Psych Essay : Self Reflection
The Rand insertion will have to wait until I am finished with all my other coursework as it seems I'm going to be heftily busy this week and next for a lengthy five part essay assignment in comprehension. Fortunately for me, my psych class isn't so scruple and heavy handed in assigning lengthy creative writing projects as my Comprehension and Philosophy classes. While it takes a great degree of participation, most of the learning is done first hand instead of on a reflection, and argumentative debate process. So this essay isn't as long as normally you would find posted on here, as it had to be confined and condensed into double spacing in one page.
Assignment : Life's Mysteries
1. Describe two events happening in the world qhen you were nine-years old
2. Describe a major event that occurred in your teens - this can be a personal event or a national event.
3. If you are (or past) 21, what are (were) your personal goals and educational or vocational goals?
4. Where do you see yourself at the age of 65?
5. What contributions will you have made to society?
Ponder this quote:
“…we all begin with the natural equipment to live a thousand kinds of life but end in the end (sic) having lived only one.” Clifford Geertz (1973)
(submitted product)
The world events occurring when I was nine years old heavily impacted everyone on a world-wide scale, and still seems to have somewhat of a butterfly effect to this day. The Soviet Union formally dissolved, in which caused a successive domino effect, where several states declared independence and recognition from the civilized world. Boris Yeltsin was elected as first president to democratic Russia, and the Maastricht Treaty was signed, formally founding the European Union. Both Magic Johnson and Freddie Mercury publicly disclosed that they have contracted HIV, information on HIV and AIDS is made more prominent in the public spotlight, at the very least a more prominent role in my understanding of the external world. Mercury died just days after his disclosure of the disease due to complications, while Johnson still lives to this day. And lastly, not having as great an impact on me personally until later in my life, the Dead Sea Scrolls were finally revealed to the public, ultimately being the catalyst into how I came to view the world of organized religion and developed my opinions on faith, politics, philosophy, and other disciplines in humanities.
I don't normally like to talk about it at length, but due to the weight of this event happening during my early teens, it caused a horrendous schism within my psyche and crushed the exterior material world around me. When I was 12 I witnessed first hand my cousin and best friend being crushed over by a car in an auto accident. I was not old enough to know death at the time as there had been many instances in previous to where we almost seemed invincible and oblivious to death. It introduced to me death on a cataclysmic scale, in my personal world of emotions, and the inevitability of unfinished resolutions, with the loss of a major cornerstone in my developing life. It had a far reaching impact in my life growing up, and continues to haunt me psychologically through various social problems I continue to deal with today.
When I was 21 I had no real solidified goals in mind, other then continuing my education and eventually being the first in my family to graduate from college, and possibly be a successful architect or structural engineer. At the age of sixty five I do not assume that I will still be alive, whether due to physical ailments or continuing bad luck that runs in the family, or external occurrences associated with the condensation of values and overpopulation. However if I did manage, I would like to think that I would have lived a fruitful life, that I eventually found peace within myself to become something what everyone has always told me that I have the potential to become, yet still have not been able to tap into to this day. I would like to make some kind of contribution to the betterment of mankind. The grandeur dreams as a child have been replaced with more subtle realistic endeavors, but the hope for living in a more enlightened world is still in the makeup.