As I write this article, I have come to realize that our group has come a really long way in comparison to the previous year. New members have come and are gracing us with their wonderful writings on various prompts. Although I haven’t really been a part of OWLS for a very long time, I feel very proud to be a part of this wonderful, growing group of creators.
PERSONAL ENTRY – In early May, I had the chance to participate in a debate and public speaking workshop which taught people ways on how to think logically and out of the box.
For this personal entry, I would like to talk about one motion which we debated about: “This House would prefer to live in a world where no rhetoric of uniqueness of an individual exists.”
In this debate, I was able to learn and gain some sort of self-insight on the topic of self-worth in relation to the rhetoric of uniqueness since I was in the opposition side. So I will be sharing what I thought and said during my part of the debate.
The other side brought out the ideas that calling people unique misleads them and at the end, gets them disappointed since such aspects apparently don’t exist within them at all. In their side, they claimed that life would be better without the concept of uniqueness since discrimination and misrepresentation would be out of the picture.
Thinking about these things which they said, I thought: “that cannot be right.”
For starters, they argued that the idea of telling other people that they are unique or people that personally feel that they are unique brings forth a sense of superiority and people should be aware that you are no different to anyone else.
Gathering my thoughts about what they said, I came up with this as my piece in the debate:
Why is the rhetoric of uniqueness important and impossible to remove? Competition.
If you remove the concept of uniqueness, then people would be in this mentality that their actions are basically just the same as other people so why should they live in the first place?
The rhetoric of uniqueness allows people to see and use their potential in what they do best. It may be true that two office workers may have the same jobs but if you look at it positively and differently, there is still an aspect of uniqueness in what you do.
Let us take this one example: office worker A and B are employed with the same jobs. However, office worker A does his job using a desktop computer whilst office worker B uses a typewriter. You can apply this example to two librarians working in two different institutions who prefer different methods of encoding documents.
Not motivating enough? Let me go about on a much more physical level.
You are apparently beautiful to the person sitting beside you but Lynda, the woman on the other end of the room which you are in, is not beautiful to the person sitting beside you.
But hold up, let’s think about this situation differently.
If you are beautiful to the guy sitting beside you, then you must not be beautiful to others. Doesn’t that create some sort of desire and annoyance therefore would somewhat encourage you to a certain extent to look good to other people?
In the case of the person who is not considered beautiful by the guy sitting beside you, she could possibly see this as a challenge and therefore would make personal steps to look beautiful in that person’s eyes and ultimately, to others as well.
This is why people get so easily discouraged and depressed – especially with our generation today.
Say we were to metaphorically compare our entire existence to a clean, white cloth. As time goes by, you notice a stain which was formed after you sneezed into said cloth.
Now, do you take your laundry materials and clean that stain? Or do you just look at it without doing anything at all?
In the realistic case, people would most probably wash that stain. Same as with life, you need to either wash that stain or cut that piece of cloth – whichever is most appealing to you.
If there were no sense of uniqueness, there’d be no atmosphere of competition which in turn would lead to some sort of pause in the processes of life.
If that would be the case, then why live in the first place when you don’t have reason to live? You might say, “I don’t know why I still live,” then I say to you, “Should I call a random person to figure out why you still live or would you want to look at the reason yourself?”
Every individual thinks very differently from one another. Isn’t that a form of uniqueness?
The concept of uniqueness varies from person to person and whatever their interpretation of it can drastically affect how they live their lives.
I don’t know if this article made sense or anything but I hoped it somewhat cheered someone up or made them think twice about life. It’s really disheartening to see people my age succumbing to depression and anxiety just because they have the wrong mindsets. Exterior factors can fall into play and considering that thought, I hope this can be a great “exterior factor” for people to ponder on.
As the Desmond Doss, from the movie “Hacksaw Ridge,” said:
With the world so set on tearing itself apart, it don’t seem like such a bad thing to me to want to put a little bit of it back together.
With that note, hope this article helps. Also, happy mother’s day to all moms out there.
PERSONAL ENTRY – When I was five years old, I had an uncle who was obsessed with the Naruto anime series. Every time my mother left me in his care, we’d spend most of the idle time watching a few episodes of it. I remember him talking excitedly about everything that was happening in an episode, whether it was a fight, a conversation or something that caught his attention.
Even my mother and I had some times when she’d pull out her collection of Voltron episodes. It was a fun time seeing these different robots fighting other robots – the action, the lights, the clashes. They were all something new for me.
I could say that my love for anime is sort of hereditary because of my uncle and my mother who both loved anime during their childhood and teenage years.
The first series that I’ve followed, each episode, was the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It was a time where science fiction piqued my interest. The thought of futuristic technology and concepts were so exciting to me. Every episode I’d wonder about the reasons for each scene in an episode. Pretty deep thinking for a seven year old.
The concept where your classmate was, in fact, god and you had to keep her entertained and if not, she’ll destroy the world? That sold me right in.
Another favorite anime series of mine would be Shakugan no Shana. It awakened my love for fantasy and adventure as Shana would go on to be an achieve Flame Haze – one that would make a difference for her world. How one human can be play a great role in a conflict between greater opposing forces than himself.
I was fascinated by the terms: the Reiji Maigo, the magic used, the different weapons – it filled me with awe and enjoyment.
Fast forward to recent years, I have somewhat limited my viewing of certain anime series. Instead of viewing it for the sheer thrill and excitement, I now delve even deeper. Character developments, story developments and twists, complex concepts and settings – I guess this is what happens when you learn more as you grow.
Nowadays, anime series have been more prevalent on re-occurring themes. Most spend less time on depth and are to shallow for me to enjoy. Instead of the usual twenty-five or more episodes in a season, we’ve now gone to common twelve-episode cour.
A lot of things have changed in the anime industry and people as a whole to have caused these things. It’s stretched itself to even foreign audiences other than Japan.
It’s a sense of happiness yet there’s a feeling of uncertainty – how anime has become bigger than people have expected.
Despite the new tropes and ideas, I still do hope we get to see more Haruhi’s, more Shakugan no Shana’s, more Naruto’s, more Voltron’s – where the entertainment value matters on the audience’s relation to the anime series rather than flashy CGI and the sorts.
Miandro
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