Social Action Reading Response #2

    
     Suppose that you lived in a world that’s without fear, pain, warfare, poverty, hunger, or terror. It would be a perfect world, what they called a utopia. But even so you have to realize that in order for it to be a perfect world; you have to take away the most important elements of life such as feelings, love, diversity, choices, and even the ability to see colors. If all of these parts of life are taken away, that will not be considered a life. Life would be without feeling anything, just living and living and doing what you are told without any feeling towards anything. You end up doing something just because someone told you and that are how it’s done and that is what u is supposed to do. In The Givers by Lois Lowry, the community written is not a utopia.
    
     A job is an essential thing that we, the people have. It represents us; it’s something that we like and want to do. If it's so important, shouldn’t we enjoy it? In this "utopia," created in The Giver, job is not a choice. Other people choose what you are going to do as your job. For example, Fiona was assigned Caretaker of The Old, a job she really wanted, but what happens if she starts that job and decides that she really doesn’t like it? She can't change jobs because she lives in a world where she doesn't have a choice, where she can't run her own life, where all of her choices had been already made by others. By not having these choices, several tragedies have been seen. This man said, “I heard about a guy who was absolutely sure he was going to be an engineer and instead he was assigned sanitation laborer. He jumped into the river and swam to the closest community, no one saw him again." Having elders chose every job for everyone and expecting things to run smooth is completely unrealistic. How can you know what u want to do for the rest of your life by the age of twelve, when I was twelve all I wanted to do when I grew up was to be a fireman? Now I am eighteen and I want to become a chef, who knows that I won’t change my mind again within the next year? No one can predict what they would like to do for the rest of their life by the age of twelve. Having others decide what your going to do in the future is just an example of why the community written about in the giver is not a utopia.
    
     How can you love something that you have never really met it before? By having your wife chosen for you, no one is getting the chance to falling in love, the butterflies in your stomach as you try to ask someone out, or the sad feeling of being dumped. When you have never experience these feelings before in your life, how can you truly love the person that is assigned to you? This is a world where you can't feel anything for anyone, where you can't love your friends or your parents, where you can't have a girlfriend because you are assigned a wife. This community is where people are perfectly matched, but people can change who they like in a matter of time. In life, sometimes two people think they are made for each other and get married, but after a few years they get divorced. Why? Because they've changed and they don't longer want to be together. This can’t happen in this community because you are assigned the perfect match by the elders. If you have these feelings that you do not love the person you are assigned you must be wrong because the elders have found you your perfect match. "The community was so meticulously ordered, the choices so carefully made." (Chapter 6, pg. 48) Without experience of true love, this community is not a utopia.

     In the book, you have to apply for a child. How lame is that? In our world, people have the choice to adopt a baby and raise them as their own. It’s a wonderful thing that helps a lot of children have great lives when otherwise they wouldn’t. But also in this world people can have children of their own. Isn’t it so happy to see a couple pregnant and when they choose a name for their children? Isn’t it so pleasant? When you decide to get a child in this book, you receive them at the age of one with a name already assigned to them. How can this even begin to compare to the true experience of having a child? It can’t. Utopias can’t exist in this community because they are a hypothetical situation where everything is “perfect” But a perfect world can be different for everyone. This community is not a utopia.

     Everyone wants to have a perfect world. But it’s really pointless. Perfection doesn't exist. Utopias don't exist. No one is perfect. Living in a world that conatin absolutely no feeling, no humor, and no conflicts will be boring. Everyone is different and that's what makes us unique, each and everone of us...

Social Action Reading Response #1

 
       In“The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross, the main character is facing the Vietnam War right now. In the beginning of the story, O’Brien describes what the soldiers carry with them to war. These things include fear and guilt. Cross himself carries the memory of Martha, a college crush. However, Jimmy finds that he can no longer think about her due to the fact that she is a constant distraction to him at war.

        In the beginning, Cross is very obsessed with Martha. He thought about whether or not she was still a virgin and why she had sign the letter “Love” But only Martha doesn’t return this feeling back for him. Cross started to lose focus at war. “As he is lying in his foxhole, he looks at pictures of Martha he can’t help to fell more than anything, he want Martha to love him as he loved her”This quotation it shows that Cross really loves Martha and he wants to be with her. He would always think about her; in the foxholes, while marching, and even when there’s a danger.

        This feeling has changed when Ted Lavender, Cross’s fellow soldier die. Lavender was killed because Cross was unfocused at war due to Martha. Cross had blamed Lavender’s death on him. When he sat in the hole crying he thought he had,“love Martha more than his men.”Because of Martha, Cross had defeated his ability as a leader. Martha has possessed him so much that even "without willing it, he was thinking about Martha." This shows that he has lost control on where and when is the right time to think about things like that.

        Cross had finally realized that his feelings for Martha were never real. He just uses Martha as a way to escape from war. Cross even questioned himself is he was actually a leader, a lieutenant. But now it was already too late, Lavender is dead and there’s nothing he can do to change that. The morning after Lavender was dead, Cross decided to stop his love for Martha. To completely forget her, he burns her letters photos. As he thought what she wrote in the letter, Cross began to hate her even if he still loves her, it was the, “hating kind of love”He told himself that he was going to forget about her and put the army in front of love. He was "determined to perform his duties firmly and without negligence."

        Overall, Cross had been stuck in the middle of love and war, not knowing which one to choose. Neither one he chooses is going to take something valuable away from him, his love for Martha or his fellow soldier. And in the end he did made a choice. He chose his men over Martha even though it’s too late. And maybe the only way to make it up to him is by putting leadership in front of love.
  
      The message this book wanted to tell us is that we should make the right choice and not waiting until you lose something to finally know how importance it is. Cross regret that he had not been able to save Lavender when he could. He blamed himself for his death, for that he did not do his responsibility as a leader of the army. For that he hated himself for choosing love over his men. I think that we should all make the right choice or what you considered to be right because we can’t choose two things at once; which every choice we make will meant losing the other one. So choose wisely.

       I learn lot from this book, “The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien. I learned that we should make the right choice in life to avoid regretting what we did later on. I also learned that we should be able to put down the things that are obviously not realistic. I think we shouldn’t be thinking things that are not going to come true, especially at Cross’s view. Think about the unrealistic thing will just distract us from the place we are. Cross is using the memory, the past, and Martha, to help him escape from the war. You might think that imagining will make you feel better, but it doesn’t, it sinks you down deeper into the hole until you are completely desperate, until the point you can’t stand up again. Living in the past is like avoiding the future, it’s okay to remember the past, but living? Just not the way it’s supposed to be.