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Experimental Essay: A Discussion on Freedom of Speech

Loss is a complex word. It is defined as the fact or process of losing someone or something.

As I'm reading Wild, I'm thinking to myself that Cheryl Strayed has lived a life that parents and teachers and authority figures have warned me about. Very quickly and unabashedly, she has described every dangerous twist of fate--drugs, death, divorce, abortion, infidelity--that I've been afraid of for as long as I can remeber. Don't give these things the chance to hurt you. That is the message we're all given from the start. But Cheryl has, miraculously, survived it all. I'm impressed by her tenacity, but a little more by her luck. Her life has given her every opportunity to end up a cautionary tale, and yet, here she is, living a fulfilling life and speaking at colleges and promoting her book.

Relationship power dynamics are often viewed in terms of dominance and submission. It is easy to view relationships as asymmetrical and unbalanced in terms of power. Despite the prevalence of such ideas, there does exist a direct opposite of an asymmetric power relationship: a symbiotic one. In a symbiotic relationship, both partners rely on each other equally, and thus form a bond through their codependency. In Octavia Butler’s Bloodchild for example, the main character Gan encounters T’Gatoi at a very young age. He develops a connection with her despite their different backgrounds and her supposed ‘dominance’ over him. As time passes, Butler begins to describe this connection as more of a codependent one than one of superiority and inferiority.

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Silence, Dignity and Forgiveness

The Appropriate Response

I might as well have been of a different species – we were both human, though I couldn’t understand his language, his gestures, his expressions. I was in his territory, playing his game—the blatant other in this unfamiliar field. My zone of contact existed within another social mechanism, where the dynamics of power are inherent in appearance and aspect. In Iran, I must behave and conduct myself in a certain way, because I am a woman. I must dress a certain way, and respond in a certain way. Having arrived to the country only three days prior to the eve of ‘the happening’, I was unaware of this vast divergence in demeanor between the Iranians and Americans.

 slippage

noun  slip·page \ˈsli-pij\

1. the act of sliding or slipping.

2. a movement downward : an act of moving into a lower or worse condition or state.

Napping, listlessly staring out the window, and making polite conversation is standard fare for long bus rides. With that expectation in mind, the bus ride was not the place I expected to find my best friend. I suppose it is inaccurate to classify this particular incident as a completely unexpected encounter, as it rather is more like, in the words of Mary Louise Pratt, we were placed in a preconceived “contact zone”. Our encounter was hardly random as we were both there for a summer program, taking the bus with the other fifty-something participants. The parameters of the contact zone had been set before we had even arrived, by the facilitators who selected the applications and created the program. It was a community of people all in the same place, for similar reasons.

New Reflection

The classroom is a community that all of the members of it cannot avoid being included, especially in the young ages. If you want to stay in a safe position in the community that you cannot avoid participating in, you have to adapt yourself there. However, at the same time, unless you try to change the situation, nothing could be better or improved.