Life Is Too Short On The Brain By Tobias Wolff

In Amy Bloom’s short story, “Silver Waters”, the narrator, Violet, reveals the struggles of mental illnesses that Rose, her sister, suffers with. Violet discusses the many psychiatric wards Rose ends up in and the therapists that the family hates. More times than not, the family ends up protecting Rose from many of the dangers that the world possesses, like confusing insurance policies. Throughout the novel, the psychiatrists and therapists do not seem to care about Rose or the fact that she is more than just her mental illness; she has a complex personality. In “Silver Water”, Bloom uses the characterization of psychiatrists and therapists who interact with Rose to demonstrate that people with mental illnesses are not taken seriously; the symbolism of silver water proves that Rose has a complex personality with a beautiful voice, which proves that she deserves to be taken seriously.

Susannah Cahalan, a 24 year old, healthy and successful journalist for the New York post, experienced an acute onset of psychosis. Symptoms ranged from paranoia to seizures, which eventually led to a catatonic state. The onset of the female’s symptoms occurred when she became paranoid of a bed bug infestation in her home, yet after having her home exterminated there was no indication of bedbugs. Concern arose from her nonexistent appetite and severe insomniac behaviors. She began noticing her own erratic behaviors and shortly after experienced her first seizure episode. In search of an answer to reoccurring seizures she went to a physician who put her on Keppra (an antiseizure medication) and warned her the symptoms were due to stress and heavy drinking. The increasing paranoia developed into hallucinations, people plotting against her or speaking poorly of her. EEG and MRI results exhibited normal results; further indicating stress and alcohol withdraw. After being admitted to the NYU medical school EEG monitoring floor, examination showed tangential, disorganized, and temperamental behaviors. Several escape attempts later, placed Susannah in the more difficult patients category. Doctors suggested conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and cancer. She exhibited abnormally high blood pressure pointing to extreme concern.

David Dobbs in the Article “Beautiful Brains” proves the theme that it takes teenage brains longer to mature due to the recent change in impulsivity and adolescent behaviors.

In The Braindead Megaphone by George Saunders, it leaves us to figure out the braindead megaphones in our lives. Our society today, the biggest megaphone is the influence of our media. Whether we see them as braindead or not they influence our lives more than we seem to believe. From the style of our clothes to our political views mostly everything we do is influenced by the outside world in some way.

A Playful Brain Our brain is more complex of what we think. Most of the time, what we witness differs from what our brain “sees”. As David Eagleman in his book The Brain: The Story of You states: “The strength of your expectations in what you see” (Eagleman pg54). There is the example of the masks in chapter 2, one is in its right side, and the other is inverse, but both seems to be the right side to our eyes. Even though the masks are in different positions, our brain is repeated that they are in right side.

Angie Bachmann married young, a typical wife and mother of three, develops a devastating addiction to gambling, leading to the family’s bankruptcy. She was a bored housewife and a stay-at-home mom who one day decided to go gambling which led to her addiction until she lost everything in gambling at Harrah’s Casino. This book, The Neurology of Free Will written by Charles Duhigg, illustrates the challenging case of Angie Bachmann who gambled away every penny she inherited after her parents’ death, and then another $125,000 she borrowed from the casino. Harrah’s casino sued Bachmann then for the money she borrowed and held responsible for her actions. Bachmann, on the other hand, countersued defending her case. She claimed that even though

Many people consider Tobias Wolff as an outstanding critic due to certain aspects of his childhood, most notably is his parent’s separation. Following the separation, Wolff evolved into more of a critic up until he went into the army. Furthermore, when he returns from his service, some might note that his personality became more pessimistic than critical. His short stories are acknowledged by many readers because of the diverse aspirations some may be led to have through a myriad of interpretations. Truly, Wolff creates a new perspective of thinking through his creation of the short story “Bullet in the Brain.” Many readers find this claim

Ripple Effect The five stories considered are intertwined with another through parallel commentary on the human experience. These stories teach us that the human race learns by experience; we must study the downfall of our peers to evade our own. The parallels of the stories portray how violation of the social contract by both the governed and the governing catalyzes the ultimate downfall of the perpetrator and their immediate or extended society as well, highlighting the vitality of understanding the intricate web of causes and effects each human action carries, which can be reinforced by studying and heeding literature from all cultures. The horrors of substance abuse are astounding clear through modern education, however, this education

Responsibility is a huge task to do in life, especially when you become an adult. Life is not always about having someone holding your hand and guiding you to the right path. Mistakes are meant to happen in life to learn and gain experience from them. In the article, “The Neurology of Free Will,” Angie Bachmann had a difficult life as a mother. Bachmann did not receive any attention from her family, so she felt very lonely. She was dealing with having to pay for the rent, feeding her children, and having to take care of her parents, almost like a single mother, because her husband was never around. I believe these factors did contradict with Angie Bachmann having an addiction with poker, but it was definitely her responsibility in

I chose to read the article by Ellen Hendriksen titled Why We Do Stupid Things. In this article, Hendriksen talks about the three reasons why we still make regretful choices, despite how apparent it is that the choice is very wrong.

Humans have at least one problem to fix, yet they do not know how to fix it. Some people want an easy way out while others think about it too hard or too much. Is there a specific way to solve a problem when not all people have the same mentality? In Think Like a Freak book the authors, Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner persuade readers to think in a way never done before in other words to step out of the comfort zone and experiment before acting. To be able to do this it is necessary to stop complicating the circumstance trying to impress others. Levitt and Dubner themselves say it is difficult to think this way however the results show positive outcomes. Not everyone will be persuaded to think critically to

In “Silver Water” by Bloom, is a sad beautiful fictitious tale about a young girl named Rose, her struggle with schizophrenia and how her family copes with the illness. The tale was open up with the stellar line, “My sister's voice was like mountain water in a silver pitcher, the clear blue beauty of it cools you and lifts you up beyond your heat, beyond your body.” At this scene, the narrator talks about the sister's violet recalls her sister Rose's singing, then explains what she told the therapist, “That's what I like to remember, and that's what I told the therapists.” Rose suffers a “psychotic break,” and spends ten years in and out of hospitals” and a halfway house. Throughout the narrator shows the family coping with the struggle of dealing with a family member with mental illness.

According to Marcus Raichle, in his editorial “The Brain’s Dark Energy,” Neuroscientists assumed that a person’s brain activity matched their current state, but have since realized that there is a great deal more brain activity occurring when doing nothing at all. Raichle discusses the exact role of the Default Mode Network, also known as DMN. DMN is still being studied as the organizer of neural activity. It is believed that DMN, “orchestrates the way the brain organizes memories and various systems that need preparation for future events.” (44) Neuroscientists believe that disrupting the DMN can cause mental errors and brain disorders, including but not limited to Alzheimer’s disease and depression. Studies such as positron-emission tomography

The short story “Bullet in the Brain” by Tobias Wolff brings the reader to the attention of how one’s life can be influenced by “something as timid as a word” (Von Ancken). In this story, a protagonist is a man by the name of Anders, who is a book critic. The story starts with Anders arriving at the bank just before it closes. The line is really long and he is stuck in line with two loud ladies who drive him crazy with their stupid conversation. He is characterized as, “weary, elegant savagery with which he dispatched almost everything he reviewed” (Wolff). He is also portrayed as a man who is miserable and constantly criticizing his surroundings. Even as he waits in the line at the bank, his sarcastic comments do not stop to represent his perspective of his disappointment of the world. When one of the tellers closed her window, Anders conveys a hatred towards the teller’s action by stating, “Damned unfair, he said. Tragic, really. If they’re not chopping off the wrong leg, or bombing your ancestral village, they’re closing their positions” (Wolff).

Blood gushes out from Dolores as she tells him that he has to "wake up" before she turns into an ash. Scorsese successfully explores the theme of that notion of the blurring of fiction vs. Nonfiction. For Laeddis, he has trapped himself in his own alternate reality. He has gone through so many bad events such as invading a concentration camp, finding his children drowned in the lake, and killing his own wife. All three of those event and post war aggressions are highly traumatic and have heavily impacted Andrew's mental state. The patients have been removed from society because they are too dangerous to be around the general public. Illnesses of the mind are the scariest illnesses because the people are trapped in their own minds. The psychological