Breakthrough Writer

All 4 Cooked Lessons on One Page

Cooked Lesson One

Cooked Lesson Two

Cooked Lesson Three

Cooked Lesson Four

 

Cooked Lesson #4: Perdition, Redemption, and Flourishing: Second Revision

Review: 

So far we’ve talked about Jeff Henderson’s Redemption Journey in terms of his Fall, which includes concupiscence, pursuing the good without a moral compass, and denial, the refusal to take accountability for one’s actions by relying on all sorts of rationalizations.

Redemption Reviewed

1. The Fall, misguided quest for goodness often resulting in the following:

concupiscence

we make rationalizations to justify our actions. We eventually believe our rationalizations and this is a form of insanity

denial or willed ignorance; we pretend that we don't know what we're doing.

moral dissolution, numbness

2. Denial of the Fall because of the some of the above reasons

3. Epiphany or revelation in which we realize our accountability for our Fall

4. Contrition: feeling badly for our misdeeds; this is part of perdition, suffering for our misdeeds.

5. reinvention: starting from zero (also part of our perdition) and building fortitude and hard work to create a new self. Reinvention is comprised of the following:

humility, starting at zero

fortitude

perserverence in the face of failure

discerning fruitful failure from futile failure

10,000 Hour Rule

6. Flourishing, blossoming at craft and personal life together

7. giving back, mentoring, other acts of atonement

 

Today we will look at the second part of the Redemption Journey: Perdition, which means suffering punishment for one’s crimes or misdeeds.

 

Reality sets in: crime and punishment or perdition

1.  Jeff Henderson gets arrested and realizes he won’t have access to women the way he used to. This is a shock to his psyche.

2.  He suffers another shock to his psyche. Once a powerful man who called the shots, he finds in prison that he is now powerless, beholden to guards like Big Bubba on page 79.

3.  In prison he has time to think about his life in ways he did not used to. For example, he wanted to be like T whom he worshipped as a sort of god. Ironically, he doesn’t realize until he’s in prison that he had become BIGGER that T and that being SO BIG put him on the feds’ radar screen and that was his downfall. 81

4.  All Jeff’s life he’s been inculcated with the belief in the Homie or Gang Banger Code of Silence as if it were religious truth. But in prison he discovers the No-Snitch Code has no real value because a homie will rat you out when it’s to his advantage. See page 151.

5.  Jeff thought he was invincible but discovers a painful fact: The Feds had been watching him, not for several months, but for several years. He was digging his own grave for a long, long time. 87

6.  Why me? Jeff is not a victim but he cries to Jesus and feels sorry for himself. In a state of perdition, he his helpless, beholden to the caprices of prison life.

7.  He realizes a painful fact: Prison may have saved his life. One of the Twins, his supplier, got killed shortly after Jeff’s imprisonment. 89

8.  Too late in the game, he discovers another painful fact: Anyone can get convicted who doesn’t get caught with drugs or money. 94

9.  His perdition takes on palpable pain when he is given legal accountability for his crimes: 19.5 years. See page 100.

10.     Only after he’s arrested does he discover another painful fact: There is no loyalty in the streets. It’s a myth. See page 152 after his homies steal all his stuff after he’s arrested.

 

What is Jeff’s attitude at the beginning of his prison sentence?

1.  Self-pity, victimization

2.  Nihilism 110

3.  Getting over, coast in life, do the minimum.

4.  Universe of One 113. On page 192, he says “in prison everything is about you.”

5.  No passion for marriage 114

6.  He fluctuates between complacency and despair.

 

 

Future Goal and Redemption

We all have the drive for redemption; if this drive is frustrated, the drive does not remain dormant and neutral inside of us; to the contrary, this drive goes inward and poisons us.

When Jeff is able to redirect his energy from being a drug dealer to a chef, he finds redemption. All of us have a “life energy” that can be directed toward concupiscence, revenge, victimization or growth, maturity, and independence as is explained by Erich Fromm in this passage from Escape from Freedom:

 

It would seem that the amount of destructiveness to be found in individuals is proportionate to the amount to which expansiveness of life is curtailed. By this we do not refer to individual frustrations of this or that instinctive desire but to the thwarting of the whole life, the blockage of spontaneity of the growth and expression of man's sensuous, emotional, and intellectual capacities. Life has an inner dynamism of its own; it tends to grow, to be expressed, to be lived. It seems that if this tendency is thwarted the energy directed toward life undergoes a process of decomposition and changes into energies directed toward destruction. In other words: the drive for life and the drive for destruction are not mutually independent factors but are in a reversed interdependence. The more the drive toward life is thwarted, the stronger is the drive toward destruction; the more life is realized, the less is the strength of  destructiveness. Destructiveness is the outcome of unlived life. Those individual and social conditions that make for suppression of life produce the passion for destruction that forms, so to speak, the reservoir from which the particular hostile tendencies--either against others or against oneself--are nourished.

 

In other words, Fromm is saying that we must flourish in a passion in order to direct our energy toward growth rather than re-direct that energy toward self-destruction such as concupiscent pursuits. 

It’s only in prison that Jeff is forced to being the journey to redemption.

Redemption and Flourishing

 

Flourishing is the opposite of concupiscence flourishing, from the Greek word eudaimonia: means to blossom, to become who we were meant to be.

 

When Jeff Henderson becomes an illegal “business man” being followed by the feds, rationalizing his illegal activities, and living on easy money, he’s not the person he was meant to be. He is rather a grotesque variation. We see his misshapen character in prison when he becomes the enraged, nihilistic, disaffected victim.

 

Only when he learns a passion and accepts his responsibilities as an adult, does he begin to flourish and he becomes happier than he was as a concupiscent drug dealer.

 

Taking a Close Look at Fortitude: The strength and tenacity to push forward in the presence of ever surmounting obstacles. What are Jeff Henderson’s obstacles to starting over?

 

1.  Jeff Henderson discovers that the world is full of “haters and dream crushers” (crabs in a bucket). These are the haters who don’t want people with good intentions to be afforded a clean, fresh start because they want everyone to share in their failure and misery.

2.  Others don’t trust us. Nor do they forgive us for our past deeds.

3.  Often we have an inability to forgive ourselves for our past deeds creates baggage

4.  Often we lack of confidence:  We fear that we may backslide into our old ways

5.  Often a past label like “convicted felon” creates a stigma that is extremely difficult to erase. We see the felon. We don’t see the husband trying to support his wife and two kids.

6.  Jeff Henderson has to tone down his “stroll” and his muscles with baggy clothes to remove the hard gangsta look. See page 2

7.  Jeff Henderson has to remain gracious and poised when he gets pooh-poohed by Caesar’s Palace, the very place that was happy to take his money when he was a dealer “back in the day.”  Now Caesar’s is playing all high and mighty.

 

   1.  He sees he’s been blind and willfully ignorant about the consequences of his selling drugs. 115

2.  He develops intellectual curiosity, reading eclectic material, various intellectual and religious doctrines. He doesn’t embrace one but rather picks and chooses as he sees fit. 124

3.  He becomes engaged with others vs. being disaffected. 124

4.  He finds a passion, cooking, that utilizes his talents.

5.  He learns the humility of starting at the bottom and not getting things “easy” like when he was a dealer.

6.  He learns a hard work ethic. It’s almost impossible to acclimate from easy money to hard work with low pay. But Jeff was always a hard worker.

7.  Jeff found a mentor in Big Roy and later in Las Vegas a cook named Friendly. And then Robert at the Gadsby’s.

8.  Jeff experiences contrition and regret on page 146: He is among the dregs of the world, exactly where he belongs, in the lowest rung of society: hell.

9.  You must have a vision of a different life. See page 147.

10.               He begins to take pride in his work. 147: Speed, taste, and presentation. 188

11.               He undoes his wrong by talking to teens in Vegas. 165

Your Research Paper

1. Use the 80-20 rule: 80% of the essay should be written in your words; 20 % should be quoted, paraphrased, or summarized material that refers to your research sources. You need a minimum of 3 sources.

2. Use MLA format: 12 font, Times New Roman, headers, Works Cited . . .

3. Use correct MLA Works Cited and refer to your book or my website for updated format. 

Cooked 10-Paragraph Writing Assignment: Who's Really Rising And Who's Really Falling?

 

 

A wise man once said that when "we think we're rising in life we're really falling; and when we think we're falling in life we're really rising."

In a 5-page research paper, apply this adage to the memoir of Jeff Henderson as rendered in his book Cooked. Successful papers will use personal comparisons to underscore the salient wisdom above. 

Paragraph 1: Introduction

Paragraph 2: Thesis with 4 or 5 mapping components

Paragraphs 3-9: Elaborate on your mapping components in these supporting paragraphs

Paragraph 10: Restate your thesis with a dramatic restatement.

Last page: Works Cited with no fewer than 3 sources.

Cooked Lesson #2: You Can't Have Redemption If You Don't Have a Fall

 

 

One. Part of Redemption Is the Journey to the Dark Side or the Fall.

A common part of this darkness is a form of insanity called concupiscence.

 

We can define concupiscence as limitless, selfish desires that don't sate our appetites. To the contrary, the process of feeding our concupiscence only serves to make our desires greater than before. The result of concupiscence is insanity.

 

Some of us don't go completely insane in our quest to feed our desires. We mature, grow up, and join the adult world. Part of being an adult is knowing our limits in eating, spending, pleasure-seeking, etc.

In other words, being an adult is about conquering concupiscence.

When we mature and realize we must assert limits on ourselves, we often have an awakening to Existential Ache, the realization of two things:

One, we are not, as we once believed in childhood, the center of the universe.

Two, we come to realize that our desires will ALWAYS outstrip our capacity to satisfy them.

Failure to realize the latter principle of Existential Ache results in concupiscence, the futile struggle to appease our ever-growing appetites.

Concupiscence is stimulated by opportunity and imagination. We have the money to sate our appetites and we imagine the satisfaction of increasing our appetites while finding the necessary resources to satisfy those freshly honed desires.

Example of concupiscence:

A businessman travels frequently to Miami where he frequents a swanky club. The club's outer rim terrace is cluttered with women of the most exquistite beauty and pulchritude. But inside, it is rumored, in the VIP suite, the women are even more beautiful than the one's visible on the outside plaza. So the businessman pays the handsome fee to become a VIP and comforts himself with the thought that he, as an exclusive club member, has access to Miami's most lovely women.

Wrong. Rumors abound that there is an inner chamber, requiring a surreptious descent down a trap door, where the women are even more outrageously beautiful than in the VIP room. Our troubled businessman pays the bouncer $500 and is escorted through the trapdoor where, once again, he is comforted with the belief that he has access to Miami's most beautiful women.

Wrong. Rumors abound about another trapdoor leading to a chamber of even more rarified beauties and another and another until the businessman collapses with the despair that Miami's most beautiful women will elude him forever. He shrinks with anguish, forgoes all interests and passions, and spends the rest of his life languishing in self-pity.

This is the story of concupiscence.

And it is the story of Jeff Henderson before he "falls" in prison where his opportunities to fuel his concupiscence have all but ended.

 

One. Concupiscence and Its Causes

1.  Concupiscence is the search for happiness based on gratifying pleasure and ego without a moral compass. The result is moral dissolution, a fancy term for the loss of morality and sanity. Tennessee Williams became famous after writing the play A Streetcar Named Desire and lived in a fancy hotel where he had room service and escorts visit him every day. One evening he poured gravy over his banana split and realized he had become insane. He left the hotel, went to Mexico and resumed with his writing career.

2.  Concupiscence is the pursuit of happiness without a moral compass; in other words, you have no vision of anything beyond gratifying your base appetites and therefore have a misguided definition of happiness.

3.  When you have no vision beyond your base appetites, you are what we call “Bread and Circus,” which means all you desire is food and entertainment.

4.  Concupiscence compels you to feed your irrational appetites, which wage war against your powers of reason. For example, one of my students knows a guy who lives in expensive Brentwood and drives a BMW but he has to eat his sister’s government cheese and other handouts because he has no money for food. That’s not a reasonable situation.

5.  Concupiscence grows inside us when we have role models without a moral compass. In Jeff Henderson’s case, he sees all the major “players,” like T-Row, glory in the life of concupiscence.

6.  Concupiscence grows inside us from the anger that is born from having a sense of deprivation: “I’m gonna get mine.”

7.  The writer Jonathan Franzen gives concupiscence another name, Ache: Being overwhelmed by desires that always outrun our capacity to fulfill them.

8.  Another cause behind concupiscence is vanity, also called the libido ostentandi: The need to show off. A rich woman in Argentina, Frankita Sanchez Del Mundo El Tunel, wears a body length mink coat at an outdoor bazaar where the temperature is 105 degrees. She wants everyone to know she is of a higher stature. She passes out and dies of heat stroke.  Another example: A student wrote an essay about his friend who, buying a BMW 5 series, had to work 2 jobs and drop out of El Camino College. The misguided young man’s didn’t know how depressed he was when he realized all his friends, the people who would be impressed with his BMW, could not see it since they were attending college. One day this BMW owner made a special trip to the college and yelled to his buddies to come look at his car but they had to go to his class and my student’s final vision of his friend was screaming from his BMW on the Crenshaw parking lot for someone to check out his car. No one cared.

 

Two. Concupiscence and Its Effects

1.  If concupiscence goes its full course, we arrive at a condition of moral dissolution like Tennessee Williams mentioned above. Here’s another example: A man cheats on his girlfriend or wife once and feels the searing pain from his conscience. He cheats on her 1,000 times and feels nothing because his conscience has decomposed into what we call moral dissolution. In other words, he’s lost his soul.

2.  Another word for moral dissolution is debauchery, which means the moral pillars that hold up your morality have fallen and your morality has fallen with them.

3.  Ennui; you’ve filled your senses with so much pleasure that you can no longer feel anything. You have become incurably numb to life and now must suffer the desperation of needing to feel anything, no matter what the cost. This process is also called the “hedonic treadmill” in which you constantly have to spike the pleasure quotient before you adapt to the pleasure, become numb to it and have to spike the pleasure again. This cycle goes on and on with you always losing.

4.  Nihilism; the death of meaning. There is no right or wrong. Life has no meaning. The world is merely a playground for your desires. The world is a giant margarita glass and you suck on the straw, slurp every last drop and then die. Hedonism always ends in nihilism. 

 

Three. In addition to concupiscence, Jeff Henderson becomes a victim of his own success. One of the memoir’s major themes is that misguided success can be a great misfortune leading to insanity.

 

1.  One of the major themes in Cooked is that in life when we think we’re rising, we’re actually falling. Henderson's redemption is not born from his rise to wealth but during his fall in prison.

2.  The problem with success is that most of us have a misguided definition of it. If success is based on concupiscence, then the “success” we achieve will drive us insane.

3.  Another problem with success is that it creates the illusion of invincibility. The more successful Henderson’s drug operation becomes, for example, the more safe he feels. He believes he is “untouchable.”

4.  When we feel invincible we go into denial. For example, Henderson minimizes, to his detriment, his drug dealer associations, some of whom will be kidnapped and killed. He also underestimates the stupidity and back-stabbing nature of another one, which will result in his demise. Finally, Henderson is in denial about the feds’ suspicions regarding Henderson’s covert drug operations. The feds arrest him without even catching Henderson with any drugs at all because they have a long list of records, phone conversations, ancillary transactions, witness testimony, etc.

5.  Another form of denial is moral denial. Henderson rationalizes that he is a drug dealer but he does so “strictly as a businessman.” He’s not about violence, taking drugs, or hanging out with gang bangers. But the fact of the matter is his operations are harmful, a painful fact he doesn’t realize until he’s in prison.

6.  When our success generates easy money, we go insane because suddenly we lose our sense of value and hard work and our sense of goals. We live in Another Universe, one that most people don’t live in. The films City of God and Goodfellas illustrate this point.

7.  When money is easy for us and we see the rest of the world “getting punked,” being forced to do real work to make their money, we start to feel so superior to the rest of humanity that we think we’re gods. We think this to our own detriment.

Five. Sample Essay Structure: Writing a 5-Page Essay Based on Today’s Themes

 

In a page, profile someone who is afflicted with concupiscence, is really falling, not rising, and is going through the “hedonic treadmill” cycle. Then in another paragraph analyze the causes of this concupiscence. You should gleam your causes from the book. (1 page)

 This person doesn’t have to be a drug dealer. This person could be a free-loafer, an addict, a ne’er-do-well, or any misguided soul you know. This comparison section should be about a page. (2 pages)

 

Then in another page, analyze the forces that compel Jeff Henderson to succumb to concupiscence. For the final 3 pages, analyze the forces that free Henderson from concupiscence and lead a life toward redemption.   

In your final section, select someone you know (or from a book or film) who goes through the same process of having been “insane,” and then confronting a crisis by becoming sane, dealing with reality, and eventually finding redemption. This comparison section should be about one page. Some of you want to know if this person has to be the same person you use to compare to Jeff Henderson during his “insane” phase. The answer is no since your first person may have never gone through the redemption process. (Essay total: 5 or 6 pages)

 

Part Six. Example of a Successful Introduction about the Fall Born from Concupiscence 

Successful Introductions have the following qualities:

1. vivid details

2. strong, urgent writing voice

3. memorable observations

4. originality

Evisu, True Religion, G-Star, Slim Flare, Citizens of Humanity, 7 For All Mankind, Diesel . . . I found I could not sleep at night unless I recited names of fabulous jeans, jeans that cost between $200-400, jeans that boasted of denim so soft, so textured, so resplendent, so magical, so distinctive, and so empowering that they put all other jeans to shame and rendered the wearers of those inferior jeans pariahs unworthy of my company.

The glorious name-brand jeans I am speaking of had almost supernatural powers so that simply wearing them afforded you membership to a special club, a high-brow coterie of people in-the-know, people who could not be bothered by the rest of mundane humanity. This underground designer jean society often communicated on Internet message boards, chat sites, and met monthly at swank cocktail parties where they would show-off their jeans to others whose jean expertise made them qualified to truly appreciate the way the jeans showcased your svelte thighs, cupped and massaged your rock-hard buttocks, and delineated the appropriate, eye-brow-raising curves in your serpentine profile.

We belonged to a secret society, a mysterious network through which our belonging entitled us to know everything that went on in this world that “really mattered” before it “went mainstream.” We had, for instance, software embedded in our cell phones so that when a new jean came out on the market or a jean went on sale our cell phone vibrated pleasantly and thereby alerted us to a new consumer opportunity.

This isn’t to say that we, as members of the elite designer jean cult were absent of problems. We had some, to be sure. One is that once we put on a pair of jeans that we absolutely loved, we found it almost impossible to take the jeans off, even for showers, the beach, and bedtime, so that for many of us our jeans doubled as bathing suits and pajama bottoms. Also the first day we got our jeans we’d often be overcome with a sort of ambulatory mania by which we’d feel compelled to walk all over town so that the world could see us in our perfect-fit jeans. We’d strut across the mall, around the neighborhood, and into strange homes and do a pirouette until we were escorted off the premises or chased away by vicious attack dogs. We couldn’t wash these jeans because every wash faded and thus diminished them. Thus we walked around in filthy, great looking denim rags, Fabreezing them, but soon, that's wasn’t enough to curtail the stench.

I suppose you can tell by what I’ve written so far that I had reached a point in life where jeans had become the focal point of my wardrobe and body image and, yes, my very existence. Knowing that my fabulous jeans allowed me to wear any tattered shirt I wanted and still be “dressed up” gave me a sense of security and smug self-satisfaction that no other clothing article could give me.

Deep down, though, I knew my jean fetish wouldn’t last forever. Deep down I knew the magical jean aura would dissipate and I’d be left with the anxiety of facing the abyss of personal emptiness and would therefore have to cling to some other consumer obsession in the area of gadgetry, automobiles, Persian rugs, fine wines, pungent cheeses, for I had found myself a slave to the dreaded disease of concupiscence. 

 Indeed, concupiscence always brings us to despair and makes a smaller person than we were before coveting garish things. Take the compelling memoir of Jeff Henderson in his best-selling Cooked. Henderson renders his own battles with his concupiscent demons as he enjoys the materialistic trappings of becoming a savvy drug entrepreneur. Henderson succumbs to his concupiscent ways because he has no moral compass. However, his imprisonment becomes his road to redemption as he discovers how to unshackle himself from the chains of greed and concupiscence by ________________, _______________, __________________, and ___________________. 

Class Activity:

Write about a misguided passion you had (or have) for something that resulted in concupiscence and how your ability to free yourself from this concupisence led to redemption.

 

Cooked Lesson #1: Thesis and Essay Strategies for Extended Definition (Fourth Revision)

 

 

One. The Four Questions I Ask When I Grade Your Essay

1. How clear is your purpose (thesis) and how effectively do you keep focused on your purpose throughout the essay? 

2. How well do you develop your ideas with concrete detailed paragraphs? 

3. How well do you bring the "Excitement Factor" into your essay by finding an approach that stirs your emotional fire, passion, and conviction? 

4. How effectively do you execute the mechanics so that in terms of grammar, precise word choice, and formatting you deliver a polished, professional manuscript?

 

Two. The Five Writing Traps to Avoid

1.  Turning in late papers—I set my sights on the new cycle of essays so that when a late paper, from the old cycle, comes my way I look at that paper with disdain. In fact, my heart is “dead” to the late paper and I will mark that late paper with a C or D grade no matter what the paper’s virtues. My hostility to the late paper is exacerbated when students give me their grossly tardy expositions during the last two weeks of the semester, a time in which I am already inundated with stacks of on-time papers, thereby making me especially vitriolic toward late essays, which I see as an affront to my dignity and self-respect and which therefore compel me to mark those essays with a D or F grade. I harbor enormous suspicions towards alleged “medical and family emergencies” which “necessitate” turning in a late essay. While I concede that compelling circumstances do exist and while I address those alleged compelling circumstances on an individual basis and with sympathy, I have found over the last twenty years of teaching that well over 99% of the students who claim special circumstances  are a constant source of chafing agitation and demonstrate a highly annoying predictable pattern of lame excuses, “bad luck,” and emotional neediness which, for their sake, I do not indulge lest I should be guilty of encouraging their dysfunctional behavior. In conclusion, do not, I repeat, do not turn in late essays.

2.   
Writing essays that are full of the obvious and self-evident—an essay full of obvious truths and clichés has no reason to exist, no matter how well organized and well written. Writing about the evil of greed and materialism or the way in which we are withdrawing into our technology or how we have forgotten to love and respect one another are all true and noble sentiments but they have no business in your papers since, presumably, we already have those beliefs so that these papers are superfluous. To capitulate to obvious truths about the human condition is to sermonize or to lecture down to your reader. Also, if the material is obvious, you will be bored with your own essay and your reader will even be more bored. Therefore, strive to challenge your intellect and argue for a position that requires vigorous defense and sophisticated analysis. 

3.  Writing essays from your head but not your gut—intellectual explorations can only take you so far. A memorable essay must be fueled by both your mind and a fire in your belly. If you can’t muster a fire of passion for your topic, then your essay will be flaccid, perfunctory, and lackluster, sins which your reader will never forgive. You cannot fake passion. Either you have it or you don’t. It is your responsibility to find a way to bring authentic passion to your essay. 

4.  Writing half-baked essays—a half-baked essay is a rough draft, a seed of a good idea. It may contain a recognizable structure, topic sentences, a clear focus, and an exciting approach but it falls on its face because the essay lacks details, color, and concreteness. A telltale sign of a half-baked essay is short paragraphs. Fully developed paragraphs, 100-150 words, are a sign of a fully baked exposition, which I can spot immediately just by glancing at your paragraphs. A lack of details, haphazard sentences, redundant syntax, lack of word variety—all these things evince a half-baked essay written in the rush of a moment or with one hand on the keyboard and other holding a cell phone. I have sadly received many half-baked essays because students carried on with cell-phone conversations while writing their essays. 

5.  Relying on your computer or a tutor for spelling, grammar, and other facets of your exposition—realize that your computer is a nincompoop that is incapable of discerning the difference between possessive case and a contraction (whose/who’s or your/you’re or its/it’s) and many other spelling scenarios. Its grammar check is a complete stinker. Its ability to detect other syntax errors is at best weak. Do not rely on it. Do not rely on your tutor for grammar either. Over the last twenty years I have received thousands of “tutor-approved” essays rife with comma splices, run-ons, fragments, noun-pronoun errors, dangling modifiers, faulty subordination, elephantine syntax, and other egregious errors that have prompted full investigations into the credentials of these so-called “tutors.”  I have also over the last twenty years graded horrific, cliché-laden essays that the students defended by saying, “But my tutor liked it,” or “It was my tutor’s idea.” I don’t care what your tutor thought or said about your essay. Your tutor means absolutely nothing to me. Therefore rely on no one but yourself. This is a life lesson in being street smart, the most valuable kind of intelligence. Remember that Rule Number One in being street smart is trusting no one. Rule Number Two is don’t make your pride, performance, and excellence dependent on others. Your excellence and success is your responsibility and no one else’s.   

Three. Qualities of a Successful Thesis, the Foundation of Your Essay

1.  One sentence that declares or asserts a position that can be demonstrated with examples. A thesis can be an argument (The death penalty is wrong because of _______, _______, ________, and ________), an extended definition (Maturity is the condition of _________, _________, _________, and _________), an analysis (Jeff Henderson's redemption was the result of __________, _________, _________, and ____________.)

2.   The examples can be expressed in mapping statements or mapping components.

3.   Avoids being self-evident or obvious but creates new insights.

4.   A good thesis is visceral, from the gut, meaning you have an immediate emotional connection to it. The intellect comes later.

 

Sample Thesis with Mapping Statements

Argument

Hiring a personal trainer is a sign of being a loser. First, most people who hire a personal trainer show their need for a crutch rather than exercising self-reliance. Second, most people who hire personal trainers don't do so for authentic, permanent change, but for some transitory short-term goal like the need to lose their "cottage cheese" before the swim season or before their wedding. Third, most people who hire personal trainers don't do so because they're really interested in exercise; they do so because they're lonely and they need someone to talk to.

Another Thesis That Refutes the Above:

The gentleman who so archly dismisses all people who hire a personal trainer is a jackass indulging in over simplification. While he may be right SOME of the time, he doesn't accurately analyze ALL the reasons some people seek a personal trainer. For one, some people are too ignorant to begin their own training program and they should be commended for having the courage and dignity to seek help. Second, a good personal trainer can give his or her client a vision of what constitutes good fitness. Third, a good personal trainer can help his or her client begin a training program that will avoid injury, discouragement, or some other problem that might impede the client from making a long-term commitment.  

Another Thesis Example (Analysis):

Jeff Henderson's Cooked is a good example of man going through the four stages of life as described the psychologist Carl Jung. Jeff Henderson becomes the Athlete, a young man simply interested in his physical needs. Second, he becomes, as a criminal, the Warrior, a man who wants to conquer the world for his own self-indulgence. In prison where he learns humility and a hard-work ethic, he becomes a statesman, a spokesperson for wisdom and virtue. As he mentors troubled kids in the art of fine cooking, his ego diminishes more and more and his wisdom surmounts until he becomes Jung's final phase of the human journey: Spirit. 

 

Essay Assignment: Extended Definition

Write an extended definition of the word redemption in the context of Jeff Henderson's memoir Cooked. 

What is an extended definition? An extended definition is a tailor-made definition of a term that is important to a deeper understanding of your subject. Your definition must be limited to your subject. You are not defining redemption in all of its meanings, only as redemption pertains to Jeff Henderson. 

An extended definition has a single-sentence definition, which contains 3 things:

1. the term

2. the class

3. distinguishing characteristics.

 

Example:

Marriage is a legally-binding contract, which requires loyalty, hard work, compromise, and humilty.

 

The above sentence has the term, marriage; the class, legally-binding contract, and distinguishing characteristics that you flesh out in the body of your paragraph.

 

Another Example: Chimera

 

A chimera is a _____________________, which is fueled by ___________, ________________, _____________, and ___________________. 

Example of an Extended Defintition Paragraph

Are You Meta-Fighting with Your Partner? If So, Stop It Immediately

If you’re simply fighting with your girlfriend or wife, you don’t know what real fighting is. The type of fight when you are focused on the original source of your argument is a lightweight argument, one which can be resolved with relative ease. But when you and your partner elevate the fighting to a new level, in which the original subject of the argument deviates into newer, more toxic, more hostile territories, it’s called meta-fighting.

Meta-fighting is when you begin to argue about how you are arguing about the argument. You are bickering about style, tone, and methodology. And this argument, this meta-fight, about how you deliver your argument also spawns an argument about how you are scrutinizing and judging the analysis of the style of the argument over a topic that you most likely have forgotten, the original topic being obscured by layers and layers of analysis about the analysis about the analysis about the methodology of your arguing. By this time, the subject behind the original argument is beside the point. It’s as if the original controversy or hot-button was simply a springboard to vent deeper issues about your relationship.

Perhaps the next point is obvious: When you recognize that you are in the middle of a meta-fight, it’s important to stop it as soon as possible because the damage to your relationship can be beyond your understanding and control. So let us be clear. When you catch yourself in the middle of a meta-fight, you need to go into Damage Control Mode. Here’s what you do:

Abruptly stop arguing, clear your throat, and say you don’t feel well. Then disappear into the bathroom for at least a half hour and be resolved not to bring up the fight upon exiting your “cool-off cubicle.” Apologize for “getting carried away” and start cooking a meal, preferably comfort food. Start chopping onions, dicing carrots, peeling potatoes, and in general keep busy and pretend to be absorbed by your new task so that you don’t get sucked back into the meta-fight.

If you do not know how to cook, take on a outdoor or indoor project you’ve been putting off. Wash windows, clean the garage, vacuum, anything to distract both of you from the meta-argument.

Be adamant about not getting sucked back into the meta-argument. Remember this: A meta-argument is a black hole, a bottomless pit of pain, hurt, and suffering from which sometimes there is no return. So be warned. If you must fight with you’re partner, that is fine. But no meta-fighting, not ever.

Happy cooking. 

 

 Ways of Developing Your Distinguishing Characteristics

1. Cause: A chimera is born from unconscious needs that aren't being met in one's life

2. Effect: A chimera always results in obsession that is both elevating and self-destructive

3. Negation: A chimera is NOT a casual hobby. 

4. Argumentation: While some dismiss all chimeras as destructive, I am of the school of thought that says a chimera is a double-edged sword, pushing us to greater heights while at the same time endangering us with its demonic elements. 

5. Analysis: A chimera begins as an innocent flutter of interest but insidiously grows until it consumes us and afflicts us with demonic possession. 

Some Advice on Your Definition of Redemption

One. Focus on the word redemption as a universal quality not confined to a specific religion. If you focus too much on a specific religion, your essay will be more of a religious sermon than it will be an exposition about the universal journey of Jeff Henderson.

Two. Consider, for example, the religious term repentance is often can be replaced with the idea of acknowledgment and accepting responsibility for one's actions.

Three. Consider these elements of the redemption journey: Descending down into the demonic level of being through denial and concupiscence (insatiable appetites); hitting "rock bottom," a state of despair in which one must make a choice: surrender to self-pity or re-invent oneself in such a way as to redeem oneself of one's past mistakes; starting at the bottom in a state of humility with a vision of a better future; a sense of mastery and self-worth, not based on preying on others but on personal excellence and a desire to pass on that personal excellence to others; a condition of emotional adolescence to an adult. 

Essay Structure for Extended Definition

First page: Write a personal narrative about yourself or someone you know who achieved redemption based on your definition of that word. 

Second page: Write a transition (Similarly, Likewise, In a similar manner . . .) to your thesis, a single-sentence definition of redemption. The distinguishing characteristics will be the mapping components that determine your body paragraphs.

Pages 2-5 will be an expansion of your distinguishing characteristics using examples from Jeff Henderson's memoir. 

Page 6 Works Cited MLA Format

Works Cited should have a minimum of 3 sources: the memoir, my blog and a source of your choice with the exception of a dictionary

Example of an Introduction and Transition and Thesis for Redemption Essay

There once was a man in his early twenties. Socially awkward, he withdrew into his college studies, found companionship in books, and grew an unruly beard. Untouched by human warmth, his demeanor was a bit crazed and unsettling. His eyes were cavernous and penetrating. 

 One day this young man was on Pier Avenue in Hermosa Beach and he passed a popular hangout, Patrick Malloy’s. It was crowded inside. The young man pressed his bearded face against the glass and looked with longing at the attractive people. They looked so life-affirming and at ease with self-abandonment, laughing, slapping each other’s backs, kissing one another, and sloshing their beers over their glasses’ rims.  

 In contrast, the young man was a tightly-wound ball of repressed emotions, in turns angry and melancholy. He felt like a man of 85 trapped in the body of a 21-year old. 

 Watching the attractive people enjoying themselves and embracing life with an admirable, insatiable appetite, the young man was convinced he would remain on life’s sidelines, a depressed witness to a life passing him by. 

 Convinced of his own futility and fated to a life of loneliness, he went home, curled up into a ball and cried himself to sleep. 

 We now travel 25 years into the future and focus on this same man, now in his mid-forties. He has a good job. He has developed social skills, he is well groomed, insouciant, and can conceal his cynicism behind a veil of witty repartee. He’s been married, divorced, remarried. He sits in Patrick Malloy’s with his lovely wife and her lovely friends. Beer is sloshing all around him. He doesn’t drink, save a diet Coke since he’s the designated driver. The music is loud and people are shouting over the music. His ears can’t take much more of this.

Worse, an unrelenting boredom has set in and he is no longer listening to any of the several conversations blaring around him. 

 He feels it both strange and cruel that earlier in his life he felt excluded from this club of beautiful people and now he is inside its very center, its most inner core, and rather than bathing in the warmth of belonging and popularity he stares at his watch.

While squirming in his seat with utter boredom, he sees a young man outside the club. The man is bearded with the same cavernous eyes and the same look of despair the middle-aged man remembers seeing in his reflection. The young man, a mirror image of the middle-aged one, presses his face against the window and looks into the eyes of his older doppelgänger. 

Feeling the need to help this misguided youth, the older aspiring mentor shakes his head as if to say: "The dividing line between your world and my world is all in your head, little brother. It's all in your head."

The older fellow walks out of the bar and talks with the younger man. A friendship develops and the older man becomes the other's mentor, giving him wisdom that will change his life forever. 

Indeed, the imparting of wisdom through mentorship is the essence of Jeff Henderson's redemption evidenced in his memoir Cooked. We find that redemption is a radical character transformation characterized by _________, _________, ____________, and _______________. 

 

 

What does it mean when we say that when we think we're rising we're really falling; and when we think we're falling, we're really rising?

1. Rising could be based on arrogance and power giving us a false sense of invincibility while we become disconnected from others.

2. Rising could have a downside: being blind to portents of danger and obnoxious behavior as we become full of braggadocio. 

3. Rising could result in a disconnect from values and morals and even our true self.

4. Rising could result in inflated self-esteem, narcissism, and a loss of proportion in regards to what's important in the world.

5. Falling could be a purging lesson in humility and fortitude. 

6. Falling could be a test over what's really important in this world. 

7. Falling could be an opportunity to live and learn wisdom. 

  Grammar, Spelling, and Usage Check

 In the intriguing and harrowing novel “Cooked”, by Jeffery Henderson; we see a man who cultivated the wrong craft—the craft of making crack cocaine—and denied it’s impact on the community. He consoled himself with the belief that other drug dealers where ‘gang  bangers.’ Whereas Jeff was merely a “business man”, in truth, he was, as a drug dealer, a cancer on society exacting many deadly affects. Henderson fills his novel with all sorts of justifications to rationalize his drug selling and how selling drugs hardly effects society at all; Because Henderson was one of the countries number one drug dealers, he was on the fed's radar screen. Pursue by the police, Henderson was eventually arrested. Although, he was not found with any drug possession; there was enough circumstantial evidence to implement charges against him, indeed, Henderson was found guilty and would, with good behavior stay in prison for nine and a half years. 

 

Class Activity: Give 2 personal examples to illustrate and explain the following:

A wise man once said that when "we think we're rising in life we're really falling; and when we think we're falling in life we're really rising."

 

 

Cooked Lesson #3: The Power of Denial (second revision)

  

Denial Vs. Redemption

Some Denial Is Necessary for Sanity, But Too Much Denial Leads to Insanity

 

We need a certain amount of denial to be sane. For example, we should not face the raw, bald reality of our most egregious personal defects and weaknesses.

Otherwise, we'll be bogged down in the paralysis of self-obsession and self-loathing. Let's say we're not as kind as we'd like to be. We can't go around muttering to ourselves, "I lack the milk of human kindness" over and over. Otherwise, we'll go insane.

 

Another example is ugly photographs of you. I'm talking about photographs that make you look so ugly you cringe and wince with disbelief.

THROW THOSE PHOTOS AWAY NOW!

 

If you walk around life with an image of yourself based on the ugliest photographs ever taken of you, you'll never leave the house; you'll never get a date; you'll die lonely.

Try to focus on the more flattering photographs of yourself.

Is this a form of delusion? Maybe. But it's a good delusion, one that preserves your sanity.

A personal example: I hate the sound of my voice when someone plays it back on a taperecorder.

Solution?

I DON'T LISTEN TO MY RECORDED VOICE.

Otherwise, I'll reel in self-disgust.

To a certain degree, self-delusions are necessary.

 

Another example is natural disasters. Even though an earthquake, a tsunami or some other disaster can destroy us in the blink of an eye, we have to live our lives as if we have a good shot of living a full, healthy life. Otherwise, we'll be paralyzed by fear.

 

But there is a point where denial no longer preserves our sanity, that denial goes too far and plummets us into the depths of illusion completely disconnected to reality.

This is the fate of successful drug dealer Jeff Henderson who believes, one, he's invincible and, two, he isn't doing anything wrong: He's just a businessman.

 Sometimes When We Think We're "Rising," We're Really in Denial

Examples of Denial

 

1.  A woman sees gradual warning signs that her boyfriend is jealous and controlling, but she denies it and before she knows it, she is in the chapel about to give her vows, what will be for her a prison sentence of unbearable hell: physical beatings and psychological abuse.

2.  A man is a major drug dealer but minimizes the harm of his actions by telling everyone he is not a drug user, a gang-banger, or a killer. He’s just a “business man.”

3.  A man slowly gains 50 pounds over five years and doesn’t realize he looks like the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Or he doesn't believe he's fat until his wife plays him a tape-recording of his sleep apnea. Or he shoots up to 1,200 pounds and has to be lifted out of his room via a helicopter.

4.  A man cheats on his girlfriend, convinces her that he did not cheat and has a hard time “forgiving” his girlfriend for questioning his fidelity.

5.  An El Camino student hangs out with college dropout buddies who never really grew up. Their lives center on “having a good time,” which is the usual fare of male bonding, bragging about their endless series of immature relationships, gossiping about their latest exploits, etc. This student can’t acknowledge that his “buddies” are emotional retards distracting him from his more important goals, such as succeeding in college. Even more disturbing, he fails to admit that his “buddies” are haters who want him to fail because crabs always pinch the top crab straddling the bucket and pull the crab back in before it can escape.

 

Two. The Causes of Denial

 

1.  When you lie to yourself enough times, you begin to believe that your lie is a truth. This is the beginning of insanity.

2.  When your whole life becomes a collection of lies that you’ve convinced yourself are truths, you are walking around Planet Earth with your head up your butt.

3.  Denial is also brought upon by the gradual worsening of a situation. You acclimate to gradual developments so that you don’t see what is happening to you or your don’t want to see it.

4.  Acclimation allows you to adapt to an extreme situation so that is doesn’t seem extreme to you. Making $100,000 a month in easy money isn’t normal to us, but it was normal to Jeff Henderson during his drug dealing days. In other words, craziness becomes the “new normal.”

5.  Denial is caused by the ego, which says, “These things can’t be happening because of me. I’m essentially a good person. I don’t deserve this.” Such is Jeff Henderson’s position during his initial arrest and imprisonment.

6.  When the ego embraces denial to escape personal accountability, the result is nihilism, the death of morals and meaning. In other words, “you don’t give a damn about anything.” That’s nihilism. See page 110 in which Jeff Henderson says he doesn’t care about anything. He doesn’t want to get his life together. He just wants to lift weights and “kick it” with his homies. That’s nihilism.

 

    

 

 

Example of Personal Paragraph About Denial and Self-Awakening (Epiphany)

I’ve been working out most of my life. As a kid I remember family and friends looking at photographs of Arnold Schwarzenegger and other bodybuilders and exclaiming how “gross” and “freakish” these “musclemen” were. In contrast, I thought these bodybuilders looked normal. From my point of view, it was the average guy, a tomato with four toothpicks sticking out it, who looked woeful.

At 13, I was a Junior Olympic Weightlifting champion. At 19, I took second place in Mr. Teenage San Francisco. I know the confidence and satisfaction that results from looking muscular and lean and I know, ever since my metabolism slowed down in my early thirties, the chagrin and displeasure of having a Pillsbury Dough Boy coat of flab over my frame.

No time did I experience this humiliation more than in the summer of 2003 at the age of 42. My wife Carrie and I were walking back from the brunch buffet at the Sheraton Inn in Kauai where I had just ingested a 3,000-calorie breakfast of macadamia nut pancakes, French toast made with Hawaiian sweet bread, turkey sausage patties, and scrambled eggs with melted cheddar all washed down with several tall glasses of freshly-squeezed orange juice. As I strutted my 259-pounds outside the buffet room and past a hotel window, I saw the reflection of a portly gentleman, dressed in safari shorts and a turquoise tank top, which sported the striking image of the iconic sea turtle. This unsightly man I gazed upon looked like the stereotype of an overfed American.

I walked closer toward the bloated image and I was overcome by the shock and anxiety that the reflection was not some other guy for whom I could judge with gleeful ridicule but me. I was that dude, the type of person that I had mocked and scorned most of my life.

This was a huge moment for me, what literary people might call an “epiphany,” and I was fortunate to have experienced it. Most people are denied, or deny themselves, such moments of clarity. It is my belief that something like 95% of the human race walk around Planet Earth with their heads up their butts and this is how they die—never knowing what the hell is really going on. But on that summer day in Kauai when I saw that the corpulent man in the window was in fact me, my head uncorked from my butt and I was able to see reality for what it really was. And this reality—me being a chubster—was totally unacceptable. Something had to be done.

Jeff Henderson, too, suffers from having his head up his butt as he denies the evil of his "business endeavor," that of a silver-tongued drug dealer. We see that denial was just one factor that descended him deeper and deeper into a life of crime. His descent can also be attributed to ____________, _____________, and ___________________. 

Example of an Introduction about Denial

 

I started shoplifting at the age of eleven. I did not steal randomly or recklessly. I was rather very specific in my targets: baseball and basketball cards, which I pilfered from a local 7-Eleven. When the fat, slovenly owner by the cash register was picking his nose and engrossed in reading his Playboys and other nudie magazines, I'd stuff the packets of gum and baseball cards down my pants or the inside pocket of my jacket. After a couple of months however I found I could no longer steal as I was overcome with a sick sensation every time I approached the 7-Eleven and came face to face with the fat store owner. 

Just as I was getting out of stealing, my friends urged me to expand my shoplifting scope and asked me to join them in a shoplifting spree at a bigger store, the local Pay-Less, where their plan was to steal fishing tackle gear, mostly lures, hooks, and the like. I declined their offer and was glad I did when they were busted by the store managers who called the cops. The kids involved got grounded for a month and I was relieved that I had not joined them.

There was one boy, however, who did not learn his lesson. He continued to steal, that is, until he broke into his neighbor's house to take some liquor, but to his surprise the neighbor was home waiting for him with a shotgun. My friend was shot in the leg and he was lucky he didn't get it amputated.

These experiences reinforced the lesson that it was important for me not to steal baseball and basketball cards in the stupid fashion of my idiotic friends. So from then on when I wanted something from 7-Eleven, I would prepare myself by stealing loose change from my mother's purse. To make sure I was never caught, I only did this when she lie in bed comatose from too many diet cokes laced with Vodka. Stealing in this manner, I knew I could take as much loose change as I wanted, and even pluck a few bills from her wallet when I felt the need. Clearly, I was superior to my foolish associates. 

Sadly, the above account shows us the insidious power of self-denial. Likewise, Jeff Henderson engages in similar delusion and his recognition of this fact is the first step in his redemption, which includes __________, ________, __________, and __________. 

In-Class Activity

 In a paragraph, write about something in your life that was bad but that you were oblivious to because of denial or because of emotional blindness. 

Essay Options for Jeff Henderson's Cooked

One: The Fall, Perdition, and Redemption in Cooked

In 1-1.5 pages, write a salient, concrete, colorful profile of someone you know who experienced a fall, perdition, and redemption. If you don't know such a person, find a character in a film or a work of literature. 

Then using an appropriate paragraph transition such as "Similarly" or "Likewise," you might start your thesis paragraph this way:

Likewise, we read in Cooked about the extraordinary Jeff Henderson who undergoes his own Fall into the abyss of insanity and a redemption born from necessity. JH's Fall is caused by ___________________, _________________________, and _____________________________. Only after sinking to the rotten depths of nihilism does he begin his journey toward redemption. This salubrious journey is born from _____________________________, ____________________________, _____________________________, and ______________________________________.

 

Your body paragraphs will correspond to the components you use to fill in the above blanks. Your conclusion will be one sentence, a brief, dramatic restatement of your thesis. Your final page, your Works Cited page, will show the sources you used from Cooked, from my blog, from interviews, or from other helpful sources you find. Your Works Cited page and manuscript must conform to MLA format. Be sure to make your own catchy, creative title.

Two. Open-Ended Option for Cooked:

Analyze the causes behind Jeff Henderson's fall into the moral abyss and his eventual redemption by comparing his journey to someone you know or someone from a book or film. Same research required as described above. 

 

1A Lesson #5 for Cooked: The Cure for Jeff Henderson’s Concupiscence and a Major Cause and Outcome of His Redemption: Flourishing.

 

One. Flourishing

 

Flourishing is the opposite of concupiscence flourishing, from the Greek word eudaimonia: means to blossom, to become who we were meant to be.

 

When Jeff Henderson becomes an illegal “business man” being followed by the feds, rationalizing his illegal activities, and living on easy money, he’s not the person he was meant to be. He is rather a grotesque variation. We see his misshapen character in prison when he becomes the enraged, nihilistic, disaffected victim.

 

Only when he learns a passion and accepts his responsibilities as an adult, does he begin to flourish and he becomes happier than he was as a concupiscent drug dealer.

 

Two. Ascent: Building One’s Character During the Redemption Process

 

1.  Cruel Awakening; the brutality of seeing reality for what it really is.

2.  Replacing victimization with accountability

3.  Finding a passion.

4.  Taking pride in not just work but one’s integrity and honesty

5.  Fortitude

6.  Becoming a mentor

 

 

 

Three.  Taking a Close Look at Fortitude: The strength and tenacity to push forward in the presence of ever surmounting obstacles. What are Jeff Henderson’s obstacles to starting over?

 

1.  Jeff Henderson discovers that the world is full of “haters and dream crushers” (crabs in a bucket). These are the haters who don’t want people with good intentions to be afforded a clean, fresh start because they want everyone to share in their failure and misery.

2.  Others don’t trust us. Nor do they forgive us for our past deeds.

3.  Often we have an inability to forgive ourselves for our past deeds creates baggage

4.  Often we lack of confidence:  We fear that we may backslide into our old ways

5.  Often a past label like “convicted felon” creates a stigma that is extremely difficult to erase. We see the felon. We don’t see the husband trying to support his wife and two kids.

6.  Jeff Henderson has to tone down his “stroll” and his muscles with baggy clothes to remove the hard gangsta look. See page 2

7.  Jeff Henderson has to remain gracious and poised when he gets pooh-poohed by Caesar’s Palace, the very place that was happy to take his money when he was a dealer “back in the day.”  Now Caesar’s is playing all high and mighty.

 

   

 

Four. Jeff Henderson's Misguided Talents 

1.  He identifies and disdains chump behavior like Will’s on page 41.

2.  He seeks to be freed from his boss T so he can achieve independence.

3.  He’s meticulous or detailed in his production of illegal substance: details and skills he’ll need to be a great chef. See Chapter 1.

4.  He knows how to manipulate people like Funky Blood to do his bidding. 42

5.  Jeff’s interest in drugs is pure business: no recreation; he doesn’t take drugs himself. 42

6.  He makes plans for improving efficiency; bigger packages mean less travel. 43

7.  He imitates inconspicuous dealers rather than the bling. See 45.

8.  He avoids street sales; he only buys behind the scenes on his pager. 46

9.  He stops hanging out with his crew. 47

10.               He stays away from gang rivalries, parties, concerts, risks.

11.               He guys dope hard, not soft, for bigger profit. 57

Essay One Review: 

The Fall, Perdition, and Redemption in Cooked 

In 1-1.5 pages, write a salient, concrete, colorful profile of someone you know who experienced a fall, perdition, and redemption. You can write about concupiscence, denial or the effects of being fatherless on one's childhood. If you don't know such a person, find a character in a film or a work of literature. 

Then using an appropriate paragraph transition such as "Similarly" or "Likewise," you might start your thesis paragraph this way:

Likewise, we read in Cooked about the extraordinary Jeff Henderson who undergoes his own Fall into the abyss of insanity and a redemption born from necessity. JH's Fall is caused by ___________________, _________________________, and _____________________________. Only after sinking to the rotten depths of nihilism does he begin his journey toward redemption. This salubrious journey is born from _____________________________, ____________________________, _____________________________, and ______________________________________.

 

Your body paragraphs will correspond to the components you use to fill in the above blanks. Your conclusion will be one sentence, a brief, dramatic restatement of your thesis. Your final page, your Works Cited page, will show the sources you used from Cooked, from my blog, from interviews, or from other helpful sources you find. Your Works Cited page and manuscript must conform to MLA format. Be sure to make your own catchy, creative title. 

 

 

 

Cooked Lesson #4: Perdition

 

Review: So far we’ve talked about Jeff Henderson’s Redemption Journey in terms of his Fall, which includes concupiscence, pursuing the good without a moral compass, and denial, the refusal to take accountability for one’s actions by relying on all sorts of rationalizations.

 

Today we will look at the second part of the Redemption Journey: Perdition, which means suffering punishment for one’s crimes or misdeeds and redemption, how Henderson atones for his past deeds and finds meaning and purpose in life.

 

One. Reality sets in and JH can no longer live in denial: crime and punishment or perdition

1.  Jeff Henderson gets arrested and realizes he won’t have access to women the way he used to. This is a shock to his psyche.

2.  He suffers another shock to his psyche. Once a powerful man who called the shots, he finds in prison that he is now powerless, beholden to guards like Big Bubba on page 79.

3.  In prison he has time to think about his life in ways he did not used to. For example, he wanted to be like T whom he worshipped as a sort of god. Ironically, he doesn’t realize until he’s in prison that he had become BIGGER that T and that being SO BIG put him on the feds’ radar screen and that was his downfall. 81

4.  All Jeff’s life he’s been inculcated with the belief in the Homie or Gang Banger Code of Silence as if it were religious truth. But in prison he discovers the No-Snitch Code has no real value because a homie will rat you out when it’s to his advantage. See page 151.

5.  Jeff thought he was invincible but discovers a painful fact: The Feds had been watching him, not for several months, but for several years. He was digging his own grave for a long, long time. 87

6.  Why me? Jeff is not a victim but he cries to Jesus and feels sorry for himself. In a state of perdition, he his helpless, beholden to the caprices of prison life.

7.  He realizes a painful fact: Prison may have saved his life. One of the Twins, his supplier, got killed shortly after Jeff’s imprisonment. 89

8.  Too late in the game, he discovers another painful fact: Anyone can get convicted who doesn’t get caught with drugs or money. 94

9.  His perdition takes on palpable pain when he is given legal accountability for his crimes: 19.5 years. See page 100.

10.                Only after he’s arrested does he discover another painful fact: There is no loyalty in the streets. It’s a myth. See page 152 after his homies steal all his stuff after he’s arrested.

 

Two. What is Jeff’s attitude at the beginning of his prison sentence?

1.  Self-pity, victimization

2.  Nihilism 110

3.  Getting over, coast in life, do the minimum.

4.  Universe of One 113. On page 192, he says “in prison everything is about you.”

5.  No passion for marriage 114

6.  He fluctuates between complacency and despair.

 

Three. It’s only in prison that Jeff is forced to being the journey to redemption.

 

1.  He sees he’s been blind and willfully ignorant about the consequences of his selling drugs. 115

2.  He develops intellectual curiosity, reading eclectic material, various intellectual and religious doctrines. He doesn’t embrace one but rather picks and chooses as he sees fit. 124

3.  He becomes engaged with others vs. being disaffected. 124

4.  He finds a passion, cooking, that utilizes his talents.

5.  He learns the humility of starting at the bottom and not getting things “easy” like when he was a dealer.

6.  He learns a hard work ethic. It’s almost impossible to acclimate from easy money to hard work with low pay. But Jeff was always a hard worker.

7.  Jeff found a mentor in Big Roy and later in Las Vegas a cook named Friendly. And then Robert at the Gadsby’s.

8.  Jeff experiences contrition and regret on page 146: He is among the dregs of the world, exactly where he belongs, in the lowest rung of society: hell.

9.  You must have a vision of a different life. See page 147.

10.               He begins to take pride in his work. 147: Speed, taste, and presentation. 188

11.               He undoes his wrong by talking to teens in Vegas. 165

 

Three. When Jeff is able to redirect his energy from being a drug dealer to a chef, he finds redemption. All of us have a “life energy” that can be directed toward concupiscence, revenge, victimization or growth, maturity, and independence as is explained by Erich Fromm in this passage from Escape from Freedom:

 

It would seem that the amount of destructiveness to be found in individuals is proportionate to the amount to which expansiveness of life is curtailed. By this we do not refer to individual frustrations of this or that instinctive desire but to the thwarting of the whole life, the blockage of spontaneity of the growth and expression of man's sensuous, emotional, and intellectual capacities. Life has an inner dynamism of its own; it tends to grow, to be expressed, to be lived. It seems that if this tendency is thwarted the energy directed toward life undergoes a process of decomposition and changes into energies directed toward destruction. In other words: the drive for life and the drive for destruction are not mutually independent factors but are in a reversed interdependence. The more the drive toward life is thwarted, the stronger is the drive toward destruction; the more life is realized, the less is the strength of destructiveness. Destructiveness is the outcome of unlived life. Those individual and social conditions that make for suppression of life produce the passion for destruction that forms, so to speak, the reservoir from which the particular hostile tendencies--either against others or against oneself--are nourished.

 

In other words, Fromm is saying that we must flourish in a passion in order to direct our energy toward growth rather than re-direct that energy toward self-destruction such as concupiscent pursuits. 

Four. Journal Entry:

Write about someone you know who benefitted from perdition.