I am on my death bed, will I remember the car I bought in 2013? I think it was a mustang. Or was it a minivan? It won’t matter. What will matter is how I have left this world. Is it a better or a worse place? Have I used my gifts wisely or poorly? At least to me, happiness is not obtained through a large pay check, but rather through serving others in ways I am gifted.
A gift seldom comes completely naturally. It must first be taught and challenged before it can be utilized. The road to learning how to properly use my gift of architecture is not an easy one. I must attend seven and a half years of college, but I will not know until part way through my schooling whether or not I will be able to finish my degree. Then, if I am able to complete my seemingly endless years at college, I must find a place to apprentice at. After serving a minimum of two years there, I must study for, and then take a gruelingly long test to become a licensed architect. However, it is not just one test for the entire nation. I must take a different test for every state I wish to be licensed in. These are just the major challenges I am aware of on my path of learning. I shiver to think of what small obstacles are lying, waiting to ensnare me.
Every time I start to fear about my future career I say to myself, “So self, what else could you do as an occupation besides architecture?” Every answer self has given me, I have rejected. I imagine going to work day after day after day and wondering what if? What if I had overcome my fears? What if I had gone to school and gotten my degree? What if someone had hired me and I could be fulfilling my dream of designing buildings right now? What if? However as many times as I say this, something, somewhere deep in my stomach says, “But what if by the time you finish school, you decide you don’t want to be an architect? What if no one will hire you?” Thus the inward battle rages on.
Fear stems from a loss of certainty about the future. The future is unclear; anything could happen. I want to be in charge of everything and I want to know what will happen. The cold truth of life is I will never know what tomorrow may bring. I know God is in control of whatever happens, but I feel as if studying for nothing is wasted time. All those years could have been spent doing something instead of stressing myself over learning information never to be used again.
When confronted with a life changing choice, I should not try to make a decision without consulting others. My parents have more life experience than me and are thus able to give helpful and wise advice. I know they have my best interest in mind and they will always love me. They have given me lots of wise counsel about priorities in life. Is money or fulfillment better? God’s will or mine?
Another person I have consulted is local architect, Michael Smith, who works at Zervus Group architects. I asked him about what all is involved in becoming an architect. Now I might have discovered a major part of architecture I dislike, or downright despise. Michael may have been able to tell me of some other occupation I should pursue. However talking with him actually gave the opposite result; it encouraged me towards become an architect. Michael also gave me advice on what schools firms look at to hire from. If I had not sought advice, I might have ended up going to a bad school.
So what am I going to do? On the one hand, all the clues seem to be pointing to becoming an architect, but on the other hand, could my fears be for a reason? I don’t want to waste so much of my life pursuing a dream only to see it fade into the black abyss of impossibility. What if I can’t get into the school? What If I can’t pass the licensing exam? What if I can’t get hired? As the time approaches to when I must make my decision whether I am going to transfer to the Washington State University’s school of architecture or not, I am sure of one thing: God will provide.

The Tight rope between bias and interest

To me, what makes a good essay? Whether it is an essay that I have written, or an essay I read, to me a good essay is one that is on a subject of interest to me, and is also presented in a convincing, non-biased way. Agreement with the authors point is secondary to me. It is more important that I am interested in the subject then that I agree with the author on everything. However, reading an essay I disagree with does get me riled up, and while that’s fine sometimes, it’s also nice to have the occasional essay that I agree with.
Sometimes what causes bias in an essay is having a preconceived idea about what the author is saying. Sometimes I might have a preconceived idea based on from whom I received the information. Is my teacher a liberal. Chances are she or he is going to give me liberal material that I should “of course” be automatically discarded. The opposite of having a bias against something is believing everything. Since I am conservatively minded when I have a conservative teacher it’s easy to believe that I’m going to agree with everything that the teacher presents. I might not stop to question weather or not I agree with the teacher.
Another way I form a bias for or against an essay is through a preconceived idea from what the author said somewhere else. When in his essay, The Owl Has Flown, Sven Birkerts writes that “wisdom has nothing to do with the gathering or organizing of facts” I assumed throughout the rest of the essay that he was saying that no facts are helpful for gaining wisdom, but now looking back on the essay I believe that Birkerts may have been saying that it’s not just the amount of facts that we gather, but also the quality of the facts. While Birkerts and I might disagree on several things, we may not disagree on quite as much as I assumed we did at first.
Do I avoid biasness in my writings? Not as much as I wish I did. Several times in my reading responses I have slammed the author when I really agreed with him or her on several issues. Sometimes my preconceived biasness causes me to believe that the author was speaking against a subject when all along he is just making his readers aware of a subject. In his essay, The Loss of the Creature, Walker Percy examines expectations. I believed that he was saying that all expectations are bad when in fact he might have been more trying to make us aware of them then proving them to be wrong. I think he did still have a slight tend against expectations, but he probably wasn’t as against it as I had thought him to be.
What is biasness and why is it wrong in an essay? Biasness is the lack of coherent thought. It is the ignoring of facts of the other side. I may believe that the reasons to believe one side of an argument outweigh the reasons on the other side, but there are almost always those reasons for the other side. To ignore the reasons for the other side, and even say that they don’t exist, causes me to loose credit with my readers. My readers start believing that I am not smart enough to see that there are two sides to every coin. Biasness causes a person to abandon reasoning of both sides of the evidence for ranting about why your side is right and the other side is wrong. It quite often leaves out important facts and illustrations such as was true in Disney World. Biasness will cause my readers to loose faith in my ability to be trusted as a thinker.
Why do I need to pick a subject that I am interested in to write about? Because other wise the essay will turn out very uninteresting. I have lots of friends who are extremely into sports, but I could probably only name three or four Mariners and even fewer Seahawks. I’m sure my friends could write an excellent paper on sports. However if I tried to write a paper on sports it would turn out horribly because I’m not interested in sports. I know that there once was a baseball player nick-named Babe Ruth – on what team and at what position he played I have no idea. Moreover I don’t care to have any idea. Now what would an essay I wrote on a subject I had no idea about and had very little desire to know anything about look like? Pretty darn bad. There would be no soul. It would probably be a list of boring facts that I found in research books. Now who wants to read a bunch of boring facts? No one. So that’s why it’s important to write about something that I’m interested in. I really enjoyed the personal analytical essay a lot because it allowed me to talk about two subjects of interest to me – architecture and my future.
One thing that this class has taught me is to find a balance in-between interest and biasness. Why is finding the balance important? Because an essay written on a subject of no interest to me will turn out retched. However an essay written on a subject that I am passionate about, but was written in a biased way will also turn out unconvincing. It is important to harness interest into examining all the facts not just spouting out my opinion. The readers will loose interest either because I am not interested in the subject as a whole, or because I am not willing to be interested in addressing the other side. When I loose the interest of my readers, what good is an essay?
How do I find the balance in between biasness and passion? Do I? Unfortunately not always. In my reading response to Susan Willis’s Disney World, I ranted against, of all things, ranting. Given the opportunity, I normally don’t have a problem with writing on a subject of interest to me. However sometimes I do have a hard time calmly discussing both sides of the argument and rationally showing the reader how it is that I came to my conclusion about the subject. I now realize that to rationally discuss all the evidence is far more convincing than dogmatically stating my view. This does not compromise my views, rather it allows me to share them in a far more convincing manner. And that makes it a far better essay.

The Visionless

The Visionless
By Trevor Gustafson

At the mere age of one and a half, Helen Keller contracted a severe case of scarlet fever which left her both blind and deaf. Her future looked incredibly dismal. What could she accomplish? Instead of feeling sorry for herself for the rest of her life, however, Helen decided to take action. Not only did she become famous as the first blinddeaf person to graduate from college, but she also became a strong advocate for other blind people. However, it took obtaining a vision and much work before she could accomplish this. All of us have dreams and visions, even those who are blind. Never the less, not everyone uses this gift. Sometimes we just accept the way that things are and choose not to notice the pain and grief all around us. Just like Helen, however, we can depart from the darkness of inaction and arrive in the bright sunlight of taking action. It is here, in the sunlight, that we have vision. Not of what our world is, but of what it can be.
Helen Keller was a spoiled child who got whatever she pleased. If she wanted ice-cream for supper, her mother gave her ice-cream. She was never punished for being disobedient or even hitting her nanny. This type of behavior would, of course, never be acceptable when Helen became an adult. Life is not full of people waiting to serve us. With the help of her tutor, Ann Sullivan, Helen realized that if she wanted to excel, she would have to work at it herself. Like Helen, we can take charge of our own lives and do something about our own predicaments. We don’t have to be lazy people who expect our parents, the government, or anyone else to do everything for us. There are some people, however, who don’t have the ability to help themselves. In her essay, In Plato’s cave, Susan Sontag describes this type of person when she mentions a photograph of “a naked South Vietnamese child just sprayed by American napalm, running down a highway toward the camera” (476). This child’s situation was out of his or her control. To say that this child should help his or herself would be absurd. Someone should obviously help this poor child. What did the photographer do? Nothing. He was more interested in capturing a photograph than in saving or, at the very least, comforting a human life. Like the photographer, it is very easy for us to become inactive. Why do we become inactive to our own problems and the problems of others? Because we become desensitized into seeing what our world is instead of what it can be.
Where does desensitization come from? It comes from many places. The photographer in Sontag’s essay was possibly desensitized by visions of how much money he could make selling this photograph. Possibly he became desensitized to believing that it was better for him to make a political statement than to save a human life. Possibly he had become desensitized because he had seen so much pain at war already. There are many possible reasons that this photographer become desensitized, but it is not helpful to dwell on an incident that took place thirty-five years ago. What about today? There are many ways that we become desensitized to pain and grief. Possibly the most common way we become desensitized is through laziness. We see something that needs change, but instead of taking action we allow thoughts of how comfortable we are and how much pain and work taking action can be to desensitize us to the situation. It would have been easy for Helen to give up on going to school. It was easy for the photographer to do nothing for the child. It’s easy for us to turn a blind eye to a problem that we see. It is easy for anyone to become desensitized
Because the photographer in Sontag’s essay allowed himself to become desensitized to the point where he became more interesting in capturing a photograph than in saving a human life, he became a useless member of society. He cared very little, if any, for the well being of others and thus wouldn’t do a thing for someone else. A person who does nothing is useless. A refrigerator that does not work and does nothing is thrown out. It is useless. Every member of society who does nothing when they could is just like a worthless appliance; they are no good and only take up room on our planet. This is not to say that society members who are physically unable to anything should be discarded, but rather that those who have the ability to take action should. Are we useful like Helen Keller who was proactive in helping not only herself but also the lives of other blind people? Or are we like the photographer that Sontag describes who was unwilling to be proactive? How do we become proactive?
To be proactive, we must first have an interest in learning about ways in which we can be active. Walker Percy examines how our interest level can impact our productivity level. In his essay, The Loss of the Creature, he gives the example of two young people, one in a school laboratory, the other on a beach. Both are presented with a dogfish to be dissected, but Percy claims that the person on the beach has “a great advantage over the… [person] who finds the dogfish on his laboratory desk” (409). Why does the beachgoer have an advantage? Because he is interested in what he is doing; it is not an assignment that must be done. If a teacher were to give a student the choice of doing the laboratory project, most students would probably choose not to do it. However, given the same choose, the child on the beach gladly dissected the fish because he was interested. Just like Percy’s example of the two young people, we must be interested in learning about what needs change before we will set about to change anything. Interest is the opening of our eyes to see the situation. It is the switch that turns on our action.
How can we escape desensitization and become interested? The answer to that question is different for every person. Some people may need to see a different tragedy than they are used to before they will become interested in seeing the pain and grief in and around their own lives. Maybe a trip to a slum in Central or South America will wake these people up. Percy examines this need for change when he states that occasionally “poetry students should find dogfishes on their desks and biology students should find Shakespeare sonnets on their dissecting boards” (413). Just as a student may learn more when exposed to new and different subjects, some people become more passionate about change when exposed to new and different tragedy. There are other people, however, who may need a series of events to slowly reveal the situation to them. In his movie, The Truman Show, director Peter Weir tells the story of Truman who is unknowingly the star of a worldwide televised program. Since Truman was a baby he was put in a controlled world where everyone he had contact with was actors. He thought he was living a normal life, but everything presented to Truman was fake. Slowly, through a series of events, such as stage deficiencies and actor blunders, Truman realized the fakeness of his world. However it took him thirty years. Some people just need more time than others to see something that needs change. There are still other people who may need to see a gigantic disaster before they will become aware of the pain and grief around them. Something like 9-11 may wake these people up. There are many ways that people gain an interest in learning about pain and grief around them.
Why should we want to take action? Because we hope if we help someone else, the favor will be returned? Because we hope we can change our own lives for the better? There is no guarantee that if we take action, someone else will return the favor. There is no guarantee of personal advantage for taking action. Why would Truman want to leave his world? It was all he ever knew. He was content and happy there. However, there was the possibility something more. Something better. There was no guarantee that he would find a better place, but he set out anyway in hopes that he would. Ultimately a mindset of change is a personal decision. No one can be forced to do something they don’t want to and don’t have an interest in.
If we decide that we will be a maker of change, and set out to look for things that need change, what will we see? There are many things that are in our own neighborhoods that can use our assistance. It may not be as drastic as helping a child in Vietnam or escaping from a television show. It may be helping the elderly lady across the street bring in her groceries. It may be talking with a friend who just lost his brother over in Iraq. It might be deciding to quite smoking. To mention all the ways we can make a change would fill books. Every one of us is presented every day with an opportunity to make a change. If we are interested in being an active member of society, we will find those opportunities to take action.
Even though Helen Keller had lost her hearing and eye sight, she had an excellent vision for the world around her. A vision that did not see the way things are, but rather the way they can be. Why can’t we who have good eye sight see the way that things can be? We can, but choosing to see is a personal decision. We all see different things that need change. They may be big or they may be small. If we become desensitized, inactive members of society, we become the ones who cannot see. It is not those who are blind who cannot see, but rather those who refuse to see what can be who are the visionless.





















Works Cited
Keller, Helen. The Story of My Life. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company.
Percy, Walker. “The Loss of the Creature.” Making Sense: Essays on Art, Science, and Culture. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 402-415. 2006.
Sontag, Susan. “In Plato’s Cave.” Making Sense: Essays on Art, Science, and Culture. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 465-480. 2006.
The Truman Show. Dir. Peter Weir. Perf. Jim Carrey. Paramount. 1998.

The blind eye

The Visionless
By Trevor Gustafson
Working draft

Helen Keller was born June 27, 1880 as a normal child. She could talk, see, hear, and run like anyone else. However when she was one and a half, she contracted a serious case of scarlet fever. While she recovered from the disease, it left her blind and deaf. One might think, “what can a blind and deaf person do?” Not Helen. Helen became famous as she was the first blinddeaf person to graduate from college, but it took many steps, and much work before she reached that point in her life. It is easy for us to, like Helen, become blind and desensitized to our own world. We fail to notice the pain and evil in our own neighborhoods. Just like Helen, we must take many steps to get from the darkness of inaction, to the bright sunlight of caring for others.
It is important that we realize that we must be the ones to do something about the predicament. If we don’t do anything, chances are no one will. Think about those who don’ have the ability to help themselves. In her essay, “In Plato’s cave,” Susan Sontag describes this type of person when mentions a photograph of “a naked south Vietnamese child just sprayed * American napalm, running down a highway toward the camera.” This child’s situation was obviously out of his or her control. What did the photographer do? Nothing. He was more interested in getting a photograph than in saving or, at the very least, comforting a human life. This photographer had become desensitized to evil and thus to change.
Where does desensitization come from? It comes from many places. The photographer in Sontag’s essay was possibly desensitized by visions of how much money he could make selling this photograph. Possibly he became desensitized to believing that it was better for him to make a political statement than to save a human life. Possibly he had become desensitized because he had seen so much pain at war already. Possibly he became desensitized by laziness. There are many possible ways that this photographer may have become desensitized, but it is not helpful to dwell on an incident that took place thirty-five years ago. What about today? There are many ways that we become desensitized to evil and pain. We can become desensitized by greed, by political agenda, by to much exposure to pain, but possibly the biggest way we become desensitized is through laziness. It is much easier for us to accept that things aren’t the way we want them to be, than it is to do something about changing it. But it is not through easy feats that great things are accomplished. [Keep on tract of talking about desensitization]It would have been easy for Helen to have given up on going to school. It was easy for the photographer to do nothing for the child. It’s easy for us to do nothing. To do nothing is to really turn a blind eye to the situation. If no one took the initiative to stand and do the not so easy thing, our society would change so drastically that it would be unrecognizable from what it is today. Everyone would be forced to fend for themselves. Crime would go up because no one would care to watch over someone else’s stuff while their away. Those who are physically disabled would receive no assistance. All this would happen if we chose to be lazy and not watch out for others.
[why the visionless are so bad]All forms of desensitization are really just forms of inaction. If we become desensitized to the point where we chose to do nothing for others, we become useless members of society. The photographer in Sontag’s essay took no action to save a human life. Because the photographer was more interesting in getting a photograph than in saving a human life, he was a worthless member of society. He cared very little, if any, for the well being of others and thus wouldn’t do anything for anyone else. Someone who does nothing is useless. A refrigerator that doesn’t work and does nothing is thrown out. It is useless. Every member of society who is useless is just like a worthless appliance; it is no good and only takes up room. Are we useful like Helen Keller who was not only proactive in helping change the lives of others by assisting those who were blind? Or are we like the photographer that Sontag describes who was unwilling to be proactive. How is it that we become proactive?
To be proactive, we must first be interested in learning about ways in which we can be active. If we are uninterested, all the learning in the world will do us no good. In his essay, The Loss of the Creature, Walker Percy examines how our interest level can impact our productivity level. He gives the example of two young people, one in a school laboratory, the other on a beach. Both are presented with a dogfish to be dissected, but Percy claims that the person on the beach has “a great advantage over the… [person] who finds the dogfish on his laboratory desk.” [409] Why does the beachgoer have an advantage? Because he is interested in what he is doing; it is not an assignment that must be done. If a teacher were to give a student the chose of doing the laboratory project, most students would probably choose not to do it. However, given the same choose, the child on the beach will gladly dissect the fish because he is interested. Just like Percy’s example of the two young people, we must be interested in learning about what needs change before we will set about to change anything. If we are uninterested, we will likely never lift a finger to help others. Interest is vital. We must want to learn about our world before we can change it.
[Interest is the opening of ones eyes]How is it that we become interested? The answer to that question is different for every person. Other people will need to see a different tragedy than they are used to. Maybe a trip to a slum in central or South America will wake these people up. Percy discusses the need for change. He argues that “poetry students should [occasionally] find dogfishes on their desks and biology students should find Shakespeare sonnets on their dissecting boards.”[413] It is so easy to become desensitized to the evil and pain right around us that sometimes it takes seeing a different evil or pain to make us realize that we are living in the midst of pain and evil. Still other people may need a series of events to slowly show them the truth. In his movie, The Truman Show, director Peter Weir tells the story of Truman who is unknowingly the star of a worldwide televised program. Since Truman was a baby he was put in a controlled world where everyone he had contact with was actors. He thought he was living a normal life, but everything presented to Truman was fake. Slowly, through a series of events, such as stage deficiencies and actor blunders, Truman realized that his world was fake. However it took him thirty years to realize it. Some people just need more time than others to receive a passion for helping others. Some people may need to see a gigantic disaster before they will become aware of the evil in their own backyard. Something like 9-11 will wake these people up. There are many ways that people realize that there are others in need of help. It is not important how they come to this realization, but merely that they do.
When we open our eyes to see the evils around us, what will we see? There are many things that are in our own neighborhoods that can use our assistance. It may not be as drastic as someone starving on the street. It may be watching a single ladies kids for an hour after school until she is able to get off work. It may be helping the old lady across the street bring in her groceries. It may be sitting and talking with a friend who just lost his brother over in Iraq. Every one of us is presented every day with an opportunity to serve. To mention all the ways a person can help those in his or her own neighborhood could fill books. It doesn’t matter in which way we help, only that we help.
Ultimately a mindset of service is a personal decision. No one can be forced to care. There are hundreds of ads out there vying for people’s attention for a worthy cause. But ultimately it is up to the individual to make the decision that he or she will serve the community instead of being a useless member of society. What means he serves in, or to what capacity does not have as much affect as that he or she merely serves. Once one person starts to serve, the idea will catch on. It only takes one person to be the start of a movement. Will you help start that movement? Will you actively serve your community?
[Tie in Helen Keller and the truly visionless]

Helen keller #2

Vision is a gift that all of us have been given. Even those who are blind can see. I am not talking about eye sight explicitly, but rather any contact with the world around us. Even Helen Keller, a girl who was both blind and deaf, had contact with the world around her. Sure she could not see the things around her, or hear the people around her, but she could still paint a picture in her mind of her world. She could still make assumptions, true or false. She could still long for something better. All of these things she could do, the same, or even better than you and me.

Helen Keller was born June 27 1880 as a normal child. She could talk, see, hear, and run like anyone else. However when she was one and a half, she contracted a serious case of scarlet feaver. While she recovered from the desease, it left her blind and deaf. However, it wasn’t until quite a while after her desease that Helen realized that she was different than other people. She realized that while she had to make gestures to communicate, other just had to misteriously move their mouthes and they could communicate with each other.

In her essay, In Platos Cave, Susan Sontag tells of how we can become desensitized to the world around us. She tells how just like Helen accepted her blindness as normal at first, it is easy for us to accept the evils in our world as normal. Sontag talks about how people would become desensitized to pictures of the Vietnam War. [read section and expount] Even now, we can look back a the horable things that happen at war and just brush them off as the past. Only once we shake ourselves and realize the tradgedy can we do anything about our perdicament. This is what Helen Keller did, but first she had to change her perspective and see how life works.

Helen Keller was a spoiled kid. From her perspective the world revolved around her. If she wanted bread for supper, her mother gave her bread. She was never punished for being disobedient and even kicking and hittin her nanny. When her teacher, Ann Sulivan came, the first thing she had to teach Keller was that the world didn’t live to serve her. If she wanted to excell, she would have to work towards it herself. Of course there would be people who loved her and would help her, bu it was ultimately up to keller, to make her dreams and visions happen.

Because Helen was not able to communicate in the traditional sense with other people, does that mean that she was a victim to believe anything that anyone told her. I would say she wasn’t. In fact, when Sullivan came to teach her, Helen had to choose that she was going to learn. She had the choice as to whether she was going to learn or not. Because of her disability, no one could force Helen to learn. She had more of a choice than we do what sources she would take in. For us, even when were in line at the grocery store, we might somehow glance at a magazine in the magazine rack and to influenced by the cover on that Magazine. Helen Keller did not have that dilemma. She had almost complete control over the sources presented to her.

Erin McGraw has a similar story that she tells in her essay, Bad Eyes. McGraw had a deteriorating eye-sight problem. Without her glasses she could hardly see a thing. Unlike Keler, however, she started relying on other to be her eyes. [examples]