After reading "This is Water" by David Wallace and Nobel Lecture by Toni Morrison I believe that both of the authors are trying to tell us to not live life by how the rest of the world is, careless and ruthless, but to live in such a way that you think of others feelings other than just yours yourself. I also believe that they are both trying to say that how we think and how we speak are a reflection of who we are as individuals. The differences these stories have are who they are trying to approach. I understood Wallace's passage a lot more than I did Morrison's because he was talking directly to my age group of people. Morrison's passage was a lot more difficult for me to understand because she was speaking to the people that attended the Nobel Peace Prize.
David Wallace starts out by stating how the real facts about the world are hard to face and we often look right past them. What we grow up automatically thinking is right tends to be what is actually wrong. We go about life without thinking before acting, putting ourselves always first before thinking about others, and that puts us in the hole of not doing the justly things we should. He explains that it is a natural pattern to be self centered because many tend to let their mind push them around. He goes on to explain that people don't live their life to complement yours but to only do what will make their life seem better. I mostly agree with Wallace because I know that self centeredness comes naturally for everybody but I also disagree because I don't believe that everybody is as self-centered as he portrays it. I do strongly agree with Wallace when he was stating that it is our choice to be self-centered because anybody that took the time and effort to think differently about the world and others could completely turn around their way of thinking.
Toni Morrison begins her speech by using the story of an old woman being approached by disrespectful younger boys and the woman returning with words of wisdom to teach the audience that sometimes you get an answer that you aren't expecting after asking a question and it ends up being the best answer. The old woman had a wise answer because she has not let the outside world affect her life unlike the younger boys have. I think that Morrison is trying to get across that communication with others and even ourselves is very important.
After reading your blog I completely agree with everything that you stated. "This is water" by David Wallace, was much easier for me to understand and I as well found Morrison's passage, Nobel Lecture, troublesome to understand. I also agree with you when you stated that Wallace believes that everyone is self centered but you don't think they are to the complete extreme that he stated. Through all the blogs that I have read I feel like you took away the same meaning form both of the passages as I did and you did a good job of portraying it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you when you say that "This is Water" David Wallace is easier to read than the "Noble Lecture" by Morrison because it isn't as complex as the other story. I also agree with the point that you stated that we go our entire life without thinking about others or putting others first because that is how we live our lives all the time. Unless we decide to put others first that is something that is in the back of our minds at all times which is something we should try to change all the time. We need to stop being so self-centered and think of how others could feel if they were in a bad situation. All we would be doing is making the time they are near us worse we need to be more opening and try to help instead of hurting. I also agree with you that people can’t be as self centered as he says they are that is almost impossible to do if we were then this world would be filled with nothing but assholes. Some people actually have some kind of niceness in them, like people who volunteer all the time or the people who donate money to help the less fortunate. So when you say all of these points all I can say is you are thinking the exact same way as me because there has to be some kind of goodness out there. Lastly I agree with the women because she doesn't let the outside world help her decide how she thinks so that means that she is better off in the end.
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