Crucible Essays (1185 words) - Salem Witch Trials, The Crucible

Crucible And Salem Witch Trials In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the madness of the Salem Witch Trials is explored in great detail. There are many theories as to why the witch trials came about, the most popular of which the girls' suppressed childhood. However, there were other factors as well, such as Abigail Williams' affair with John Proctor, the secret grudges that neighbors held against each other, and the physical and economic differences between the citizens of Salem Village. From a historical viewpoint, it is known that young girls in colonial Massachusetts were given little or no freedom to act like children. They were expected to walk straight, arms by their sides, eyes slightly downcast, and their mouths were to be shut unless otherwise asked to speak. It is not surprising that the girls would find this type of lifestyle very constricting. To rebel against it, they played pranks, such as dancing in the woods, listening to slaves' magic stories and pretending that other villagers were bewitching them. The Crucible starts after the girls in the village have been caught dancing in the woods. As one of them falls sick, rumors start to fly that there is witchcraft going on in the woods, and that the sick girl is bewitched. Once the girls talk to each other, they become more and more frightened of being accused as witch, so Abigail starts accusing others of practicing witchcraft. The other girls all join in so that the blame will not be placed on them. In The Crucible, Abigail starts the accusations by saying, "I go back to Jesus; I kiss his hand. I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!" Another girl, Betty, continues the cry with, "I saw George Jacobs with the Devil! I saw Goody Howe with the Devil!" From here on, the accusations grow and grow until the jails overflow with accused witches. It must have given them an incredible sense of power when the whole town of Salem listened to their words and believed each and every accusation. After all, children were to be seen and not heard in Puritan society, and the newfound attention was probably overwhelming. In Act Three of The Crucible, the girls were called before the judges to defend themselves against the claims that they were only acting. To prove their innocence, Abigail led the other girls in a chilling scene. Abby acted as if Mary Warren sent her spirit up to the rafters and began to talk to the spirit. "Oh Mary, this is a black art to change your shape. No, I cannot, I cannot stop my mouth; it's God's work I do." The other girls all stared at the rafters in horror and began to repeat everything they heard. Finally, the girls' hysterics caused Mary Warren to accuse John Proctor of witchcraft. Once the scam started, it was too late to stop, and the snowballing effect of wild accusations soon resulted in the hanging of many innocents. After the wave of accusations began, grudges began to surface in the community. Small slights were made out to be witchcraft, and bad business deals were blamed on witchery. Two characters in The Crucible, Giles Corey and Thomas Putnam, argue early on about a plot of land. Corey claims that he bought it from Goody Nurse but Putnam says he owns it, and Goody Nurse had no right to sell it. Later, when Putnam's daughter accuses George Jacobs of witchery, Corey claims that Putnam only wants Jacobs' land. Giles says, "If Jacobs hangs for a witch he forfeit up his property - that's law! And there is none but Putnam with the coin to buy so great a piece. This man is killing his neighbors for their land!" Others also had hidden motives for accusing their neighbors. Once the accusations began, everyone had a reason to accuse someone else as bewitched; therefore it is why the hangings got so out of hand. The wave of accusations can be likened to mass hysteria, in which the people involved are so caught up that they start having delusions of neighbors out to do them harm. One of the main accusers, Abigail Williams, had an ulterior motive for accusing Elizabeth Proctor. In The Crucible, Abigail believed that if she got rid of Goody Proctor, then John Proctor, her husband, would turn to Abby. John Proctor had an affair with Abigail, but for him it was just lust, while Abigail believed it

Metal vs. Rap (contrast essay) essays

Metal vs. Rap (contrast essay) essays Can you honestly recall watching a television commercial without a catchy jingle or song playing in the background? If you have, these commercials are probably few and far between one another. Music is everywhere nowadays, and is divided into a multitude of musical genres. Heavy metal and rap, more specifically, are two very distinct classifications of music. Heavy metal and rap differ from each other by the music, the bands and the fans. The musical, or instrumental, aspect of heavy metal and rap are contrasting in many points of views. It should initially be noted that heavy metal is actually a "subcategory" of metal music itself. Other subcategories include: death metal, black metal, speed metal, and many more . . . Yet, metal is called heavy metal, simply because it is a better-known term. Rap, on the other hand, doesn't precisely have any subcategories, but withholds similarities with many other musical genres, such as: Hip-hop, reggae, blues, urban, etc . . . The beat and lyrics for both metal and rap, however, makes for an excellent example of how they oppose each other. On one hand, a metal song will display, either on the guitar or on the drums, a medium to fast beat. This rhythm could be a mix of fast guitar and slow drums, or vice versa; it could equally be an all-out fast-paced beat on both guitar and drums alike. Rap, on the other hand, usually has a slower, much more relaxed rhythm. The instrumental aspect of rap, especially today, is particularly focussed on the base sound. If the musical rhythms of metal and rap differ from one another, then the lyrical expressions of the two are consequently dissimilar. For starters, metal lyrics discuss about a broad range of subjects, from fantastic make-believe worlds to apocalyptic death scenarios to real-life issues. The lyrics are also shouted, and occasionally sang. Oppositely, rap lyrics mainly talk about real-life issues, especially about people living in poor neighbourho...

Myan Indians Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Myan Indians - Essay Example Mayan Indians were well developed and highly skilled in the artistic jobs such as pottery, carvings, drawings and ceramics. Some carvings, sculptures, stucco reliefs and murals are found from the ruins of the Mayan civilization that represent the art of the Mayan civilization (Coe 65). The artistic pieces found are indicative of the artistic skills of the Mayan Indians. The human figures carved on stones and colors used for depicting the civilization and culture of people look so beautiful and refined that the development of arts at that time appears much better than ours. Mayan Indians also attached their names with their created artistic pieces in order to inform the viewers about their art and talent (Demarest 43). Mayan architecture is also very famous like its art. The towering pyramids with steps are regarded as the most influential architecture of Mayan civilization (Sharer and Traxler 42). Caves with carvings are also a distinctive feature of the Mayan Indians. The caves such as Jolja cave, Cave of the Witch, Candelaria caves and many others are famous for their architecture and designs (Demarest 49). Plazas, palaces, ball courts, observatories and temples are found in their architectural designed buildings. Roads were also present attaching cities together. The buildings also went through several amendments as with changing rulers, the designs also got amended according to new instructions. The architecture as a whole can be considered as reminiscent of a great civilization (Coe 78). The buildings and constructions made by the Mayan Indians are depictive of their skill at architecture and design. The Mayan civilization was quite developed as they had their own writing system. They used to write with animal hair brushes and their writing was black in color with red highlighting (Demarest 59). In the writing system, the Mayan Indians usually used phonetic symbols and glyphs in order to

The indian Ocean History of Global Trading in Pearls and Silk and its Essay

The indian Ocean History of Global Trading in Pearls and Silk and its Impact on Cultures - Essay Example This realization becomes evident through the analysis of global interdependence between countries for commodities in trend during the early Roman kingdom of the first century c.e. It is very exiting to know that trade through the Indian Ocean was in full swing even in ancient times when there were no ships and other secure means of transportation of goods through the sea-channels. It was the monsoon system that made navigation easy from one part of the world to another through sea route. The Arab and Indian mariners had full knowledge of the flow of monsoon winds, helping the sailing of boats carrying goods for shipping in the Indian Ocean. Later, this knowledge got transferred to mariners from Ptolemaic Egypt. Winds in winter time blow from the northeast uninterruptedly and in summer they come from the southwest. This awareness of the monsoon cycle helped sailors to roam about everywhere across the Indian Ocean (The Formation of Classical Societies 159). Global trade was on the high at the finish of the first century B.C. among the five close rulers of that time: the Roman kingdom, the Parthian kingdom, the Kushan kingdom, the nomadic alliance of Xiongnu, and the Han Kingdom. Global trading routes were created from the Greco-Roman city of Antioch, passing through the Syrian Desert through Palmyra to Ctesiphon, the Parthian capital city, finally reaching Seleucia, situated on the Tigris River, as one can see from the map below (Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art par. 1). Eastern side of the old world reachable to travelers in the first century  A.D. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hg/hg_d_trade_d2map.gif The most critical port situated on the Persian Gulf, becoming a medium of distribution of commodities, was the port of Spasinu Charax, as shown in the map above (on the left of the Parthian Empire). The whole of Parthian kingdom, starting from the Tigris to Ctesiphon to Euphrates to Dura-Europos, and also covering the connected cities of the Arabian and Syr ian Desert were supplied the goods shipped via the oceanic route. A number of land passages also got stationed at ports situated on the eastern Mediterranean, as from here the goods used to be supplied to adjacent cities (Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art par. 2). The Roman maritime trade routes with the East via Red Sea got dense, initiating commercial growth but from the culture point of view, trade in eastern commodities was seen in the kind of a fiscal crisis and moral risk. Financially, the trade with India was causing huge deficit to the Roman economy in the first century c.e. Commodities trade of the Roman Empire with India was seen more risky for creating ethical meaning of going against the philosophy of stoicism than treading on an economic danger zone. The cause behind this ethical consideration was that Romans considered fashion-related commodities such as silk and precious gem stones to be more objectionable to their philosophy of stoicism than pepper, as use of lu xury commodities indicated the human degeneration that Roman stoicism wanted to maintain distance with (Fitzpatrick 31). As the two commodities discussed include pears and silk, it would be pertinent to know how they were harvested and produced in the ancient times. There has been a history behind the finding of pearls and using them as an item of beauty enhancing jewelry. The Gulf of Mannar is understood to be one of the areas where pearls used to be harvested

Parental spying Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Parental spying - Essay Example And because of the usage of the term â€Å"parental spying†, parental supervision was suddenly perceived as unethical where it may be deemed improper for parents to check on the activities of their children. This is aggravated by the fact that there are quarters in society who argue that children should be left on their own and that their private spaces should be respected without the presence of parents. As a result, children who are recipient of this idea complain that their parents are intruding too much that they no longer have their private space. Parents in turn became oblivious on how to deal with this new idea if it is really unethical to check on their children as what society perceives it to be. Looking at it however under the strict scrutiny and standard of morals (what is right and wrong), parental spying is not in fact unethical and has ethical and philosophical basis that it is carried out in the interest of the greater good and that it does not violate the moral rights of other. Anyone who is well verse on the basis of ethics will agree with the use of these standards in determining that it is indeed ethical to check on one’s children. The ethical and philosophical basis of parental spying can be derived from the philosophy of utilitarian ethics as espoused by the prominent 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill. The notion of having children closely monitored or spied upon on the basis that it is in the interest of greater good and does not violate the moral rights of others has in fact ethical and philosophical grounds. We can glean on John Stuart Mill’s utilitarian ethics which is the â€Å"creed which accepts the foundation of morals, utility or the greatest happiness principles holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness† (Oregon State University) which in this case the interest of greater good. It may even surprise people that Mill is also an advocate of personal liberty and limited government authority but will readily compromise personal liberty especially of children for the greater good of society. If one asks how parental spying serves the greater good, we can put forth the ideal that raising children to become good and responsible adults is in the interest of the greater good. Children are our future and it is only fitting that we should do everything at our own disposal to guide them so that they will not go astray. If children go astray or did not realize their potential or did not even become better, we can only imagine how our future society would become. If we let them astray and become criminals or despondent, then our society will be reduced to or slide back towards barbarism and crudity in the future. It is therefore in our best interest to prepare our children well for the future and the best way to do that is to exercise parental spying to make sure they are properly guided. Consider the opposite of parental spying which is the absentee parent where the child is left entirely on his or her own. They leave children at their tender age where their faculty to decide what right and wrong to decide for themselves or left them alone. As a result, children go astray because they became vulnerable to undesirable influences at an early age because they cannot discern what is good and bad for them which parents should have done for them. Thus, parental spying

A Budgetary Control Systems Accounting Essay

A Budgetary Control Systems Accounting Essay I have re-read my last years HNC paperwork and used my current years HND paperwork to help with the various aspects of the report. I used my HNC costing booklets and lecture notes, HND Investment Appraisal literature, HND Business Tax literature, HND Capital Allowances literature and HNC Standard Costing literature. I went to the library and used college resources such as ebray for information of more in-depth budgeting control systems. I used Cost and Management Accounting books which covered cost assignment of direct and indirect costs. They covered issues about fixed, variable and semi variable costs. I used Accounting Theory and Practice for in-depth budgetary planning and variance analysis. I used an up to date Taxation book to allow me the most up to date tax percentages to be used, the correct Asset Investment Allowances applicable and the written down values for Capital Allowance calculations. CASE STUDY ANALYSIS This formal report has been requested by the Managing Director by Ergo design He requires a full business report which will appraise the launch of a new quality ergonomic chair. As well as the appraisal, the managing director would like advice on how to set up and implement an efficient budgetary control system. Ergo Design already make a different range of products and are wanting to find out if it would feasible to undertake the making of another new product. The company currently has spare capacity and as they dont want spare capacity are looking into making a new chair. This however involves the purchase or hire of a new asset namely a new machine which will be capable of making the new product. This asset is not inexpensive and cost  £125,000. Ergo Design are guaranteed an order for 1 year amounting to 1800 chairs to be distributed evenly over the month. The factory is only open 48 weeks of the year to allow for maintenance, repairs etc and therefore leaves 12 periods of 4 weeks to evenly distribute 160 chairs per 4 weeks. The company have had a trial p eriod and all seems to be well. The MD awaits reports before committing final sanctions. APPENDICES 1-9 Attached as appendices is the Activity Based Costing comparison followed by the functional budgets then Capital Investment Appraisal and lastly a Break Even Analysis based on my figures. Appendix 1. Activity Based Costing comparison. I have used Activity Based Costing (ABC) to work out the costs of producing the new product. Ergo Design in previous years have recovered costs using a blanket wide rate based on the number of machine hours. The last two years however they have changed to ABC. I have made a comparison using traditional overhead recovery and ABC. ABC was developed in order to more accurately reflect the factors which cause overhead costs to arise. Overhead costs are attributed to products on the basis that it is activities that cause costs to arise. Each activity can be identified with a cost driver and the cost drivers I have used are machine hours, Labour hours, number of orders, production runs, set up hours and inspections. After the cost drivers have been identified then each cost drivers overheads are collected together. These collections of costs are called cost pools. Each pool is then divided by its driver, for example all overheads in the cost p ool for the materials ordering process would be divided by the number of orders placed to give a value for the cost of placing an order. The costs of all activities relating to a product would be added together to give the overhead element of the cost of production. Because activity based costing shares out overheads using cost drivers compared with the traditional costing systems which use departments, then a greater number of drivers can be used, reflecting all the different activities taking place in the manufacturing process. This leads to a fairer and more accurate way of charging overheads to the products. The traditional methods ignore the detail of many of the activities that actually take place. In my findings the cost of producing the new product using ABC is  £167.95 per unit whereas the blanket method only  £150.18 is allocated for cost, This would give a higher contribution and a higher profit. I have assumed that we are going to be charging  £195 per unit and at this price we are still making a profit of  £63,975 for the first year. We can look at raising prices at the end of the initial 3 year period if the turnover is still constant. My creditors are to allow me credit purchases payable for : Aluminium Sheets. 1 month Memory Foam.2 months Fabric1 month Hardware3 months My debtors are to be allowed 1 months credit sales. A new asset is to be purchased at a cost of  £125,000, which will gather depreciation over 10 years straight line method. The new machine will need to be replaced after this time and will have a residual value of  £15,000. Maintenance will need to be carried out regularly to allow for optimum usage and guarantee residual value. The maintenance cost will be estimated at 5% of the capital cost per annum. The asset is purchased with a long term loan for the full  £125,000. The loan will have a 3% fixed rate interest per annum. The interest is added to the original amount and not compounded yearly. This is to be repaid over 10 years with repayments and interest payments split. The total cost of the loan is  £162,500 with repayments being  £62500 every 6 months and Interest being  £1,875. There is currently spare capacity within Ergo Designs production facilities and can therefore produce 2 batches of 20 chairs per week for the full 48 weeks that the factory is open. This allows for surplus stock of (1920-1800)=120 chairs surplus at the end of the year. We will supply 150 chairs per month to the customer and make 160 chairs to allow for full capacity, this will leave us a surplus of 10 chairs which will be opening stock for the month of Feb and the units will 10 more units every month compounded. The following budgets are prepared for the first six months of the new multi-level chair and include: Appendix 2. Opening Balance at beginning of the month of Jan. This is the beginning of the month and lists the purchases made to enable the company to begin production and sell them at the end of the month. Appendix 3. Key Variables input. As the figures were given for batches I had to break them down into single units costs so that a uniform approach was taken across the board. The direct material costs have accounted for the biggest costs followed by the labour then the variable overheads. Appendix 4. Sales budgets- This is also the main budget which has to be prepared first. It shows that we are to sell 150 units per month at a cost of  £195 creating a sales value of  £29,250. Production budget- This budget is prepared after the sales budget and states the amount of units to be produced within the period. I have carried over excess units in case of any unforeseen circumstances which will reduce production in later months e.g. machinery breaking down and staff absences etc. The machinery is also working at full capacity if I make the amount required as well as the excess. Direct Material usage budget is prepared next and the figures are for 1 single unit which is obtained from the key variables sheet shown in Appendix 2. Direct material purchases budget is next with figures for the required production for each month and the cost of goods to be purchased. The cost figure is taken from the key variable appendix 2. Direct labour budget figures come from the production budget for the amount to be produced multiplied by the cost of the direct labour unit from key variables appendix 2. Overhead budget gives us monthly fixed overheads and depreciation figures taken from key variables in appendix 2. Variable cost budget†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.This budget takes the amount of units to be produced multiplied by the variable cost per unit. Both these figures are from the key variables sheet. Production cost budget†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦This budget gives us a breakdown of how much each unit will cost to produce. It takes into consideration the material and variable costs and add the figure to the raw material costs. Debtors budget†¦..We have been giving our debtors 1 month to pay after receiving their finished goods. Creditors budget†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦We have 4 of these for each of the different raw materials we need. Each shows opening balances, purchases, payments and closing balances. Appendix 5. The Cash budget shows the inflows and outflows and gives a final figure for the bank balance to go into the Balance sheet. Appendix 6. The Operating statement lists the cost of sales when taken from sales will give us a profit. Expenses are then deducted leaving us with healthy net profit of  £25,744.25 Appendix 7. The Balance sheet is the 6 month balance sheet ending on 30th June 2013. Our current assets are a higher amount than our current liabilities and therefore give us net current assets to be added to the fixed assets. Once the long term liabilities come off then this leaves us with a balance of  £25,844.25 Appendix 8. Capital Investment appraisal. I have started this by working out the inflows for the first 3 years as we know the selling price and we know the change in production. After year 3, I have assumed that turnover will remain stable and have therefore carried out my Capital Allowance calculations over 10 years. I have deducted the Asset Investment allowance of  £25,000 and written down value for each year at 18%. I have assumed a residual value of the machine to be  £15,000 and added the balancing allowance figure to the capital allowances. Using the inflow figures and deducting capital allowances for each year, I was able to work out the taxable amount and tax it at this years appropriate amount. I carried out 2 Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) methods , 1 being Net Present Value (NPV) and the other is the Internal Rate of Return (IRR). The DCF includes all cash flows and the time value of money telling you what you  £1 will be worth in X years ahead. The IRR also includes th e time value of money and includes all cash flows but the IRR if far more easily understood. If the net present value is zero or positive, the project is accepted, I have used 15% and 45% discount factors and they are both returning a positive number so the project should be accepted. You can think of IRR as the rate of growth a project  is expected to generate and a higher IRR value would provide a much better chance of strong growth. The rate for this project is 59.93 so again promoting the acceptance of this project.. Appendix 9. I have put in an extra break even analysis chart for your perusal as break even charts work well with a single product. The break-even analysis is a calculation of the approximate sales volume required to just cover costs, above which production would be profitable or unprofitable break-even analysis focuses on the relationship between fixed costs, variable cost, and profit. The summary shows that the BEP in units 1058 and the margin of safety in units is 742. Costs taken into account are distinguished by variable costs which change in according to the production level. BUDGETARY CONTROL SYSTEMS A budget is a financial plan for an organisation prepared in advance for a given period. Budgets can be prepared as a whole or broken down into component departments e.g. sales and production or purchases or cash or capital etc. There can be many different types of budgets and for a variety of departments such as sales or production or financial items such as capital, expenditure, manpower, purchase etc. The budgeting process is a vital part of a businesss planning and control. The overall objective of the company is prepared in advance and agreed with cooperation and detailed into a feasible plan of action. It is about planning, monitoring, reviewing and amending budgets to suit management objectives. When the long term strategies are written down everyone is starting from the same place and it will not matter if new people come and go, the long term plans will still be there. Long term objectives after being decided need to be broken down into manageable chunks of short term objectives. A limiting factor needs to be distinguished and a budget is prepared solely for this. The most common limiting factor is sales and this needs to be as accurate as possible as all other budgets will be based on the limiting factors budget. Once all the budgets are prepared a master budget is drafted and given to all of the budget holders for agreement. Once any tweaks or changes are made and an agreement reached then the master budget is presented to senior management. When the budgets need to be prepared again for the next period then actual figures are measured against budgeted figures and there are favourable and adverse variances produced showing management what areas need attention and where money is being lost, it may be efficiency problems that are highlighted for attention etc. There is actually an 8 step plan involved in advanced preparation budgeting. Step 1 is agreeing long term goals Step 2 Changing long term goals to short term goals Step 3 Identify limiting factor Step 4 Prepare limiting factor budget Step 5 Prepare all other budgets Step 6 Bring all budgets together to prepare the master budget Step 7 Agree with all budget holders Step 8 Present to the management There are many benefits to having financial planning and good budgetary control to name a few, by doing extensive planning there is a much clearer picture on where the business is going. It will reduce stress in the work place with all staff knowing where, when and how things are to done. Management can keep on top of things and have peace of mind. With budgeting control there is a more detailed structure of how the business is organised. With all the planning, organising and controlling it is easier for management to keep on top of changes and variances and make it easier to quickly adapt to the said changes. There is co-ordination with everyone working in the same direction. Budgets can be used to make communication and motivation more effective using them to exchange information concerning ideas, goals, achievements etc. thus giving staff a sense of togetherness and teamwork with everyone working towards the same goal. There is however barriers with a lack of knowledge, resources or motivation making the planning extremely difficult to start. Maybe not knowing where to start or even how to start. Maybe needing to sacrifice some things for others. Budgets are a time consuming job and to draw up each individual budget is a laborious task but it is still worthwhile as the benefits usually outweigh the efforts. If there is no co-ordination then the planning will fall apart. Preparing budgets is extremely subjective and they are based on predicted assumptions. ADDITIONAL AND ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES The company has taken out a loan for the CNC machine perhaps they could have hired it for a year or so, see how the product is doing then maybe buy it later on. Leasing equipment means there is not maintenance or repair costs to consider. Instead of keeping the CNC machine for 10 years with a value of  £15,000, Ergo designs can sell it sooner when it is worth more money. The company have adequate production facilities at this time and are therefore not considering contracting out however with proper budgetary controls in place it will be easier to spot any variance changes with efficiency or cost and it may be that in the future it may well be cheaper to contract certain parts of the process out to someone else. They do not run at full capacity in the other products they make and look at contracting out some of that work instead. The company should put in place an advertising campaign for when they believe sales will stabilize to generate renewed interest in the product which can be researched by potential buyers now as it has been on the market for 3 years. As Direct material has accounted for the biggest cost maybe Ergo Design can look around for cheaper suppliers or substitute certain ingredients for others. A price increase could be implemented in later years. CONCLUSIONS The launch of this new product is feasible. It is returning a good profit and there is lots of potential for increasing profitability in the coming next few years and there is room for selling price increases. The new asset can be used for its economical life, sold off earlier or can be hired out to other companies so more room for increased profitability. RECOMMENDATIONS A proper budgetary control system should most definitely be put in place. Future advertising is also a must. They need to do this sooner rather than later as they have only projected increases in turnover for the next 2 years. As the cost of materials are so high, I would recommend that the buyers look around for alternative materials or try to negotiate more with the current suppliers for larger discounts. Lets be aware of the future, this can be done easier with the budgetary control in place. We need to be aware of what our competitors are up to and trends in markets. We need to be aware of what the government is changing and how it will affect the business e.g. Higher corporation taxes, inflation rates etc.

My Life on Togetherness Essays -- family, parents, religion, freedom

I belong to a family that is characterized by being quite Post-modern. Talking about my parents, they do both participate in the public sphere. They both work in two separate domains, having consequently more freedom in the public sphere they encounter as a daily basis. For example, my mother works as a teacher, so she comes across mostly teachers and professors, and my father works as an architect, so he encounters mostly architects, without corrupting one another by endless phone calls or whatever. So Togetherness, which is the opposite of autonomy, is not really seen. What I described before is how things go between my parents, but I did not yet talk about the situation between my parents and us, their children. Our freedom grows proportionally with our age. When we were young, we weren't restricted to communicate only to the family members. In school, we were free to meet and talk to whoever we want. Of course they do warn us of the bad persons we might encounter, but we were feeling comfortable. As we grew up, the relationship between us start to be friendlier. Trust is there, which I believe is one of the most important criteria that should exist within a relationship, happiness is there, everything is fine. However, a criterion of togetherness was missing, which is the freedom of choice. Choices available to me were those that my parents provided me with. For example, one of my goals in my Life was, and still is, to become a Formula 1 racing driver, but unfortunately I wasn't able to achieve that, because my parents simply weren't able to assimilate the idea that I drive a "dangerous", fast car. I know it's too late now, but my dream is still to drive a Formula 1 car, at least before I pass away. Anyway, my family is the ... ...rnal or external. when everything's ticking along just fine, I don't think most people give much thought to it; evidence of that can be found in the confusion with which most people will respond to questions like, "what makes someone a man/woman?", or, "how do you know that you're a woman/man?", without referring to biology. But as soon as something's not quite right, whether that's an internal feeling of incongruence or an external challenge to one's gender, suddenly it becomes very important indeed. Finally it does work for me, and I am not emphasizing any counter ideas toward girls. I don't have any problem with them; each of us is different at several levels. I can have positive criteria by being a boy and my sister, for example, can also have positive criteria that I do not have by being a girl. I was born a male; I will grow as a male, and will die as a male.