Irrationally Rational
Alice Khalitov
My true value as an individual depends on what others presume about myself.
For as long as I can remember I’m sure several times I have thought this way.
Mostly what you believe comes from your perception of the world. Whether it be the opinion of a friend or that article you just read. Everyone, whether it be a grown adult or a two year old kid, has irrational thoughts.
In the short story “A Day’s Visit”, Ernest Hemingway shows an example of irrational thought.
A boy is convinced he’s slowly dying since his temperature is too high. His confusion comes from the fact he didn’t know about Fahrenheit average human temperature vs. Celsius average. This comes to show how a lack of knowledge can completely change your thoughts. Let’s say you saw an advertisement of your favorite celebrity promoting something. Instantly you want to buy that certain product just for the reason that it seems that they like it. This is an everyday example of irrational thought. Can you now recognize your
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It’s such a modern world, everywhere you turn, someone’s telling you to do it this way or think this way. You’ll have these thoughts that you necessarily need to be loved by everyone rather than loving everyone else. Or that you are obliged to be perfect and always being important, that it will drive you senseless. The first step to rationality is to take your irrational thoughts and instead of ignoring them change them. If you start to consider, “There’s always a precise and perfect solution to problems, and it’s catastrophic not to find it.” Change your mindset to, “The world is full of probability and chance, and I can enjoy life even though there isn’t an ideal solution to every problem.” Which brings us back to rationality. You will have irrational thoughts due to your beliefs and emotions and attitude. Nevertheless, you can find your way back to the world and not find yourself stuck in your own
I believe that a value is something that is important to an individual and the values that I believe in play a very important role in my life. My values are greatly influenced by my family. My values include family, health, being respectful and non-judgmental. I also value my daughter, my friends and being honest. I believe that a value is something that you should assign love and
If a person never learns how to have control over what they think or how to view things differently then they will live much of their adult life arrogant, in their head, or upset. David Foster Wallace begins by discussing how liberal arts colleges “teach you how to think” and continues to discuss how he has always disliked this. He already believes he knows how to think, being that thinking is what got him in college in the first place. He explains how everyone thinks differently and has their own thing that they worship but, everyone views themselves as the center of the universe. This point of view can leave people living day to day life finding every reason to be angry or annoyed about everything surrounding them. With that, he says all
Quick Write Imagination overcomes reason when you a person feels scared. An example of this happening is in Julio Cortazar’s House Taken Over” they run away from their house because they hear noises. This proves that imagination overcomes reason because they don’t even go check what the noise was they just ran away. Another example is when you’re driving in the middle of nowhere and start to imagine things. Writing to Compare In
In Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance,” Emerson calls for each person in society to be wholly true to themselves. He claims that it is most rewarding to the individual and the society for people to believe in one’s own thoughts and not in the thoughts of others. Emerson believes that conformity will ultimately lead to an individual’s demise because by living for others, people are not being true to themselves. Therefore in order to have a well-formed society, citizens should focus inward and have confidence in their own ideas before beginning to look towards other individuals; moreover, Emerson calls individuals not only in “Self-Reliance,” but also in numerous essays to act independently from conformity and to live for themselves.
We all have our own values, how important we think something is. E.g. honesty, and how important people think
He adds to this by introducing the concepts of rational and irrational authority, explaining that rational authority would be equivalent to that of a teacher and student whereby there is mutual benefit, while irrational authority would be identified by the likes of a slave and his owner who demonstrates complete disregard of the slave’s happiness or well-being, his only interest being how the slave will benefit him.
Kristen D. Randle wrote, “What the mind believes the body will often make reality.” This shows that what you believe can often be true and can be made into real life. In the book “The Only Alien on the Planet” ,Ginny attempts to break into Smitty’s safe and emotionless world, but she realizes her efforts might be causing more harm than good. This can teach us a lesson that if someone uses violence against us , we should stop it and tell someone about is, because it could’ve hurt us.
Though the existence of some objective moral code may appear to contradict Emerson’s “insist on yourself, never imitate” motto on individuality and the self, ultimately, Emerson means that self-truth is the most sacred truth, and that some degree of right and wrong exists in Nature. On the most basic level, self-reliance refers to the process of self-betterment, not through organized religion or worship, but from looking within, from taking matters into one’s own hands and listening to one’s internal sense. When in touch with this sense, men will arrive at conclusions that have a certain Natural quality; they will just feel right.
As I mentioned before, irrationality is reoccurring throughout the novel. Ethan is perhaps the most irrational character. Initially, he imprisons himself in a marriage and ruins any chance of a future for a quick irrational decision to marry Zeena (for fear of being alone one winter). He is manipulated by Zeena and tossed around like a chew toy. Frome’s inability to act is another example of his irrationality. He continually lies to Zeena (like the Andrew Hale incident) for a fast solution to an ongoing dilemma. Rather than confessing his love for Mattie and telling Zeena that they should no longer be together, he complicates the situation and chooses to live in a box where the only thing that matter’s to him is Mattie.
Also, when people don’t have individuality and are used to doing what they are told, they don’t pay attention to what’s going on around them. In contrast Ellsworth Toohey feels that men should do as they are told and in the end this will make them happier. In Toohey’s eyes thinking is the worst thing possible and people who don’t ask questions are the smart ones. This view is seen in the following lines, “Everything bad comes from the mind, because the mind asks to many questions. It is blessed to believe, not to understand. So if you didn’t get passing grades, be glad of it. It means that you are better than the smart boys who think too much and too easily (Rand 298).” This quote means that people are smarter when they go along with ideas that everyone else has already created. People don’t need to think and create new ideas. Toohey feels that there shouldn’t be any individuality and creation. He feels that people should do what the group thinks and wants.
“If we tried to depend entirely on reason and pushed it hard, our lives and principles would collapse – a form of insanity that may really happen if the inertial force of taking the world and life for granted is somehow lost. If we lose our hold on that, reason will not give it back to us (Nagel, 1971; p. 724).”
Did you learn something about yourself that you didn’t expect? What is important here is your ability to be able to identify the values that are important to you.
Often regarded as the leader of the Transcendentalist literary movement, Ralph Waldo Emerson believed that the individual must look inward to find truth and knowledge. He emphatically stressed that one must practice self-reliance: the ability to trust one’s intuition and not conform to societal standards. Through the use of strict form, powerful imagery, and a wise tone, Emerson’s poem “Intellect” urges us to stay true to ourselves by refusing the practice of blind obedience.
It states that even though philosophy doesn’t give us a certainty of true answers, it suggests many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from tyranny of custom. He also supports the idea that philosophy is beneficial because it “enriches intellectual imagination”. The essay brings up the points of the practical man, and why they are at a loss of intellectual imagination because they don’t explore the unknown by viewing life as simple. As evidence, he uses an example of mass disease and poverty of a society. The theory is that in those conditions, there would still be much to be improved to produce a valuable society. Even if the society has the proper food supplies, they need the ‘goods of the mind’ (knowledge) to build a well-governed society. He believes practical men undermine that aspect, thereby explaining their lack of intellectual imagination. The next argument is that philosophy saves us from convictions, prejudices, and cultural beliefs. The affect that that has on a person is to open up a fresh prospective with very little bias. He believed for this to be beneficial to people socially, by developing empathy which helps you understand others points of view. That theory goes hand-in-hand and gives a fine segway to his fourth and final argument of “the freedom and equity learned from philosophical contemplation reflecting in your personality (action and emotion). The
I believe value is something only an individual can assign to their own life based on experience and significance. A life is’t an object you can place a price on, it’s a complex network full of experiences good and bad shared with others. Everyone on this planet has value not just to themselves but to others as well but that value is higher than any amount of money existing. Everyones life has an effect on the people around them. If you were to die tomorrow everyones life in your network of family and friends would change