Chapter 1: The Humanities: A Shinning Beacon
Chapter 1: Overview
"One of the dangers of living longer is becoming too firmly enclosed by the values many of us have held since our earliest days" ( Janero & Altshuler, 2011, p. 4)
The quote above from chapter one is a good reference to evolution. As humans, we are all required to progress, to evolve, and to move forward with the moments of an era you live in. I can understand how living longer can perhaps be viewed as danger. In some reality there are people who struggle with progression, and are not able to see past what they are accustomed to. The reason that can be dangerous is because if you become a person that is stuck in a time based of simply it being familiar, you limit yourself to being able to expand your mind, adapt to change, and overall struggle with the fact that the world is full of different perspectives, and most of those perspective formulate with the progression of time.
These types of mentalities limits to be able to gain new perspectives. In a world that is always changes for humans are thoughts, actions, demeanor, should progress and alter itself. In my opinion, some people have a bad relationship with time. For example. sometimes when we hit a certain age, our expectations of where we think we should be at that time, can sometimes make us feel like we no longer have enough time to achieve what our minds have programed us to believe should be when that age is reached. This type of thought process starts at a young age. When we are kids, we say things like-"I can't wait until Im a teenager". Then when we hit the teens, we may say things like,-" I can't wait until I'm 16 and get my license". Or "I can't wait until I'm 18 and move out". We always want to reach the next stage because we are always thinking about gaining that next level of what life opens. However, once we start to age more, it changes to things like-" By 25 I should be a college graduate", "I'll have my dream career", " I should be married with kids". We start to input timeframes on things in our life that in reality has no limit. These are examples of values we hold since our earliest days. Of course we all do not know how long we will live. there is an invisible clock ticking right now for all of us that no one knows when that time will stop. It is important to know that evolution comes with time, and time always is changing, it is the one thing we have no control over, but we all have freedom to use it how we choose. If we refuse to accept that with time values will change, living longer can be dangerous, because then the question lies with are you even really living at all? What if you don't obtain the things that you saw yourself having in your earliest days? The world is always changing and culturally values change also. In these days its more people still progressing even into older years, people now are even retiring at older ages. Society will always progress with values. Chapter one states "So we need to balance a sharper awareness of who we are, with a broader understanding of who they are" (Janero & Alshuler, 2011, p.4). We should always be able to have an open mind and not limit ourselves to the consistently evolving world we live in.
"Becoming familiar with treasures of the past brings us closer to those who came before us" ( Janero & Altshuler, 2011, p. 11)
In humanities, discussing the past, and past times is something that creates us to be able to know ourselves personally. A sense of that past allows us to handle the present and the future. Knowing what has been will allow you to know how to proceed in the present and allow for more understanding of what could occur. I think that knowing things that occur before your time can prepare you for the things that you are currently living. There are so many things from the past that carry on for more, and more times ahead. Being familiar with those things can bring you closer to those who lived before us. When we think about things such as our grandparents, who have experience, and lived in a whole separate time than we have, we think about only what we can imagine those times to be. We base that perspective from what we know of them, what they describe to us, but also they way they live through present time. Since they have come from an era we have not experience directly, it is through them that we can get an understanding of that. Which is why it can bring us closer to those who came before us. The past always has a right to be heard. These circumstances create inspiration in us in the current time.
The past also hold issues that we still face today. Being able to know that often times we can see history repeating itself. We still, even after several years are seeing things from past times carry out through current times. In my opinion racisms is one of the biggest issue from the past that still follow us today. Individuals who are victims of racisms, or have experience any injustice based from racism can look at the things that have happened in past times and relate to it seeing that there has been similarities carry on. In chapter one we are given the example of how modern works can give us a deeper sense of history. We get an idea of those who lived before us. We can assume what their thoughts were and what they felt based off of what we know. Chapter one talks about To Kill a Mockingbird and describes how this story helps us better understand issues regarding racism and injustice. We also get idea of the thought process, and emotions that went on during that time. Even though that story took place in the past, people who still experience racism and injustice are able to relate to that even now. As stated in chapter one, "The realized human being is an accumulation of what has gone before and how that affects the present" (Janero & Alshuler, 2011, p.11).
"Words are the means by which we think"( Janero & Altshuler, 2011, p. 10)
This quote above was one of my favorites from chapter one. I believe that words are powerful. Words control so much. Although there are several ways to communicate, words are expressions of our minds they represent our ideas. Words are able to change and create everyday actions. I always have believed that our thoughts become things. Meaning, that if we hold the thought inside and it eventually becomes so heavy within us that we put it into words, eventually, believing it, saying it, you can later achieve it, and make it happen. Whatever the circumstance may be our words come from our ideas. We need words in order for our points with people to get across because it creates of form of understanding for either side. We can find this in may circumstances in life. For example, when we meet a person for the first time, whether personal or professional, it will always be things in your mind that you may want to say just not right away. Our approach to those circumstances lead us to have so many thoughts because it is the first time meeting them. However only some of those thoughts become words. Once we are more comfortable the exchange of our words are more broad, and we start to base things off of the more comfortable your mind is. Which creates you to have different words to express.
In chapter one we learn that language is the way we display our daily dealings and engagements with others. A world without words and language would not be progressive to any human encounter. We as humans require communication in the form of words. The expression of ourselves is important and it helps us be able to enable more out of human interaction. Words having power to change anything we do allows us to be able to display ourselves onto others. Our ideas and out thought will always connect and present itself through words. Words can also be used as a form of control. How many times have words made us as human feel an emotion? At some point in life most people can say things like "those words hurt me", or "why would anyone say that", or "I wish you would have said something". The power to be able to control someone's emotions with expression is power in itself. On a professional stance, lets say there is a defense attorney working on a high profile case, of course the actual crime, and evidence is important to the outcome, but most importantly is the words that the attorney would present to a jury. The delivery has to be key to a successful outcome. They have to believe in your presentation with the verbiage you use, the choice of words that you put together can potentially cost you the entire case. As stated in chapter one, "If we do not have words, we cannot have ideas" (Janero & Alshuler, 2011, p.10).
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