Prompt Activity - 11th Grade English (4/8/13)

AN: In class today, we were given 20 minutes to write whatever we want about any (or all) of 5 prompts. This is what I came out with.

Prompt 2 - A nice quote about how we write stories in our heads about ourselves, what's your story, etc.

All good stories start at the beginning – the beginning of the war, the beginning of a life, the beginning of a romance… My story is just beginning. My story isn’t a thriller, or a horror story – those scare me. It’s not sci-fi either, unless you count our new fangled gadgets as bits of the future. It’s more of a coming of age story, the prequel to a grander tale. My story is “Part 1.” It’s a slice of life story, though it often includes hints of the dramatic, and especially the comedic. It’s sprinkled with humorous adventures and colorful caricatures. We write adventures with our lives.

But in the end, this story is only the beginning. The best parts of the story come when your character embarks on their quest, when they chase after their dream. The best stories deliver a grand finale, a pay off for the character building and introspective moments that created your hero. In that regard, I’m ready. I’m ready to decide who I will be, and who I want to be. I am creating the habits and attitudes that will carry me through the rest of my life. My prologue is coming to an end, so that the grand adventure can soon begin. We write continuations with our lives.

After all, when you want to change the world, what else can you do, than spend time creating who you are? I’m reminded of a phrase from a song:

“Who is the person I want to see the most?

The number of people I hold dear

In my heart is only increasing

Will I still be me?

We haven’t read enough of our story,

For us to say, “that’s it! I’m finished!

Because we will all be ourselves

That’s another way we grow stronger”

I think the point is rather poignant. If we tell the right kind of story, we’ll just grow stronger as the story grows longer. We can’t just say “I’m done,” and end our story. We write that story with our lives.

The stories we tell about ourselves reveal how we see the world, others, and ourselves. Our perceptions are bound to be slightly different, while being wrapped up in similar packages. We change the world through our stories.

 

Prompt 1 – If you could have a rewind or pause button, would you? Etc.

            John W. Holt Jr. once said, “If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not taking risks, and that means you’re not going anywhere. The key is to make mistakes faster than the competition, so you have more changes to learn and win.” This is true, and therein lays the danger of a rewind button. If we go back and do things differently, we can’t truly learn from our mistakes. We only understand the immediate impact of our action, and we never take responsibility for them. I don’t think it’s unnatural to assume that most of our life would become rewinding and redoing. We can’t do things perfectly, we’re just human. We have to accumulate as many changes as we can, and implement the ones that help us become better. If we’re not taking risks, whether it is in a relationship, a game, in writing – we’re not going anywhere, as Mr. Holt stated. The goal isn’t to run perfectly, it’s to reach the end of the race.

Prompt 3 – Are humans worth their weight in gold, etc. Would you figure this out mathematically, or philosophically, etc.

            Don’t get me wrong, math is helpful and all that – but philosophy is my forte. It makes more sense to me than a bunch of numbers and it means more to me. Moreover, words have always been the best way for me to communicate, so why handicap myself?

Humans aren’t worth their weight in gold – rather, gold is worth its weight in humans. In the end, the thing that matters the most in life is people. Our feelings, our emotions – our very souls, those are the things that have worth. Monetary value will be meaningless in the end. By default, anything that isn’t living has no worth on its own. It’s the attention, the time, the value we give to things that make them worth something. It’s the pieces of our soul we place in things that make them more than a piece of metal, or a bit of plastic. It’s our own feelings that make a photograph more than paper. It’s our own emotions that make a story touching. Gold is meaningless, but human’s have infinite worth.