The purpose of a writing class is to develop a meaningful thesis, direct or implied, that will generate a compelling essay. Most importantly, a meaningful thesis will have a strong emotional connection between you and the material. In fact, if you don’t have a “fire in your belly” to write the paper, your essay will be nothing more than a limp document, a perfunctory exercise in futility. A successful thesis will also be intellectually challenging and afford a complexity worthy of college-level writing. Thirdly, the successful thesis will be demonstrable, which means it can be supported by examples and illustrations in a recognizable organizational design.
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1. Why do couples settle into a relationship based on lies and willed ignorance?
You can say people are blind or they choose to blind because it's easier to be deluded on a certain level. Of course, it's really not easier.
Blindness is easier than dealing with real frustration. Often people "fall in love," that is to say convince themselves they are in love, to distract themselves from the fact that there is no love in their life, which makes their situation worse.
It could be argued that Fanlin and his girlfriend Supriya are both saddled down by some rather heavy delusions as a result of their willed ignorance.
Fanlin believes putting all his effort into the relationship while expecting nothing in return will reap future dividends. In effect, he makes himself into a doormat and this results in Supriya having no respect for him or herself. How can she respect herself if she takes advantage of someone whom she doesn't love. Deep down, she knows she's living a lie.
Similarly, Fanlin knows he's living a lie, that someday his girlfriend will show reciprocity.
Blindness is a major theme in the story. Think of the musical score, The Blind Musician. Both Fanlin and Supriya are blind; therefore, they can never be free.
Or one can argue they are free to assert their free will to be blind.
Or one can argue their blindness is not chosen; it's an unconscious impulse. I tend to agree with both arguments. In other words, I don't see free will and determinism (being compelled to action by environmental and unconscious forces) as mutually exclusive. To me, that's an either/or fallacy. Our actions are a combination of free will and determinism.
The crux of the matter:
Fanlin is blinded by his own neediness, which compels him to commit to a vain narcissist who is not willing to offer him reciprocity. In spite of being in a relationship, Fanlin is lonely and bonds with a bird more than his own girlfriend.
Fanlin is afraid of the "A" word: alone, so he settles for a BS relationship. Deep down, he must know he's living a lie and therefore deep down he must exist under a dark cloud of guilt and shame for living a life of self-betrayal. He is going to have to die, figuratively of course, in order to be reborn--apart from the loveless Supriya.
Fanlin can't count on Supriya to make the necessary change. Supriya is too vain to acknowledge that she is using Fanlin as her lackey and sycophant to groom her career.
They're both using each other in an unhealthy way. Supriya uses Fanlin as a doormat and Fanlin uses Supriya as a false hope in order that he need not face his fear of Being Alone.
The Shillyshally Effect
In America, we would say that Supriya is shillyshallying or dillydallying or lollygagging until someone better comes along. She shows contempt for her boyfriend, which means she must have contempt for herself.
Perhaps I'm being pessimistic, but is Supriya really on the verge of a breakthrough in her acting career or is she, like most actors, doomed to a life of small bits here and there?
Perhaps her needy boyfriend is willing to massage her delusions and reinforce their symbiotic relationship so he doesn't have to confront "A."
2. The relationship between Fanlin and Bori casts light on Fanlin’s relationship with Supriya. Explain.
He realizes he has achieved in a few days more intimacy and closeness with a bird than his own girlfriend. That is the beginning of Fanlin's metacognition.
Fanlin's Chimera: The Grand Moments That Never Come
Life is what happens while you’re waiting for the grand moments that never come; closer to Bori; farther from Supriya. In other words, there is no real life with Supriya; it's just a dream, a life that will always come later. He's waiting for that life to come with Supriya, but it never will come. His real life is in the here and now and it's with Bori.
3. How is Supriya using Fanlin?
She is blind to the fact that she uses her boyfriend, that she doesn't love him and therefore doesn't love herself, and that she has a zero acting career. See 12 and 13. She won't marry him and settle down. She's dilly-dallying until someone better comes along?
4. What evidence is there that Fanlin and the bird are bonding?
(blister, travel companion, etc). Most importantly, see 23, the change in the second half of Fanlin’s music score, more depth, melancholy, beauty in the face of the death of his beloved bird.
Freedom is rare in Ha Jin's stories but when characters do become free, they do so because of the cultivation of the Third Eye which is evidenced by _______________, ______________, ________________, and __________________.
Argumentative Thesis
Eileen has made the right decision to breakup with Dave because Dave poses too many risks to Eileen and her daughter evidenced by ______, ________, __________, and _________.
Definition Thesis
What appear to be insurmountable obstacles in the characters' lives are really problems that can be solved if the characters free themselves from their learned helplessness, which is evidenced by __________, ___________, ____________, and ____________.
Claims of Worth Thesis
The most valuable lesson we learn from Ha Jin's stories is that metacognition is the number one facility that allows us to undergo a radical transformation, free ourselves of our mindless habits, and conquer the mental disease of learned helplessness.
Free Will and Determinism in Ha Jin's Stories
Definitions:
Free will is a humanistic belief, championed by Viktor Frankl among others, that we can, in spite of our circumstances, choose the attitude we have about our life and suffering; moreover, we can choose to be responsible and find meaning in a life of inevitable suffering. We are not bound by our biology and environment.
Determinism is the belief that we are hard-wired to act a certain way. This hard-wiring is influenced by the environment. Mental illness, compulsion, addiction, narcissism are all ailments that people do not choose; rather, these are afflictions, which affect behavior and contradict free will.
"The Beauty" : no free will; Dan is driven by jealousy. Dan becomes more and more odious and disgusting as the story progresses. He becomes a more intense version of his already lame self. He is what we call a centripetal character.
"Temporary Love": no free will; Lina is driven by a sense of guilt and duty; Panbin is overcome by curdled love that leads to bitterness and nihilism.
"A Composer and His Parakeets":
There is free will in a subtle way. Fanlin slowly lets go of his denial about Supriya's lack of love for him and undergoes the slow, arduous journey toward acceptance rendered in his melancholy musical composition.
Fanlin has grown as a person; thus we can say he is a centrifugal character.
"Choice": There is free will: Eileen cuts short her passionate affair with Dave because it's destroying her relationship with her daughter. Eileen ultimately asserts discipline and self-denial in the face of temptation for the sake of her daughter.
For your essay you must develop a thesis, perhaps an argument, about the topic of freedom as it pertains to Ha Jin's stories.
McMahon argues, in part, that freedom is an illusion. We are in fact motivated by things we cannot control such as fear, vanity, disgust, hunger for social status, the desire to be superior to others, greed, avoiding family shame and rejection, desire to please others, desire to conform to culture and/or family.
Now if you don't have the above motivations, what happens to you? You become lazy. You have no motivation.
McMahon has a problem. His list of motivations is only only bad motivations. Did McMahon have an agenda? Yes, McMahon was being dishonest. He was hiding good motivations in order to support an argument and to persuade you to "his side."
In reality, however, McMahon was tricking you, showing you how easily you can be manipulated and deceived.
What does McMahon really believe? Ninety-nine percent of us have no freedom. We are indeed driven by the above stated motivations.
However, if you look at history's heroes like Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, what you'll find is that success, meaning, courage, nobility, heroism can be found without being slaves to our lower passions. A few people are free and they always want to free the rest of us.
McMahon Grammar Exercise: Identifying Phrases, Independent Clauses, and Dependent Clauses
Identify the group of words in bold type as phrase, independent clause, or dependent clause.
One. Toward the monster’s palace, we see a white marble fountain jettisoning chocolate fudge all over the other giants.
Two. Before going to school, Gerard likes to make sure he’s packed his chocolate chip cookies and bagels.
Three. Because Jack’s love of eating pizza every night cannot be stopped, he finds his cardio workouts to be rather worthless.
Four. Maria finds the Lexus preferable to the BMW because of the Lexus’ lower repair costs.
Five. Greg does not drive at night because he suffers from poor nocturnal eyesight.
Six. Whenever Greg drives past HomeTown Buffet, he is overcome with depression and nausea.
Seven. People who eat at Cinnabon, according to Louis C.K., always look miserable over their poor life decisions.
Eight. After eating at Cinnabon and HomeTown Buffet, Gary has to eat a bottle of antacids.
Nine. Towards the end of the date, Gary decided to ask Maria if she’d care for another visit to HomeTown Buffet.
Ten. Whenever Maria is in the presence of a gluttonous gentleman, she withdraws into her shell.
Eleven. Greg watched Maria recoil into her shell while biting her nails.
Twelve. Greg watched Maria recoil into her private universe while she bit her nails.
Thirteen. Eating at all-you-can-eat buffets will expand the circumference of your waistline.
Fourteen. Larding your essay with grammatical errors will result in a low grade.
Fifteen. My favorite pastime is larding my essay with grammatical errors.
Sixteen. Larding my body with chocolate chunk peanut butter cookies followed by several gallons of milk, I wondered if I should skip dinner that evening.
Seventeen. After contemplating the benefits of going on a variation of the Paleo diet, I decided I was at peace being a fat man with a strong resemblance to the Pillsbury Dough Boy.
Eighteen. In the 1970s few people would consider eating bugs as their main source of protein although today world-wide food shortages have compelled a far greater percentage of the human race to entertain this unpleasant possibility.
Nineteen. Because of increased shortages in worldwide animal protein, more and more people are looking to crickets, grasshoppers, and grubs as possible complete protein amino acid alternatives.
Twenty. The percentage of people getting married in recent years has significantly declined as an economic malaise has deflated confidence in the viability of sustaining a long-term marriage.
Twenty-one. Before you decide to marry someone, consider two things: your temperament and your economic prospects.
Twenty-two. To understand the pitfalls of getting married prematurely is to embark on the road to greater wisdom.
Twenty-three. To know me is to love me.
Twenty-four. To languish in the malignant juices of self-pity after breaking up with your girlfriend is to fall down the rabbit hole of moral dissolution and narcissism.
Twenty-five. Having considered the inevitable disappointment of being rich, I decided not to rob a bank.
Twenty-six. Watching TV on a sticky vinyl sofa all day, I noticed I was developing bedsores.
Twenty-seven. While I watched TV for twenty consecutive hours, I began to wonder if life was passing me by.
Twenty-eight. Under the bridge where a swarm of mosquitos gathered, the giant belched.
Grammar and Spell Check: Find the 15 Errors in the Following Paragraph
Wanping and Ganchin, too of my favorite characters from “A Good Fall” short story collection our both being pimped by the Man. Wanping labors in the garment industry buy day and plays the role of neutered lackey for a brothel at night, similary, Ganchin is exploited by his salacious“pimp”; Master Zong, charlatan kung fu extraordinaire. Although, we feel sympathy for both characters; we are annoyed buy they’re passivity in the face of hostile forces. Including the Chinese mafia and Master Zong’s willingness two deny Ganchin payment for his services at the temple. It is not until Ganchin expels a customer from the prostitute’s brothel that we see some notable courage, likewise; it is not until Ganchin has a “good fall” and sues Master Zong that his life moves in a more desirable coarse.
Example of a Successful "Learned Helplessness Introduction" That Gets Your Attention and Transitions to Your Thesis
Have you ever been to a couple’s house with your wife, got an upset stomach from nerves or the gnawing sense that the meat they served you was undercooked or contaminated or both, had to suffer the great shame and anxiety of rushing to their bathroom several times, and then depleted their entire stock of Costco toilet paper? Worse than that, you later learned you clogged their toilet, found out they had to call a plumber at some late-night hour on a Sunday and that this plumber charged them triple the normal cost for snaking their pipes and they could barely pay the plumber. Their financial burden was so bad they ended up being two months late on their car and mortgage payments so that their credit rating plummeted.
What is really sad about all this is that they were just about to buy a second car, and guess what? Their late car and mortgage payments disqualified them for a low interest rate so they couldn't afford to buy that second car after all.
If you don't think this story is sufficiently pathetic already, then listen to this: This couple—who used to be good friends with my wife and me—blamed me for all their financial troubles and they no longer want to be my friend.
Things like this happen to me all the time. My friends list is dwindling. At this rate, losing about a friend a month, next October I’ll be completely friendless.
On a related note, Facebook has already deleted my account because the amount of people who unfriended me was far greater than the amount who had accepted me on their Facebook friends list. To make a long story short, I've been permanently banned from Facebook and no one at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto will talk to me. Believe me, I've called and emailed repeatedly.
If this condition of losing friends goes on much longer, say three years, I'll be in big trouble. My guess is that learned helplessness will sink in at which point I will become “unfriendable,” for now and all eternity.
Desperate to get my friends back, I recently called the couple whose plumbing I had single-handedly ruined and begged for their forgiveness, even offering to co-sign on their car loan (I have an excellent FICO score) so they could get a cheaper rate, but they didn't return my calls. After my initial offer with no response, I then sent them $100 gift cards for Target, iTunes, Amazon, Olive Garden, and Home Depot, but even after all that they still haven’t called me.
Unfriendable. I had better get used to the sound of it.
The above account is obviously of a man who's reached the end of his rope. He has descended to a point of learned helplessness, a condition in which he believes, contrary to reality, that he is helpless to improve his situation. We see a similar tale of woe in Ha Jin's short story collection A Good Fall in which free will is threatened by learned helplessness in many ways, not the least of which is ______________, __________________, ______________, and _________________.
Class Activity:
Write two paragraphs about you or someone you know who descended into the hellhole of learned helplessness (a situation where your repeated attempts at fixing a problem were either ineffective or actually made the problem worse until you resigned yourself to failure, learned helplessness, and self-pity).
Students complain to me that the subject is too broad. It's your responsibility to narrow the focus for a successful, college-level thesis. However, here is a strategy: Look for qualities in the characters that make freedom stronger.
Here are some qualities I see in the characters:
One. The Third Eye, also known as metacognition and self-awareneness, the kind that allows us to think about the way we think and about the way we behave.
Two. Self-control, being able to delay instant gratification of our passions so that we can think out a problem or analyze our behavior. As a result, we improve our position rather than surrender to self-destruction and compulsion.
Three. Humility, the kind that allows us to learn from our mistakes and become stronger and wiser.
Four. We focus on strategies for overcoming our problems rather than wallowing in the drama of anger and self-pity.
Not having freedom, we have the negation of the above qualities.
One. jealousy is a form of helplessness: a mental disease, a form of imprisonmnet, a form of madness turning into a demonic obsession in which the subject projects his own desires to commit heinous acts of infidelity on his partner. As his obsession grows, he becomes more and more controlling and suffocating until he reaches a yet even higher level of insanity in which he WANTS his partner to cheat on him in order to vindicate his delusions. He longs to shake his finger and say "I told you so! I knew it!" Jealousy is sometimes rooted in insecurity; in worse instances, jealousy is rooted in sociopathy, the evil condition of despising all people or being indifferent to others' suffering or both.
Two. Projection: Assuming others have your worst traits while remaining blind to those traits you have in yourself.
Three. Vindication: proving to others and yourself that you are right. The problem with wanting to be right all the time is that you forget more important things like reaching an understanding with others.
Four. Solipsism is a state of helplessness: extreme self-centeredness in which you look at others as either competitition to be destroyed or trophies to be displayed for your glory. Solipsism leeches away at empathy until there is none. The ultimate destination of solipsism is insanity. With solipsism there must be a degree of paranoia and delusions of grandeur.
Five. Seeing the trees but not the forest: You micromanage the small things and lose sight of the more important things (Lina)
Six. Obligation to conformity of the social order vs. obligation to one's true self (Lina)
Seven. Heartless reciprocity: Doing a good deed not out of love but to demand that the person you help be under obligation to return a favor, often bigger than the original good deed (Zuming)
Eight. Spleen love: The more you love someone, the greater degree that love can turn to hate (Panbin).
1. What evidence is there that Dan has been suffocating his wife Gina? Control, jealousy, mistrust, the sense that Gina is hiding something from him, which she is, but he has no idea. The problem is that the more he suffocates her, the more she wants to live in a parallel universe away from him as an escape thus reinforcing his suspicions. They are caught in this vicious cycle.
2. How does Dan’s jealous behavior actually encourage a closer friendship between his wife Gina and her friend Fooming Yu? Fooming Yu knows her secret and uses it to hold power over her, so Gina is being controlled by two men. Plus she's raising a child. This will lead to her insanity if nothing changes.
3. What evidence is there that Dan pursued Gina as a trophy object and not a human being? See pages 29 and 32. Dan sees Gina as a competition, not as a human being. His relationships are all compromised and poisoned by his egotism and solipsism (extreme self-centeredness).
4. How does his daughter Jasmine enflame Dan’s jealousy? See page 28. Baby doesn't look like either parent. So who's the father?
5. What is the irony of Dan’s visits to the bathhouse?
6. What is Dan specifically jealous about on page 29? Fooming knows more about Gina than does Dan. Perhaps Dan has little interest in Gina other than the way she makes her husband look good like an accessory.
7. How are Dan’s character flaws rendered on page 29? He has a Darwinian view of the world that makes his humanity ugly. Everyone is a competitor for status. Another flaw is that Dan suffers from projection; since he wants to cheat, he projects, that is, he assumes his wife wants to always cheat on him. The more jealous the husband, the more likely he is to cheat.
8. What is the real source of humiliation Dan suffers on page 31? He cannot control his wife.
9. What evidences a sense of resentment Dan harbors against his daughter Jasmine on page 35? He resents her for impeding his sleep "on purpose."
10. How is Dan seen as a man of abstractions, not reality, on page 36?
11. What is the essential insanity of jealousy? See page 37. Once you invest energy into believing that your spouse is cheating on you, you HAVE to believe it in order to justify and vindicate all your lost energy.
12. Unravel the mystery of Gina. 40-48
13. Is Dan’s curiosity and suspicion toward his wife vindicated on page 44?
14. How is Dan’s inhumanity revealed after he hears the truth? 45 "You gave me a raw deal! No wonder Jasmine is so homely."
15. What hypocrisy regarding self-deception does Dan reveal on page 45?
16. Explain the story’s ending, Dan’s reluctance to go home. He feels betrayed because he can no longer trust his wife who duped him.
17. While one crisis has been resolved regarding Gina’s identity, there is a deeper, unresolved crisis that doesn’t bode well for the marriage. Explain. (Dan’s character, overwrought by egotism, solipsism, superficiality, centripetal development, etc)
“Temporary Love” 175
1. What is the perplexing situation called a “wartime couple”? Cohabiting to reduce living expenses while spouses live in another country. In the case of the story, the two roommates fall in love.
2. What are Lina’s flaws? Naiveté and rigid adherence to loyalty code prevent her from seeing the big picture and the truth. Her loyalty to convention becomes her prison. Or is it a sign of good character? Both?
3. How do we know that Lina is in denial? Over what? 178 (mutual convenience)
4. What does it mean to be “responsible” on page 179? How could we have opposing definitions? Do we betray ourselves to be responsible to convention and tradition? Is this "responsbility" a form of imprisonment?
5. Contrast Lina’s life with Panbin and her life with Zuming. How is it the difference between heaven and hell? One man is a vampire. The other man shows the love of reciprocity.
6. What evidence is there that Zuming does not love his wife? He is not interested in love but control.
7. Zuming nursed Lina’s father after he had a stroke. Does this make Zuming seem like a loving person? Explain. 185
8. What does Lina discover after she accuses Panbin of telling Zuming about their affair? 187
9. One of the story’s sad points is that Panbin opened Lina’s eyes as to what kind of men there are in the world. Explain in the context of the ambitious Zuming.
10. Once you’ve tasted good love, can you leave it and settle on a compromised, degraded version of it? Explain.
11. Will Zuming leave Lina some day? Explain. 190
12. How does Panbin’s life illustrate “spleen love”? See 191-194. He becomes an “international womanizer,” a nihilist, a bitter misanthrope.
Consumer Addiction and Learned Helplessness in "The Bane of the Internet"
One. How Do You Defend Yourself Against Addiction When It Comes Upon You Gradually?
Slippery Slope:
The Internet begins as an insidious process of dissolution, wearing down the Third Eye bit by bit until slaves of the Internet have no free will, no freedom to act independently and rationally.
First we stop writing letters. We write degraded, abbreviated emails and settle into convenience. And then we whet our appetites or I should say we inflame our appetites on various consumer goods so well packaged on the Internet.
We click on images and images feed envy and envy feeds unrealistic expectations.
The most dangerous things that happen to us in life happen incrementally and insidiously, bit by bit, under the radar. When we lose our souls, it never happens in a grand, tumultuous moment. It always happens gradually.
There is a perhaps overused analogy of a frog comfortably waddling in a pot of room-temperature water. The water slowly heats up and painlessly the frog is dead. Such is internet addiction.
Two. Convenience Trap:
As we enjoy more and more conveniences, we develop a dependence on them resulting in the erosion of our tolerance for pain, hard work, patience, and putting for meaningful effort to maintain human relationships. Before we can understand what has happened to us, we have become emotional cripples.
Three. Paradox of the Internet:
The more "connected" we are with technology, the more disconnected we become because the modes of communication are superficial and these superficial modes replace meaningful ones.
Four. The Purpose of Advertising:
To create desires that would not otherwise exist. The internet is more than anything an arm of advertising. Advertisers know your psychology more than you do. They know it more than your therapist does. They are smarter than your therapists. Advertisers are the supreme psychologists of the world.
Those who know psychology go into advertising.
Those who want to know about psychology but never really understand it become therapists.
Five. Libido Ostentandi:
Latin for the need to show off, to be ostentatious as a way of finding validation, regognition, and for being flattered with the title of having "good taste."
Six. The Death of the Rational
The older sister says "be rational" but to no avail. The younger sister has no Third Eye. Therefore, she has no free will and is at the mercy of her irrational impulses. She is a slave to nonsense.
Consumerism is based on the irrational:
"Oh, what a feeling!" (Toyota)
"He's got gum!" (Wrigley's)
Make your boss Stouffers Stuffing and get a promotion
Seven. The dangers of consumer ostracism:
If I don't have X, people won't accept me into their tribe; if I don't have brand XY, people won't love me the way they should; if I don't have brand XYZ, I won't find fulfillment and as a result I won't be worthy of other people's love.
Eight. Older sister becomes a Cash Momma instead of a loved family member.
In fact, the older sister, living in America, becomes the object of scorn and envy and as such is not loved at all but despised.
Nine. The consumer addict becomes a cynical nihilist:
Selling organs probably a ploy but in any case the younger sister is making a Faustian Bargain, a deal with the devil.
Ten. Being a Consumer Is in Many Ways Being Stuck in Adolescence
Consumerism is a form of arrested emotional development. You're stuck in adolescence, which is defined by moments of grandiosity (inflated expectations of consumerism) followed by disappointment, self-pity, and self-hatred. These feelings of self-loathing compel you to seek more grandiosity (buy more crap) followed, once again, by self-pity and disappointment.
Getting trapped in this cycle is a form of learned helplessness.
When you buy a car, there are heightened emotions, adrenaline kick, hormone spike, for example (study at Duke showed men gain testosterone when sitting in a Porsche and LOSE tesosterone when sitting in a Camry. Where's the free will in that?) and then after the hormones settle, you descend into a Consumer Hangover.
And what is the remedy for a Consumer Hangover? More shopping! And what follows more shopping? Another Consumer Hangover.
Eleven: Consumerism Is About Finding Meaning, Idendity, and Belonging
When we look to consumerism to replace basic human needs such as meaning, identity, and belonging, we call this impoverishment through subsitution. The more we fill the void in our lives with fake albeit potent "meaning," for example, the more we crave real meaning and try to fill the void with more and more fake meaning.
Buying an iPad, a Mini Cooper, or a BMW grants us privileged enterance into a special club where we luxuriate with people who remind us of ourselves and our values.
Sample Thesis Statements That Are Too General Or Too Obvious
"The Bane of the Internet" is about imprisonment.
"The Bane of the Internet is about consumer addiction.
"The Bane of the Internet" is about a greedy woman who loses her soul to the devil.
"The Bane of the Internet is about an American from China who watches helplessly as her family in China become full of greed, envy, and spite.
"The Bane of the Internet" makes it clear that we should maintain meaningful communication with our family.
"The Bane of the Internet" shows it's important to have the Third Eye to ward off greed and addiction.
"The Bane of the Internet" is an excellent story about how self-destructive consumer addiction can be.
Better Thesis:
"The Bane of the Internet" is example of the type of story in Ha Jin's collection in which the absence of the Third Eye results in the loss of freedom evidenced by __________, __________, __________, ___________, and _______________.
How to Use the Third Eye to Escape the Learned Helplessness of Consumerism
Introduction About Learned Helplessness
The Curse of Tatiana Minero
The incident that sealed my deeply entrenched bitterness and my brooding disposition forever, an event that at the time seemed relatively harmless, happened to me over thirty years ago. I was sixteen, a bodybuilder of svelte proportions, tanned and endowed with long brown locks, luscious thick eyebrows, and piercing beady brown eyes. I had showy squared-off cheekbones and a strong commander-like jaw that allowed me to exude a certain swarthy appeal. But beneath my supercilious, self-assured pose resided your typical teenage male, a social nincompoop, self-conscious, awkward, prone to excessive sweating. I was, like many young men my age, tongue-tied around women, having devoted all my time and effort to honing the perfect body but spending zilch on attaining even a modicum of a personality. A pity I didn’t have the insight to see that such a condition would lead to a life-long curse, a searing affliction that men suffer when they are compelled to look back on a lost opportunity and then are left to wonder what could have happened if only they hadn’t fumbled the ball.
We all fumble. We all make mistakes. But we all learn from our errors and go on with our lives. Right? Wrong. Dead wrong. Take it from me, a middle-aged, rancorous man, heavy-hearted, emotionally-arrested, a slave to the past, a helpless victim to a memory that, against my will, plays over and over in my mind and keeps its freshness and vitality even as I wither away.
The incident happened in the dead of summer. Scheduled to enter Mr. Teenage Golden State in a couple of weeks, I was tanning myself at Cull Canyon Lake, when I noticed an olive-skinned girl had thrown down her towel close to me and plopped herself down on the sand. This was no ordinary girl. This was a sixteen-year-old goddess, the fabled Tatiana Minero. Her body slathered in a deliquescing, zero-sun protection tropical banana-coconut tanning oil, she was soon stretched out in the supine position, revealing her smooth, willowy body in a tiny green chambray bikini, the material so scanty that both top and bottom could easily fit inside a robin’s egg. Her straight, dark, silken brown hair flowed down the length of her sleek, reticulated back. Her diminutive ankles were adorned with little shimmering bracelets of tiny silver, almond-shaped bells that jingled when she walked, emitting a sort of siren’s call so that every time she stood up to walk toward the drinking fountains, all of the men, overcome with a sort of smoldering, glandular itch, abruptly stopped what they were doing to observe what was no doubt the most cataclysmic event of the day, the witnessing of Tatiana Minero strolling slowly toward the drinking fountains to take a sip of water. To see Tatiana Minero get up from her towel, stroll toward the fountains, wet her parched mouth, and return to her spot on the sand was to be keenly aware of a palpable change in the atmosphere. Male hormonal levels, tensions, and anxieties immediately began to rise and seethe as all men’s eyes were glued to Tatiana’s trajectory to and from the drinking fountains. It was as if her mere act of walking was a rare phenomenon, one of the great wonders and mysteries of the world, so that all the men at Cull Canyon Lake, not wanting to miss a second of this breathtaking spectacle, became completely fixated and motionless in a sort of bizarre time warp whereby Planet Earth seemed to have, in deference to Tatiana, stopped rotating. I can still see the men frozen between the apex of their leap off the diving board and the water below them, I can still see them stuck in mid-air as they lunge for a Frisbee or a football, I can still see them unable to clamp their teeth down on the mouth-watering poor boy sandwich they were eager to bite into just a moment before Tatiana Minero stood up and, like the Priestess of Planetary Rotation, halted the Earth’s revolution around the Sun. All of the men at the lake, their conversations and antics interrupted, their lives put on hold, their very thoughts jammed, were noticeably agape, their eyes burning with torment and insanity, as they beheld this sylphlike teenage girl walk ever so slowly toward the drinking fountains.
To add to our misery, occasional breezes wafted Tatiana’s sweet-smelling tanning oil into our direction, affording us a redolent reminder of her presence so that, like dogs in some cruel Pavlovian experiment, we shuddered with violent paroxysms as we inhaled her potent, ambrosial cocktail.
But the torment didn’t stop there. As if Tatiana wasn’t already unbearably irresistible, she also enjoyed the cachet and supernatural aura of belonging to a prized progeny of sisters, aunts, and cousins, who, known simply as The Minero Sisters, were legendary throughout the San Francisco East Bay for their beauty, the kind that aroused such passion that men squandered entire fortunes, warred and conspired against each other, and plotted diabolical schemes into the deep of the night for the privilege of being one of their suitors.
As I tried to relax on my pale orange Charlie Brown bedspread, I had heard some guys nearby whispering to each other, with the kind of excitement and conspiratorial glee reserved for surprise movie star appearances, about how this gorgeous girl lying on the sand next to me was one of the Minero Sisters. To merely utter the words “Minero Sisters” elicited an immediate smile and understanding and sometimes caused the hairs behind a man’s neck to bristle, for the words had the same kind of power and brand recognition as the words BMW, Mercedes Benz and Lexus.
Some guy from my school had introduced me to Tatiana as she was lying on her beach towel just a few feet away from me. To my surprise, upon meeting me, her ears perked up and her dark saucer eyes seemed to greedily soak in her view of me as she sat upright, supported by her long, slender arms, their sleek shape and cocoa butter tan highlighted by gold arm bracelets coiled around her delicate wrists like writhing snakes. With a coquettish giggle, she outstretched her legs in front of her while her high-arched feet circled playfully, causing her ankle bells to jingle. Then turning her head toward me in a way that caused her long dark brown hair to whip around her body like a matador’s cape, she stared at me, asked me who I was and why she had never seen me before. The tone of her voice was downright imperious. She sounded like a mildly irritated queen who would have her informants beheaded for having failed to apprise her of my very existence. “How come I’ve never seen you before?” she asked again. I told her I attended Castro Valley High. No wonder, she said, she had never seen me; she was a student at Hayward High School. Then out of the blue, she asked me a question that caught me completely off guard:
“Are you a good kisser? Cause with a body like that, boy, it would be a real shame if you weren’t a good kisser.”
In shock, dumbed by her beauty, and paralyzed by such a brazen proposal, my bowels loosened, and I found myself unable to speak. I tried and tried with all my will to say something in response to her audacious remark but my lips were pressed shut. I would have been happy merely spitting out some incoherent gibberish, but my brain synapses were apparently short-circuited rendering my jaw locked and I was revealed for who I truly was, a helpless mute, a dumbfounded ninny, an inexperienced awkward-handed Billy goat, unworthy of holding court with the great Tatiana Minero.
My failure to respond to her scintillating offer seemed to tell her all she needed to know about me, which was, of course, that for all my tanned, sculpted muscles, I was in fact not a good kisser, not just in the literal sense of not being able to kiss, that is, the mechanical act of caressing her lips with my own, but in the fuller, broader, more devastating sense of not having the confidence, the moxie, and the élan, to express passion toward her. Her question about my kissing was in a way an ingenious work of espionage; she had sent a reconnaissance team, a sort of Geek Patrol, into my psyche to see just what I was made of and found, rather quickly, that I was indeed a geek, so that, armed with this information, she insouciantly turned around and did not speak to me again.
Ever.
It was not just that she did not speak to me, but, on a more traumatic scale, that she actually seemed to recede from my universe, fade, and disappear, forever out of my grasp so that now, over thirty years later, I still reconstruct the event and imagine how rapturous it would have been had I had it within me to respond to her question with something charming, assured, and sophisticated, something that would let her know that I was indeed the great kisser she had been looking for.
Please don’t get me wrong. It’s not like my whole life has succumbed to this one incident. I’ve moved on as best I could. I went to college, got a decent-paying job, and married a beautiful Mediterranean woman. She is a splendor to behold, voluptuous, large-lipped, blessed with long curly brown hair. Quite frankly, the best way to imagine my wife is to think of Anita Ekberg in Federico Fellini’s famous fountain scene in La Dolce Vita. Yes, my wife does possess what many might call that larger-than-life kind of beauty, the kind that is so powerful and delectable that I enjoy, in the public arena, the assurance and satisfaction that other men will seethe with envy and admiration whenever they see me with her.
But you see, not all is well. My wife is often awakened at night by my crying out Tatiana’s name. Yes, I still dream of her. Imagine it. Tatiana, a girl I never even touched, being the cause of my greatest infidelity! It brings me so much anguish to still be under her spell more than thirty years later. She is such a haunting presence in our home, such an unwelcome apparition. Sometimes my wife, after hearing me speak of Tatiana in my sleep, must leave the bed and weep downstairs. I no longer try to comfort her, for I’ve learned that in these moments she is inconsolable and that my words, no matter how kind and sincere, only torment her all the more.
I rarely sleep at night myself because I fear I may see Tatiana again. Sometimes she laughs. Sometimes she says she still wants me. Sometimes she cries because, she says, I have betrayed her. Sometimes she does not even appear beautiful but looks decrepit, hollow, and reptilian. I know she is not the same girl who spoke to me at the lake over thirty years ago. She is something else entirely, a demon, a succubus, an unclean spirit that slowly rots my soul, eats away at my marriage, and shows me no mercy.
I fear that if this goes on my wife will leave me. She hasn’t said so explicitly but I know she is considering it. Who could blame her? Married to a man whose heart still clings to something that is not even real. A man who cannot and will not let go of the past. A man who feels entitled to nurse his grievances, to make them more important than anything else in the world. This, you see, is the very curse I’ve been talking about—the stubborn refusal to let go, the unrelenting determination to make the lost opportunity more significant than it really was.
Downstairs I hear my wife crying. I know it’s my fault, for I’ve been dreaming of Tatiana again, uttering her name like a whimpering dog. Yes, I am pathetic, repulsive even. But equally repulsive is my wife whose loud, peasant-like sobs and that hideous drink she’s been taking lately—a vermillion green chalky substance that her doctor promises will assuage her chronic dyspepsia.
I cannot contemplate my wife’s gaseous condition without flaring my nostrils in disgust, after which I feel compelled to imagine my lovely Tatiana, so full of grace, sophistication, and splendor. She would never suffer such an unwomanly affliction that would require the consumption of a bitter-tasting noxious beverage. Nor would she ever cry like that. No indeed. Tatiana, you can be sure, would weep in silence and her tears, running down her velvety cheeks, would only enhance her already sublime beauty, the kind for which an idiot like myself would throw away his entire life.
Example of an Introduction about the Learned Helplessness of Consumer Addiction, Transition, and Thesis
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 contours. Marriages and other dynamic relationships were born from these designer jean parties where matches were made in denim heaven.
Of course, ordinary people lacked the imagination and refined sensibility to seek out and wear the designer jeans I am speaking of. Rather, only a rare breed, a self-described cognoscenti, coveted these elite jeans. We were people who were plugged-in 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. We had unique access to special underground warehouses in the garment district where we could buy jeans as rare and mysterious as the Dead Sea Scrolls. These were mysterious locations so secret we had to be blindfolded and escorted down several spiral stairs to a dank basement where an old lady with moth-ball breath would rudely shove the pair of designer jeans into our hands after we gave her a wad of cash. We weren’t even allowed to try the jeans on, but because their very elusiveness gave them unusually high cachet among the designer jean community, we took the chance that they’d be a perfect fit and usually we were right and found that these underground designer jeans afforded us glories that no other jean could give us.
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 that was redolent of cow dung. Nor could I do anything to stop the rashes, ingrown hairs, boils, and bacterial infections rendered from wearing filthy jeans for six months without changing them.
The skin infections combined with the over-tight jeans sometimes strangulated the femoral artery and caused gangrene and some of us had to have our legs amputated.
You would think having our legs cut off would finally remedy our jean obsession, but you're wrong. These amputees simply bought prosthetic legs so they could adorn them with even tighter jeans than ever. In a perverse way, the prosethetic thighs and calves afforded them an opportunity to elevate their jean obsession to even greater heights. In fact, a whole specialized jean industry was developed to target those who hobbled on their new prosthetic limbs.
Imagine intoxicating yourself with the delights of adorning your plastic legs with jeans while forgetting to lament the loss of your natural limbs?
What a woeful race we were, slaves to our consumer addiction.
Indeed, the above account shows that consumer addiction is a disease that is accompanied by learned helplessness. Likewise, this same helplessness is chronicled in "The Bane of the Internet," which shows, like members of the jean cult, the key factors of consumer addiction, including _____________, _______________, ______________, and _________________.
In Class Activity:
Develop a thesis that compares three to four stories.
In a 5-page essay, contrast helplessness and its resulting recurring cycle of futility with the Third Eye and its resulting effective action in at least 2 of the stories. Use personal interviews to give further depth to your contrast of helplessness and the Third Eye. Your sixth page, your Works Cited page, should have my blog, the book, and your personal interview.
Suggested Structure
Paragraph 1: Define learned helplessness and Third Eye
Paragraph 2: Give examples of both from your own experience, personal interview, movie, book, story, etc.
Paragraph 3: Transition to a thesis about learned helplessness and Third Eye as they pertain to Ha Jin's stories.
Paragraphs 4-6: Body paragraphs devoted to learned helplessness (block form)
Paragraphs 7-9: Body paragraphs devoted to Third Eye
Paragraph 10: Conclusion
Sample 2-Part Thesis Template for Essay Assignment
The darkest stories in Ha Jin's collection render characters crippled by learned helplessness evidenced by ___________, ___________, _____________, and _________________. In contrast, those characters who experience freedom possess The Third Eye evidenced by ___________, ____________, ______________, ______________, and _________________.
The darkest stories in Ha Jin's collection, including ____________, ________________, and ________________ render characters imprisoned by learned helplessness evidenced by _________________, _______________, and _________________. In contrast, the more optimistic stories, including ______________and _____________, show characters who enjoy signficant freedom as a result of The Third Eye evidenced by ____________, ______________, and _________________
"In the Crossfire," the book's most optimistic story
Tian Is the Hero with the Third Eye
One.
We're all in a freedom quest of some sort:
We want to be free from
emotional eating
envy
low confidence
debt
emotional, compulsive spending (related to debt often)
gambling addiction
family acrimony
a bullying boss
short temper evidenced in many ways not the least of which is road rage
procrastination
smartphone addiction
still thinking about your girlfriend or boyfriend ten years after the breakup
Facebook addiction
If we walk the first two steps on our own, it is commonly said, an outer strength will walk two steps toward us and meet us in the middle. But the point is we have to initiate our own change.
Study Questions for "In the Crossfire"
What is Tian Chu’s freedom quest?
To escape the infantile imbecilities of his mother, a wet blanket, a pernicious force on him and his wife Connie while at the same time he must save his mother's dignity. This is a tight-rope act.
His mother can be a malicious force who would add tofu and soy to dishes even though she knows Connie has allergies to these foods. American culture gives Tian's wife a freedom that his mother cannot understand.
But let's be clear: Tian must also be free from the kind of retaliation that might sever him from his mother.
You never free yourself from a relative. Like herpes, some problems stick with us forever. All we can do is DEFUSE the situation. There is no "closure."
Two. The mother has become a “monkey on the back,” a burden that seems to never go away. To have a “monkey on the back” is a form of imprisonment.
Part of this burden rests on the cultural differences between the mother and son. The mother does not approve of the wife having this much freedom. The son knows the mother means well: She is protective of her son's interests. She is passing on her cultural imperatives to him.
Three. However good her intentions, Tian's mother castrates her son through a thousand cuts, most of the cuts centered on Connie: “What’s the use of being six feet tall if you can’t put Connie in her place?” Even here, the son's Third Eye sees the mother's good intentions. But sadly good intentions often pave a pathway to hell.
Four. The mother's presence is toxic. She is a petulant malcontent, always bickering and complaining in order to put down her son. She’s full of insults. While the son indulges his mother, he knows his mother's malcontented words are a cancer on his marriage.
Five. Mother is over protective, believing that Connie is using her husband while working on her degree, denying him children, not cooking for him, and making him do her laundry. Again, the mother means well for her son.
Six. Mother is a master of manipulation always tugging on her son’s heartstrings of guilt. “If you don’t do as I say, you are proving that you want to disown me.” Mother's love for her son is contaminated by a desire for too much control.
Seven. Tian's Third Eye: For all his mother's faults, the son sees some good in his mother: She befriends a poor mother, Shulan, whose husband has abandoned her and child for another woman.
Eight. What frees Tian from his mother?
The Third Eye in the way of keeping distant and exerising his cunning strategy. He asks his boss to terminate him, so he can look for a new job.
He has to be clever to both his wife and mother in order to preserve their self-respect and honor. He lies to his wife and says he was fired. But Connie knows her husband is using a hustle and she becomes part of the trick or hustle. The couple’s fake poverty terrifies the mother into leaving and she even reveals that Tian’s sister wanted the Mother to pressure her son to financially help the sister’s son go to college.
Tian also lies to his mother, saying the fighting between her and Connie stressed him out, compromised his job performance and led to his losing his job.
Nine. The mother knows what's going on, so she implicitly blackmails her son to give her money so she can return to her home without shame. She must save face and her son must save her face.
Ten. For Tian, freedom can only be created if he manufactures a false persona for his parents, especially his mother.
Eleven. Saving Face: both Tian and his mother are playing a game or dancing a dance. "He knows she knows he knows she knows he knows . . ." But even though she knows her son has played a trick, she knows the trick allows her to save face, so she plays the game with him.
The Third Eye As It Is Evident in Tian, Eileen from "Choice," Fanlin from "A Composer and His Parakeets," and Ganchin from "A Good Fall."
1. The Third Eye removes you from the trees and allows you to see the forest: You get sucked up into a drama of excruciating pain but have meta-cognition: the ability to distance yourself from the pot of boiling water (from which your limbs flail) and make a detached plan of effective action: get out of a misguided relationship; gingerly tiptoe around your bellicose mother by being more clever than she is.
2. The Third Eye emphasizes the bigger, long-term picture over the short-term, narrow confines of obsession and emotional upheaval. As a result, it allows you to act cool in a heated situation where you might engage in hostility with someone else and make the problem worse.
3. The Third Eye is about valuing the cool intellect over tumultuous passions. As such, the Third Eye often tells you to avoid compulsive action but wait for more information or at the very least wait until your passions cool so that your action is done in a condition of lucidity. See the book Wait by Frank Partnoy.
4. The Third Eye is the adult that exercises discipline and calm over selfish desires because in part the Third Eye has realistic expectations about life and can enduring suffering without self-pity. I'm thinking of Eileen here. In other words, as one student said, The Third Eye allows for self-sacrifice.
5. The Third Eye is the moral conscience that recognizes your vulnerability to misguided passions and self-betrayal. It sets you free from a situation from which you have been "banging your head against a wall" repeatedly. The Third Eye tells you that you must free yourself from this condition of futility. I'm thinking of Fanlin as he recognizes his bogus relationship.
6. The Third Eye allows you to see a conflict in terms of gray rather than black and white. For example, Tian does not see his mother as evil even though she is a pernicious force against him and especially Connie. He sees the good in her, helping abandoned women for example, and his ability to comprehend his mother as a complex tangle of contradictions prevents him from demonizing and dehumanizing her so that he can salvage something from his mother-son relationship.
7. In desperate cases, the Third Eye doesn't become apparent until there has been a "good fall," a hitting of rock bottom in which you no longer have nothing to lose and in this state you're better to evaluate all the delusions that have shackled you to your unnecessary imprisonment.
Example of an Introduction about the Third Eye, a Transition, and a Thesis
A student who took my freshman composition class last semester showed up to my over-crowded Critical Thinking class six weeks ago and begged me to add him. I did as he wished. How did he repay me? Last week during lecture and class discussion, I saw him, in a flagrant disregard for my lecture, doing his chemistry homework.
My first impulse was to toss his chemistry book across the room and scream a spittle-fueled tirade at him. But my Third Eye kicked in and told me to cool it. I could admonish the back-stabber, my Third Eye told me, but only with cold, calculated, controlled rage.
I walked over to the offender, picked up the chemisty book, and scrutinized the text, squinting my eyes with sarcastic intensity, before I said the following:
"When you do your homework, it's a sign of disrespect to me and the other students. And when you disrespect us, you lower morale. And when you lower morale, you degrade my ability to teach. And when you degrade my ability to teach, you threaten my livelihood. And when you threaten my livelihood, you compromise my ability to feed my children. Is that what you're trying to do here!"
He shook his head emphatically, upon which I said, "Thank you. You're very kind, sir." That's the last I've seen of his chemistry book, or smart phone for that matter.
Fortunately for me, my Third Eye asserted itself before I lost my temper and embarrassed myself by having a hissy fit in front of my students. Perhaps this Third Eye is our only link to free will.
We see such a link between the Third Eye and free will in some of the more mentally healthy characters in Ha Jin's A Good Fall. Their Third Eye manifests in many ways, not the least of which is ___________________, ______________, ______________, and __________________.
Personal Interview:
If you don't have your own story for your introduction, you may have to conduct a personal interview with someone who has the Third Eye.
This link for MLA Works Cited Format shows that citing a personal interview is rather simple. Last name, first name, title (if any, or you can just put "friend," "co-worker," whatever pertains), Personal Interview, date.
Example:
Wheeler, Harriet, co-worker. Personal Interview. 6 July 2010.
Review Thesis Example:
In Ha Jin's story collection A Good Fall some of the stories show characters breaking free from their imprisonment as a result of their Third Eye. As the stories show, many characters are trapped by learned helplessness evidenced by __________, _________, ___________, and __________ while others exercise the freedom of their Third Eye evidenced by________, __________, _________,and _______________.
If Your Emphasis Is on Learned Helplessness, Your Intro Might Focus on a Narrative About Someone Sinking in That Manner:
Have you ever been to a couple’s house with your wife, got an upset stomach from nerves or the gnawing sense that the meat they served you was undercooked or contaminated or both, had to suffer the great shame and anxiety of rushing to their bathroom several times, and then depleted their entire stock of Costco toilet paper? Worse than that, you later learned you clogged their toilet, found out they had to call a plumber at some late-night hour on a Sunday and that this plumber charged them triple the normal cost for snaking their pipes and they could barely pay the plumber. Their financial burden was so bad they ended up being two months late on their car and mortgage payments so that their credit rating plummeted.
What is really sad about all this is that they were just about to buy a second car, and guess what? Their late car and mortgage payments disqualified them for a low interest rate so they couldn't afford to buy that second car after all.
If you don't think this story is sufficiently pathetic already, then listen to this: This couple—who used to be good friends with my wife and me—blamed me for all their financial troubles and they no longer want to be my friend.
Things like this happen to me all the time. My friends list is dwindling. At this rate, losing about a friend a month, next October I’ll be completely friendless.
On a related note, Facebook has already deleted my account because the amount of people who unfriended me was far greater than the amount who had accepted me on their Facebook friends list. To make a long story short, I've been permanently banned from Facebook and no one at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto will talk to me. Believe me, I've called and emailed repeatedly.
If this condition of losing friends goes on much longer, say three years, I'll be in big trouble. My guess is that learned helplessness will sink in at which point I will become “unfriendable,” for now and all eternity.
Desperate to get my friends back, I recently called the couple whose plumbing I had single-handedly ruined and begged for their forgiveness, even offering to co-sign on their car loan (I have an excellent FICO score) so they could get a cheaper rate, but they didn't return my calls. After my initial offer with no response, I then sent them $100 gift cards for Target, iTunes, Amazon, Olive Garden, and Home Depot, but even after all that they still haven’t called me.
Unfriendable. I had better get used to the sound of it.
The above account is obviously of a man who's reached the end of his rope. He has descended to a point of learned helplessness, a condition in which he believes, contrary to reality, that he is helpless to improve his situation. We see a similar tale of woe in Ha Jin's short story collection A Good Fall in which free will is threatened by learned helplessness in many ways, not the least of which is ______________, __________________, ______________, and _________________.
Consumer Addiction and Learned Helplessness in "The Bane of the Internet"
One. How Do You Defend Yourself Against Addiction When It Comes Upon You Gradually?
Slippery Slope:
The Internet begins as an insidious process of dissolution, wearing down the Third Eye bit by bit until slaves of the Internet have no free will, no freedom to act independently and rationally.
First we stop writing letters. We write degraded, abbreviated emails and settle into convenience. And then we whet our appetites or I should say we inflame our appetites on various consumer goods so well packaged on the Internet.
We click on images and images feed envy and envy feeds unrealistic expectations.
The most dangerous things that happen to us in life happen incrementally and insidiously, bit by bit, under the radar. When we lose our souls, it never happens in a grand, tumultuous moment. It always happens gradually.
There is a perhaps overused analogy of a frog comfortably waddling in a pot of room-temperature water. The water slowly heats up and painlessly the frog is dead. Such is internet addiction.
Two. Convenience Trap:
As we enjoy more and more conveniences, we develop a dependence on them resulting in the erosion of our tolerance for pain, hard work, patience, and putting for meaningful effort to maintain human relationships. Before we can understand what has happened to us, we have become emotional cripples.
Three. Paradox of the Internet:
The more "connected" we are with technology, the more disconnected we become because the modes of communication are superficial and these superficial modes replace meaningful ones.
Four. The Purpose of Advertising: To Make Us Helpless
To create desires that would not otherwise exist. The internet is more than anything an arm of advertising. Advertisers know your psychology more than you do. They know it more than your therapist does. They are smarter than your therapists. Advertisers are the supreme psychologists of the world.
Those who know psychology go into advertising.
Those who want to know about psychology but never really understand it become therapists.
Five. Libido Ostentandi:
Latin for the need to show off, to be ostentatious as a way of finding validation, regognition, and for being flattered with the title of having "good taste."
Six. The Death of the Rational
The older sister says "be rational" but to no avail. The younger sister has no Third Eye. Therefore, she has no free will and is at the mercy of her irrational impulses. She is a slave to nonsense.
Consumerism is based on the irrational:
"Oh, what a feeling!" (Toyota)
"He's got gum!" (Wrigley's)
Make your boss Stouffers Stuffing and get a promotion
Seven. The dangers of consumer ostracism:
If I don't have X, people won't accept me into their tribe; if I don't have brand XY, people won't love me the way they should; if I don't have brand XYZ, I won't find fulfillment and as a result I won't be worthy of other people's love.
Eight. Older sister becomes a Cash Momma instead of a loved family member.
In fact, the older sister, living in America, becomes the object of scorn and envy and as such is not loved at all but despised.
Nine. The consumer addict becomes a cynical nihilist:
Selling organs probably a ploy but in any case the younger sister is making a Faustian Bargain, a deal with the devil.
Ten. Being a Consumer Is in Many Ways Being Stuck in Adolescence
Consumerism is a form of arrested emotional development. You're stuck in adolescence, which is defined by moments of grandiosity (inflated expectations of consumerism) followed by disappointment, self-pity, and self-hatred. These feelings of self-loathing compel you to seek more grandiosity (buy more crap) followed, once again, by self-pity and disappointment.
Getting trapped in this cycle is a form of learned helplessness.
When you buy a car, there are heightened emotions, adrenaline kick, hormone spike, for example (study at Duke showed men gain testosterone when sitting in a Porsche and LOSE tesosterone when sitting in a Camry. Where's the free will in that?) and then after the hormones settle, you descend into a Consumer Hangover.
And what is the remedy for a Consumer Hangover? More shopping! And what follows more shopping? Another Consumer Hangover.
Eleven: Consumerism Is About Finding Meaning, Idendity, and Belonging
When we look to consumerism to replace basic human needs such as meaning, identity, and belonging, we call this impoverishment through subsitution. The more we fill the void in our lives with fake albeit potent "meaning," for example, the more we crave real meaning and try to fill the void with more and more fake meaning.
Buying an iPad, a Mini Cooper, or a BMW grants us privileged enterance into a special club where we luxuriate with people who remind us of ourselves and our values.
Sample Thesis Statements That Are Too General Or Too Obvious
"The Bane of the Internet" is about imprisonment.
"The Bane of the Internet is about consumer addiction.
"The Bane of the Internet" is about a greedy woman who loses her soul to the devil.
"The Bane of the Internet is about an American from China who watches helplessly as her family in China become full of greed, envy, and spite.
"The Bane of the Internet" makes it clear that we should maintain meaningful communication with our family.
"The Bane of the Internet" shows it's important to have the Third Eye to ward off greed and addiction.
"The Bane of the Internet" is an excellent story about how self-destructive consumer addiction can be.
Better Thesis:
"The Bane of the Internet" is example of the type of story in Ha Jin's collection in which the absence of the Third Eye results in the loss of freedom evidenced by __________, __________, __________, ___________, and _______________.
How to Use the Third Eye to Escape the Learned Helplessness of Consumerism
Adam Baker's Third Eye
1. He finds clarity; he steps back from his materialism and analyzes it.
2. He realizes his apartment upgrades are a result of a lack of financial clarity and feels compelled to tell his wife.
3. He realizes he didn't choose his script; the script chose him.
4. He analyzed the script that was ruining his life: get an education, go into debt pursuing college and have the privilege of going into more debt with materialism.
5. He created a clean slate and wrote a new script.
6. To wipe the slate clean, he and his wife had to look in the mirror and examine an ugly reflection: hoarding, storage, addiction, and the myth of acquiring things as a means to getting security, happiness, and identity.
McMahon Grammar Lesson: Semicolons and Colons (based on Diana Hacker’s Rules for Writers)
Use a semicolon between closely related independent clauses not joined with a coordinating conjunction. The second sentence feels like a continuation of the first one in terms of thought process.
H.L. Mencken writes, “Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.”
I don’t mind cold pie; what I mind is stale pie.
When I was in college in the late 1970s and early 1980s, tuition was about $80 a quarter at Cal State; today Cal State charges about 5K a quarter. Do the math; it’s not pretty.
My second favorite athlete of all time is Michael Jordan; my first ever is Bo Jackson.
Michael Jordan was Icarus, flying to the sun; Bo Jackson was Hercules, toppling over colossal defensive players.
Use semicolons between independent clauses linked with transitional expressions. These transitional expressions are called conjunctive adverbs. Here’s a partial list:
After all, as a matter of fact, as a result, for example, in fact, in other words, on the contrary
Bo Jackson was a man of natural Herculean strength; in fact, he never worked out with weights.
Michael Jordan could fly to the sun with grace; however, if he had to, he could bull his way to the basket.
Michael Jordan could fly to the sun with grace; if he had to, however, he could bull his way to the basket.
HomeTown Buffet is based on feeding, not eating, food; consequently, its patrons often suffer from metabolic syndrome, diabetes 2, dyspepsia, and crapulence.
There is one situation in which we use a semicolon that is not between two independent clauses. We use a semicolon between items in a series containing internal punctuation.
Some of the NBA’s greatest teams are the Chicago Bulls, headed by Michael Jordan; the Los Angeles Lakers, headed by Magic Johnson; and the Boston Celtics, headed by Larry Bird.
Classic science fiction sagas are Star Trek, with Mr. Spock; Battlestar Galactica, with Cylon Raiders; and Star Wars, with Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, and Darth Vader.
The colon
The colon is used to call attention to the words that follow it.
Use a colon after an independent clause to direct attention to a list, an appositive, or a quotation.
List
My kettlebell workout has six exercises in one cycle: swings, upright rows, push-ups, rows, gluteus leg kicks, and leg raises.
Appositive
My roommate is guilty of two of the seven deadly sins: gluttony and sloth.
Quotation
Consider the words of Jeff McMahon: “Having a chimera will kill you; not having a chimera will kill you.”
Use a colon between independent clauses if the second summarizes or explains the first.
Faith is like love: It cannot be forced.
Do not use a colon after a verb.
Some important vitamins in vegetables are: vitamin A, thiamine, niacin, and vitamin C.
Grammar Lesson: The Apostrophe with the Possessive Case (adapted from Diana Hacker)
Use an apostrophe to indicate that a noun is possessive.
Jeff’s recipes are available online.
You can convert into a prepositional phrase: The recipes of Jeff are available online.
When to add an apostrophe and an s
If the noun does not end is s already.
Please get in on the driver’s side.
I need to borrow some of my wife’s cash.
When to add only an apostrophe
If the noun is plural and ends in an s
Both diplomats’ laptops were recovered by security.
Joint possession
Use the apostrophe on the last noun only.
Jeff and Julia’s car is still in the shop.
To show individual possession, make all the nouns possessive.
Jeff’s and Ron’s BMWs are still in the shop.
Possessive with compound noun
My father-in-law’s watch needs a new battery.
With personal pronouns already ending in s
James’ pants are too wrinkled.
Jesus’ disciples chafed against those who did not believe their words.
Options with the mysterious bus
The bus’ engine is overheating.
The bus’s engine is overheating.
Plural
The busses’ engines all need replacing.
The buses’ engines all need replacing.
Plural nouns not ending in s
The nurses' paychecks are on hold for another week.
In a 5-page research paper, develop a thesis that develops the contradictions of freedom as those contradictions are evidenced in the stories of Ha Jin’s A Good Fall. Refer to no fewer than 2 stories. Your outline might look like this:
Paragraph 1: Introduction of the theme through exposition (explaining and defining the theme) or use a personal anecdote if possible.
Paragraph 2: Thesis with 4 or 5 mapping components
Paragraphs 3-9: Elaborate on your mapping components
Paragraph 10: Conclusion, a restatement of your thesis
Last page is your Works Cited page with at least 3 sources.
Second Option:
In one page, write a profile of someone you know who like one of the characters from Ha Jin's short story collection is saddled with a variety of impediments to love, especially the impediment of blindness or ignorance or willed ignorance or naiveté or something else that means emotional blindness. Then transition to your thesis that compares the impediments of love (blindness, rigid loyalty to a role, rigid committment to a tradition, a sense of futility, deluded by a chimera, etc.) to at least three characters from at least 3 of the stories.
Outline:
Page 1: Introduction: Write about a time you were blind in a way that created an obstacle to love. Or use someone else.
Page 2: Thesis paragraph that explains the impediments of love (or focus on blindness) in Ha Jin's stories with 4 or 5 mapping components.
Pages 2-5 will elaborate on your mapping statements.
Conclusion on page 5 will reiterate your thesis.
Works Cited page, page 6, will reference Ha Jin's collection, McMahon's blog, and one more source for a total of 3 sources.
Qualities of a Successful Thesis
1. One complete sentence that makes a meaningful, often provocative, assertion that can be demonstrated and supported with examples, illustrations, logic, and counter-arguments.
2. A successful thesis is NEVER obvious or self-evident or safe. For example: Married couples will experience improved intimacy if they communicate better. Too obvious.
Another example: The characters in Ha Jin's stories are often afraid of love and this fear makes them lonely. Too obvious.
3. A good thesis challenges commonly held beliefs and assumptions. Example: Throughout McMahon's lectures, he over and over again talks about the characters' "blindness" as an impediment to love, but to the contrary, the characters are not blind at all. They see with all too much clearness their predicament, which is that they are too torn by their home country's traditions and restrictions and American's apparent unlimited freedom. Living inside this conflict afflicts Ha Jin's characters with __________, ________, _________, and ____________.
In a 5-page essay, contrast helplessness and its resulting recurring cycle of futility with the Third Eye and its resulting effective action in at least 2 of the stories. Use personal interviews to give further depth to your contrast of helplessness and the Third Eye. Your sixth page, your Works Cited page, should have my blog, the book, and your personal interview.
Suggested Structure
Paragraph 1: Define learned helplessness and Third Eye
Paragraph 2: Give examples of both from your own experience, personal interview, movie, book, story, etc.
Paragraph 3: Transition to a thesis about learned helplessness and Third Eye as they pertain to Ha Jin's stories.
Paragraphs 4-6: Body paragraphs devoted to learned helplessness (block form)
Paragraphs 7-9: Body paragraphs devoted to Third Eye
All Thesis Statements Should be Constructed as a Debatable Claim or Argumentative Thesis
America's "War on Drugs" is a phony war that strengthens the military and prison industry while stripping Americans of basic freedoms.
These claims go under four different categories:
One. Claims about solutions or policies: The claim argues for a certain solution or policy change:
America's War on Drugs should be abolished and replaced with drug rehab.
Two. Claims of cause and effect: These claims argue that a person, thing, policy or event caused another event or thing to occur.
Social media has turned our generation into a bunch of narcissistic solipsists with limited attention spans, an inflated sense of self-importance, and a shrinking degree of empathy.
Three. Claims of value: These claims argue how important something is on the Importance Scale and determine its proportion to other things.
Global warming poses a far greater threat to our safety than does terrorism.
Four. Claims of definition. These claims argue that we must re-define a common and inaccurate assumption.
In America the notion of "self-esteem," so commonly taught in schools, is in reality a cult of narcissism. While real self-esteem teaches self-confidence, discipline, and accountability, the fake American brand of self-esteem is about celebrating the low expectations of mediocrity, and this results in narcissism, vanity, and sloth.
Your essay is a claim of cause and effect or extended definition as they pertain to learned helplessness and metacognition.
Causes of Learned Helplessness
Cause One: Your interior thoughts create a self-fulfulling prophecy loop:
You believe a negative outcome will happen; the negative outcome occurs and you now are convinced of your "prophetic powers."
"She's going to leave me." A guy calls his girlfriend every ten minutes and asks, "Are you leaving me?" What does the girlfriend do sooner than later? She leaves him of course. So now the ex-boyfriend tells himself, "I knew it!"
"I'm not attractive enough. No one will ever love me."
"I'm going to fail."
"I'm too damn scared to do this properly."
"Tonight at the Senior Prom I'm sure I'll have a horrible time and make an ass of myself."
Eighty percent of the characters in Ha Jin's stories are trapped in this loop.
How do you free yourself from the self-fulfilling prophecy loop?
You need metacognition or the Third Eye; otherwise, you won't even know you're trapped in the loop.
You need successful experiences to contradict the "failures" that live inside your head.
Cause Two: Narcissistic Self-Pity
The grief and self-pity you feel over your perceived learned helplessness convince you that your suffering is deeper than everyone else's and this belief that you are a Special Victim of Intense Suffering makes you feel, in a perverse way, superior to everyone else. Therefore, your learned helplessness is a form of egotism and narcissism.
Again, you need the Third Eye to see how narcissistic you've become.
Cause Three: Beholden to the Lie That Manipulation Is an Easier Life
Recall the nurse at Little Company of Mary who told me the "loser nurses" exert more energy manipulating others and convincing others that they are helpless so that the good nurses will do their work for them. We learn from this anecdote that it's easier for us to do our job than it is to manipulate others into doing our responsibilities.
Cause Four: Mindless Habits
Brian Wansink studies obesity and found that people who are in the habit of mindlessly eating in front of the TV and computer screen are more susceptible to gaining weight than to those who don't.
In other words, learned helplessness reinforces itself through repitition. The more we behave in a helpless fashion, the more helpless we become.
"The House Behind a Weeping Cherry" (195)
1. How are the main characters prisoners living inside a prison? 197; also the juxtaposition of the garment shop with brothel. See 212. They come to America for freedom, but find themselves slaves to debtors, blood-suckers, predators. They are indeed prisoners seeking heaven in their American hell. These short stories were written in the 1990s when China's economy wasn't the powerhouse it is today.
Part of their personal hell isn't merely economic however. It's also their own complacency with set routine (of course owing the Mafia is part of it too).
2. How does the story deal with appearances and reality? Think glamorous exotica and meretricious malaise. See 198, 201 America is an alluring chimera, a prostitute, if you will, attracting people from all over the world, who come here only to be enslaved. In both stories, America is a sort of character, a Trickster, that takes the other characters up and down the different emotions of promise and crushing disappointment.
3. What is Wanping’s rite of passage on page 208? He expels one of the unruly clients out of the house and establishes his power, authority, and loyalty. A rite of passage is a way of initiating into a group, a way of proving one's worthiness of the group, a way of proving one's fidelity, loyalty, and strength for the sake of the group.
4. What does Wanping realize about his life on page 209 when he catches the flu? He needs what? Also see 210. He needs warmth, love, affection, companionship. He's been living in total darkness and an arctic freeze. A taste of tenderness awakens him from his blindness. He can't go back.
5. Defend or refute the choice at the end of the story. It seems like the first step in fighting the enemy and the enemy within, learned helplessness.
“A Good Fall” (221)
1. Compare the theme of imprisonment in “A Good Fall” with “The House Behind a Weeping Cherry.” Two characters who suffer from learned helplessness. And in both cases identify the Third Eye that frees them. For Ganchin, the fall brings him to his Third Eye. So does his girlfriend.
2. How is the story a re-telling of David and Goliath?
3. What details paint Master Zong as the quintessential hypocrite? 222
4. Why do you think Master Zong feels compelled to fire Ganchin?
5. What evidence is there that Cindy has affection for Ganchin and that he is too naïve and blind to be aware of such enticing affection? Yes, he is aware that she is fond of him but does he know HOW fond she is of him?
6. How is Ganchin’s identity as a monk a hurdle for him in the story? In other words, how does his being a monk create internal conflict? (Is the hacking cough a metaphor of Ganchin dying to his old self?) Being a monk has become for him about self-denial and self-limits; also it has been a source of a martyr complex, which makes him an intractable or perpetual victim.
7. How is the theme of learned helplessness common throughout this story and other stories in the collection? 225, 231 Time and time again, Ganchin convinces himself that he is helpless and believing he is, he becomes in fact helpless, like Huong and her co-workers in a previous story. Learned helplessness is a form of blindness.
8. Ganchin says he’s been pushed to the edge of a cliff on page 229. How does this pertain to the story’s title? What does the title mean? He needs to let go of his old self, his old life and fall, die to his old self and become someone new in America.
9. How is Ganchin’s robe a metaphor on page 234?
10. What is the public’s reaction to Ganchin’s suicide?
11. What lesson is Ganchin slowly learning at the story’s end?
Review Learned Helplessness
In "The Beauty"
It is evidenced by Dan's frustration over his perpetual lack of connection with his wife, Dan's irrational, psychotic jealousy, and Dan's confusion over the disparity between his wife's beauty and his daughter's lack of beauty (he says she's ugly).
It is evidenced by the inability to accept reality, however harsh; premonition of bad events in the future, which become fulfilled from negative attitude resulting in reinforced paranoia; and an incapacity to strive for a better life due to the mindless habits of repeated failure.
We've been talking about the existence of freedom (brought about by The Third Eye) or its absence in the form of mental imprisonment (determinism) in the stories by Ha Jin and how our essay must address this conflict.
One threat to free will is a mental condition called learned helplessness.
Learned Helplessness in "A Good Fall"
Learned helplessness is a disease in which you close your heart and mind to your strong self and settle for your weak self resulting in shame, which reinforces your identity with your weak self, resulting in more shame, and so on.
You exercise your strong and weak selves like muscles getting them stronger and stronger depending on which one you exercise more.
When you do your homework or any discipline you have your strong voice telling you to focus and your weak voice telling you to take a break, a nap, an internet check on your social media, etc.
Learned helplessness is a vicious cycle. The more you become helpless, the more you become ashamed; the more you become ashamed, the more you feel helpless and so on and so on.
Here's another definition of learned helplessness:
Learned helplessness is the paralysis that results when you convince yourself that you are helpless to overcome a predicament when in fact, objectively speaking, you have the means to solve your problem. For example, the baby elephant grows up chained to a pole and its owner eventually removes the chain but the elephant, as an adult, never leaves the pole because he’s convinced that he’s chained to it.
Once we sink into learned helplessness, can we change?
You can't change unless you recognize you're in a vicious cycle and feel motivated to change.
You can't feel motivated to change unless you feel genuine shame, the kind that comes from you, not from others, and have a vision of a stronger self to aspire to.
There are two kinds of shame, Real Shame and BS Shame.
There is genuine self-induced shame, which leads to positive change.
Example: A man stops eating the leftovers for lunch because his children who are napping need to eat some. If he eats all the food, he will feel ashamed, so he stops.
But what about the husband who stops, not because of his own shame, but the shame of getting caught by his wife?
We can call this type of shame BS shame, the kind in which you're ashamed you "got caught." You're more interested in your image than your "content."
Kids will behave nicely at other families' homes but be brats at their own home, for example.
A husband will be nice and mature around his wife when other couples are around but be a fussy bully child in their absence.
He's ashamed to be seen as a jerk to others but not himself.
Real shame for our lives as helpless victims is the only way to change. I don't know if this change is the result of a choice or not.
Can we choose to experience real shame? What about the people who gorge at HomeTown Buffet?
We have to feel ashamed of our helpless state and motivated to change, but I don't know how we reach that point.
Examples of Failed and Successful Thesis Statements
A Failed Thesis That Is Too General Or Obvious: Examples:
The characters in Ha Jin's short story collection suffer from blindness and therefore they are not free.
The characters need to see reality for what it truly is.
The characters in Ha Jin's stories are usually well-intentioned but desparate for change.
Better, More Specific Thesis Statements:
The intersection of Chinese traditional culture and American post-modern culture afflict the characters with a tension between American freedom and Chinese restraint evidenced by _______________, ____________, ________________, and ________________.
No matter how "free" America may be, learned helplessness impedes the characters of Ha Jin's short story collection from ever being free until they can _____________, _____________, ______________, and _____________.
Ha Jin's stories masterfully render the dangers of learned helplessness, which include ________, _________, _________, __________, and __________.
Review Theme As It Pertains to Your Essay
For your essay you must develop a thesis, perhaps an argument, about the topic of freedom as it pertains to Ha Jin's stories.
McMahon argues, in part, that freedom is an illusion. We are in fact motivated by things we cannot control such as fear, vanity, disgust, hunger for social status, the desire to be superior to others, greed, avoiding family shame and rejection, desire to please others, desire to conform to culture and/or family.
Now if you don't have the above motivations, what happens to you? You become lazy. You have no motivation.
McMahon has a problem. His list of motivations is only only bad motivations. Did McMahon have an agenda? Yes, McMahon was being dishonest. He was hiding good motivations in order to support an argument and to persuade you to "his side."
In reality, however, McMahon was tricking you, showing you how easily you can be manipulated and deceived.
What does McMahon really believe? Ninety-nine percent of us have no freedom. We are indeed driven by the above stated motivations.
However, if you look at history's heroes like Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, what you'll find is that success, meaning, courage, nobility, heroism can be found without being slaves to our lower passions. A few people are free and they always want to free the rest of us. However, the overwhelming majority of us, including most of the characters in Ha Jin's short story collection, are not free. They are slaves to irrational fear, desire, and incurable delusions evidenced by ________________, _________________, _______________, ________________, and __________________. In contrast, the Third Eye is evident in the stories ___________evidenced by __________, _____________, and _____________.
Very few people enjoy freedom in Ha Jin's stories. With one or two exceptions, they suffer from the prison of learned helplessness evidenced by ___________, ______________, _______________, and _______________. Only the stories _______show the hope of freedom evidenced by _________, _____________, and ________________.
Sample 2-Part Thesis Template for Essay Assignment
The darkest stories in Ha Jin's collection render characters crippled by learned helplessness evidenced by ___________, ___________, _____________, and _________________. In contrast, those characters who experience freedom possess The Third Eye evidenced by ___________, ____________, ______________, ______________, and _________________.
The darkest stories in Ha Jin's collection, including ____________, ________________, and ________________ render characters imprisoned by learned helplessness evidenced by _________________, _______________, and _________________. In contrast, the more optimistic stories, including ______________and _____________, show characters who enjoy signficant freedom as a result of The Third Eye evidenced by ____________, ______________, and _________________
See Literary Devices in Pop Culture
Causes of learned helplessness (Review)
One. Denial of being in a condition of learned helplessness. Does Wanping have to work as a lowly garment slave without any love in his life? Or is this a choice he makes? He says his job is like a prostitute's because he is "selling himself."
Two. Playing the life of a victim until you sincerely believe you are a victim. I had a student whose fiance left her 3 days before the wedding and she was pregnant. She never dated again. She was "protecting" herself but in reality she destroyed herself, killing an important part of who she was.
Three. We prefer the devil we know more than the devil we don't know (change). Wanping is not ignorant about his horrible job but he is ignorant when it comes to looking at better alternatives. So is Ganchin.
We can call Number 3 "The Adam 12 Effect": We prefer the pain of helplessness to the terror and suffering of change.
Four. We become dependent on people helping us because we're so helpless: We learn to enjoy the self-pity of believing that we're helpless more than the enjoyment that results from growing stronger. Here's the irony that we'll repeat later: We have to work hard for people to pity us and take care of us MORE THAN DOING THE WORK OURSELVES AND MORE THAN BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR OWN LIVES. I received this wisdom from a student, a male nurse, who described some dead weight nurses he worked with.
Five. We love the attention of being helpless. Learned helplessness is the identity of the helpless victim. This identity is a form of self-pity, egotism and in worst cases narcissism because you expect everyone to stop and focus their attention on your needs, your helplessness, your victimhood, which you use as a banner of glory and entitlement.
Six. Self-Reinforcement Or Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
You have inculcated (taught through endless repitition) yourself with the belief of your helplessness so that your condition becomes true, but this truth isn't the result of the real world; rather, it's the result of your interior world: what's inside your head.
Seven. Solipsism
When you live only inside your head without being connected to the real world you suffer from a mental disease called solipsism.
A skinny anorexic who thinks she's fat suffers from solipsism.
An obnoxious, arrogant charlatan who thinks he's a gift to the world suffers from solipsism.
An able person who doesn't look for work or try to excel in life suffers from solipsism.
Eight. Vindication
How does this happen? A sense of helplessness or futility becomes your identity.
Second, because failure is your identity, you compulsively invest enormous amounts of time and energy in your identity of futility and failure and you reach a point in which you NEED your life to be a failure.
Why? Because then you're proven right. To be proven right is to enjoy something called vindication.
And vindication feeds the ego.
Of course, this whole cycle of invested failure and vindication exists inside your head.
Nine. Learned Helplessness Is Addictive Because It's All About You
It promises victimization, which makes you think others will make decisions for you and perform your hard work.
The irony is that to play the role of helpless victim, you have to constantly manufacture so much BS you actually do MORE work than if you would not be a victim and simply be your responsible self.
To play the victim is to live a selfish existence, which means you live as if your life is yours and yours alone. This is a lie and a delusion.
The comedian Louis C.K. says in one of his TV episodes in which he is trying to talk a friend out of committing suicide: "Your life isn't yours. It's bigger than that. It belongs to your friend, your family, the community, to the world."
Ten. Getting Lost Inside Your Head
Your interior thoughts are full of fiction, fantasy, exaggeration, delusion on such a grand scheme that living inside your head is like getting lost in a mansion with many rooms and eventually falling down a spiral staircase from which there is no bottom. We call this madness.
To get out of your head, you need something that Jerry Seinfeld calls "The Third Eye," the ability to detach from yourself and watch with a certain objectivity your thoughts and actions.
Psychologists call The Third Eye something else: metacognition. Another way of defining this: You think about thinking.
This is a technique discussed at some length in a best-selling book The Power of Now (I've read it; its teachings seem to be derived from Eastern religions).
Examples of "living inside your head" without the Third Eye to stop you:
You obsess over a girl whom you're angry at because she's "ignoring" you or she's "cheating" on you when in reality this woman doesn't even know you. Your "relationship" with her is all in your head.
You obsess with worry over a speech you have to give in a college class and while obsessing you become paralyzed with breathless terror so that you almost die of a heart attack just before you go onto the stage. This near death reinforces your fear of public speaking.
You teach yourself, like Ganchin, that your fate is suffering, to be poor and to be exploited by your employees because you don't know anything else.
Symptoms of Learned Helplessness
A lack of belonging and feeling marginalized to the point of feeling like a “misfit.”
A habit of repeated failure that reinforces your feelings of impotence.
A defeatist, pessimistic attitude that creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. "No one is going to go out with me to the Senior Ball. No one is going to like me. You watch."
Defining yourself as a victim and making yourself dependent on others.
An unconscious determination to fail because you’re afraid of success, which will force you to grow up and assume adult responsibilities.
A determination to see yourself as a tragic figure who has no control of what happens to you.
A fearfulness of life that compels you to hide in the psychological womb of self-pity.
You're a contradiction: Stupid enough to be weak but smart enough to manipulate others to bail you out every time.
Even when you know the right steps and can do something on your own, you wear out people so that they carry your weight up the mountain. They decide it’s easy to carry you on their shoulders than it is to help you because you resist being helped.
You procrastinate long enough so that you always need an excuse or an extension, reinforcing your self-image as a flake, a slouch, and lazy bum.
You create drama and crises out of nothing and enjoy watching other people put your fires out.
Major Causes of Learned Helplessness
One. Self-Reinforcement
You have inculcated (taught through endless repitition) yourself with the belief of your helplessness so that your condition becomes true, but this truth isn't the result of the real world; rather, it's the result of your interior world: what's inside your head.
Two. Solipsism
When you live only inside your head without being connected to the real world you suffer from a mental disease called solipsism.
A skinny anorexic who thinks she's fat suffers from solipsism.
An obnoxious, arrogant charlatan who thinks he's a gift to the world suffers from solipsism.
An able person who doesn't look for work or try to excel in life suffers from solipsism.
Three. Helplessness, futility, a sense of failure all become addictive.
How does this happen? A sense of helplessness or futility becomes your identity.
Second, because failure is your identity, you compulsively invest enormous amounts of time and energy in your identity of futility and failure and you reach a point in which you NEED your life to be a failure.
Why? Because then you're proven right. To be proven right is to enjoy something called vindication.
And vindication feeds the ego.
Of course, this whole cycle of invested failure and vindication exists inside your head.
Four. Learned Helplessness Is Seductive
It promises victimization, which makes you think others will make decisions for you and perform your hard work.
The irony is that to play the role of helpless victim, you have to constantly manufacture so much BS you actually do MORE work than if you would not be a victim and simply be your responsible self.
To play the victim is to live a selfish existence, which means you live as if your life is yours and yours alone. This is a lie and a delusion.
The comedian Louis C.K. says in one of his TV episodes in which he is trying to talk a friend out of committing suicide: "Your life isn't yours. It's bigger than that. It belongs to your friend, your family, the community, to the world."
Five. Getting Lost Inside Your Head
Your interior thoughts are full of fiction, fantasy, exaggeration, delusion on such a grand scheme that living inside your head is like getting lost in a mansion with many rooms and eventually falling down a spiral staircase from which there is no bottom. We call this madness.
To get out of your head, you need something that Jerry Seinfeld calls "The Third Eye," the ability to detach from yourself and watch with a certain objectivity your thoughts and actions.
Psychologists call The Third Eye something else: metacognition. Another way of defining this: You think about thinking.
This is a technique discussed at some length in a best-selling book The Power of Now (I've read it; its teachings seem to be derived from Eastern religions).
Examples of "living inside your head" without the Third Eye to stop you:
You obsess over a girl whom you're angry at because she's "ignoring" you or she's "cheating" on you when in reality this woman doesn't even know you. Your "relationship" with her is all in your head.
You obsess with worry over a speech you have to give in a college class and while obsessing you become paralyzed with breathless terror so that you almost die of a heart attack just before you go onto the stage. This near death reinforces your fear of public speaking.
You teach yourself, like Ganchin, that your fate is suffering, to be poor and to be exploited by your employees because you don't know anything else.
Your interior thoughts create a self-fulfilling prophecy loop:
You believe a negative outcome will happen; the negative outcome occurs and you now are convinced of your "prophetic powers."
"She's going to leave me."
"I'm not attractive enough. No one will ever love me."
"I'm going to fail."
"I'm too damn scared to do this properly."
"Tonight at the Senior Prom I'm sure I'll have a horrible time and make an ass of myself."
How do you free yourself from the self-fulfilling prophecy loop?
You need the Third Eye; otherwise, you won't even know you're trapped in the loop.
You need successful experiences to contradict the "failures" that live inside your head.
The second cause of learned helplessness:
The grief and self-pity you feel over your perceived learned helplessness convince you that your suffering is deeper than everyone else's and this belief that you are a Special Victim of Intense Suffering makes you feel, in a perverse way, superior to everyone else. Therefore, your learned helplessness is a form of egotism and narcissism.
Again, you need the Third Eye to see how narcissistic you've become.
McMahon Grammar Lesson: Comma Rules (based in part by Diana Hacker’s Rules for Writers)
Commas are designed to help writers avoid confusing sentences and to clarify the logic of their sentences.
If you cook Jeff will clean the dishes. (Will you cook Jeff?)
While we were eating a rattlesnake approached us. (Were we eating a rattlesnake?)
Comma Rule 1: Use a comma before a coordinating conjunction (FANBOYS) joining two independent clauses.
Rattlesnakes are high in protein, but I’d rather eat a peanut butter sandwich.
Rattlesnakes are dangerous, and the desert species are even more so.
We are a proud people, for our ancestors passed down these famous delicacies over a period of five thousand years.
The exception to rule 1 is when the two independent clauses are short:
The plane took off and we were on our way.
Comma Rule 2: Use a comma after an introductory clause or phrase.
When Jeff Henderson was in prison, he developed an appetite for reading.
In the nearby room, the TV is blaring full blast.
Tanning in the hot Hermosa Beach sun for over two hours, I realized I had better call it a day.
The exception is when the short adverb clause or phrase is short and doesn’t create the possibility of a misreading:
In no time we were at 2,800 feet.
Comma Rule 3: Use a comma between all items in a series.
Jeff Henderson found redemption through hard work, self-reinvention, and social altruism.
Finding his passion, mastering his craft, and giving back to the community were all part of Jeff Henderson’s self-reinvention.
Comma Rule 4: Use a comma between coordinate adjectives not joined with “and.” Do not use a comma between cumulative adjectives.
The adjectives below are called coordinate because they modify the noun separately:
Jeff Henderson is a passionate, articulate, wise speaker.
The adjectives above are coordinate because they can be joined with “and.” Jeff Henderson is passionate and articulate and wise.
Adjectives that do not modify the noun separately are cumulative.
Three large gray shapes moved slowly toward us.
Chocolate fudge peanut butter swirl coconut cake is divine.
Comma Rule 5: Use commas to set off nonrestrictive (nonessential) elements.
Restrictive or essential information doesn’t have a comma:
For school the students need notebooks that are college-ruled.
Jeff’s cat that just had kittens became very aggressive.
Nonrestrictive:
For school the students need college-ruled notebooks, which are on sale at the bookstore.
Jeff Henderson’s mansion, which is located in Las Vegas, has a state-of-the-art kitchen.
My youngest sister, who plays left wing on the soccer team, now lives at The Sands, a beach house near Los Angeles.
Comma Rule 6: Use commas to set off transitional and parenthetical expressions, absolute phrases, and elements expressing contrast. (For the most part, we’re referring to conjunctive adverbs such as however, as a matter of fact, in contrast, in other words, etc.)
As a matter of fact, Jeff Henderson found life after prison even more difficult than life in prison.
Jeff Henderson struggled in prison. However, his life after prison proved even more excruciating.
Life after prison for Henderson was a constant grind; kitchen sabotage from hateful co-workers, for example, was commonplace.
Jeff Henderson, as far as we know, climbed the restaurant ladder without the help of special connections.
Jeff Henderson served 500 dishes a night, give or take a dozen.
Jeff Henderson appearing outside his restaurant for the first time in a week, we were able to get a good photograph of him.
After climbing the restaurant ladder, Jeff Henderson sought spiritual, not material, success.
Comma Rule 7: Use commas to set off nouns of direct address, the words yes and no, and mild interjections.
“Mom, please pass me the potato chips.”
“Will you please pass the potato chips, Mom?”
Yes, Jeff Henderson was a man who needed to give back to his community to feel fulfilled.
Jeff Henderson’s book was a compelling read, wasn’t it?
Well, I for one read Henderson’s book over a period of two days.
Comma Rule 8: Use commas with expressions such as he said and other signal phrases to set off direct quotations.
Naturalist Arthur Cleveland Brent remarked, “In part the peregrine declined unnoticed because it is not adorable.”
“Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies,” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche.
Comma Rule 9: Use commas with dates, addresses, titles, and numbers.
On August 14, 2014, the second summer session will have come to an end.
However, we have an exception to the date rule if the date is inverted or if only the month and year are given.
The second summer session ends on 14 August 2014.
August 2014 is the first month of the Fall Semester.
John Lennon was born in Liverpool, England, in 1940.
Please send the package to Greg Tarvin at 708 Spring Street, Washington, IL 61571.
Sandra Belinsky, MD, has been appointed to the board.
3,500 100,000, 5,000,000
Comma Rule 10: Use a comma to prevent confusion.
To err is human; to forgive, divine. (Writer omitted verb is)
All of the crises Jeff Henderson feared might happen, happened.
Students who can, stand up and do a hundred jumping jacks before we do our comma rule lecture.
Find comma rules in these passages:
It was already ninety minutes past his normal lunchtime when Merrickel T. Pettibone reached for the party tray featuring a dazzling display of assorted “stoneground” crackers and dips made of pesto, spinach, olives, chives, and cream cheese. He had almost decided on a cracker when he recoiled because he thought, perhaps mistakenly, that the caterer, a fortyish woman in khaki safari shorts, yellow spaghetti-strap tank top, and a mannish face half covered with dark straight bangs had slapped his hand. Loud enough so the other partygoers inside the kitchen could hear her scolding, she told Merrickel that the appetizers would not be served for another two hours because she was still in “prep mode” and he needed to leave her work space.
He was chastened by the caterer’s admonishment on the one hand, but on the other he was irate that the birthday party, which started at one P.M., wasn’t serving appetizers until three. The time disparity struck him as perplexing and trying to wrap his brain around this gap only served to make him hungrier, and suddenly he was annoyed with his wife Aubrey for telling him to skip lunch so he could save his appetite for the party.
Apologizing to the caterer for his impropriety, he then navigated his stout physique (his doctor told him to lose thirty pounds) with the surprising nimbleness of a ballerina through a crowd of people, first in the living room and then in the backyard, and noticed with some resentment that most of the visitors were contentedly drinking beverages, some alcoholic, in the absence of any food. The thought of drinking on an empty stomach made him lightheaded and nauseous.
He found Aubrey in the back patio deck talking to her twenty-two-year-old cousin Madison, a nanny from San Francisco, about childrearing, a subject he, the father of twin four-year-olds, found tedious. He said, “The appetizers are under lock and key for another ninety minutes so I have taken it upon myself to go to a nearby store and purchase some snacks.”
His wife and cousin had long ago taught themselves to tune out Merrickel’s frequent interruptions, so they continued their conversation as if he weren’t there at all. He inferred their indifference was a green light for him to exit the premises and buy something to sustain him till the appetizers were served. Before leaving, he observed his two daughters Diana and Rigley playing on a jungle gym with their older cousins, evidencing they were in good hands, and he was now fully satisfied he could briefly disappear from the birthday party and buy some snacks without suffering his wife’s castigation.
He drove to the nearby Bazaar Club, one of those giant warehouse markets where an annual membership gives you “club privileges” to load an SUV full of provisions, clothes, and appliances that you can hoard inside your suburban cave as if hunkering down for the Apocalypse. He went on the hunt for some multigrain chips and hummus. At the aisle where there were freshly bagged whole coffee beans stacked to the ceiling like towering, magical bean stalks, a gaunt man with an old-fashioned, shiny, black mustachio, a red three-piece velveteen suit, and a cheap oversized fake gold watch was giving out free samples of spicy multigrain chips, “all organic with quinoa, brown rice, pumpkin seeds, chia seeds, lentils, and amaranth.” A heavy woman with damp hair and a shapeless dress observing the “healthy” chips with a doubtful expression asked the salesman, “What the hell is amaranth?” upon which the mustachioed man was gleeful to explain that it is a “healthy, high-protein ancient grain once enjoyed by the pre-Columbian Aztecs until it was almost wiped out by the Spanish conquistadors.”
Merrickel espied the chips with a force of lust that almost made him blush and he took a sample plastic cup that held exactly three tannish red chips before biting into one and hearing the satisfying crackle. The strong kick of chili, curry, and cumin exhilarated him in a manner that caused his nose to twitch like a rabbit’s. Observing the beaming expression of the mustachioed man, Merrickel grabbed five bags of the multigrain chips and three nearby tubs of hummus before paying with the other embattled customers jockeying for position at the registers.
When he returned to the party, he placed the tubs of hummus and bags of chips on one of the backyard’s picnic tables and the partygoers descended on the food with the aggression of vultures on a carcass. There was much talk about the chips’ tastiness and everyone asked the hostess, Aunt Barbara, where she had bought the chips. She looked hopelessly at Merrickel who announced to everyone that the chips were not “official party fare” but that he had bought them, without her consent, at Bazaar Club.
After he explained the history of amaranth and the other organic ingredients that made the chips so healthy and savory, the caterer popped out of the rear house entry and scowled at him. Convinced that the dozens of people munching on the chips he purchased were vindication of his good taste, he felt emboldened and he scowled back at the caterer as if to say, “Take that, you little shit.”
Looking at him as if he were a predatory carnivore who had just eviscerated her innards, her bottom lip trembled and her eyes filled with tears before she ran back into the house.
Everyone at the party was now silent. Merrickel looked down at the empty multigrain chip bags and tubs of hummus. He feebly tried to break the tension by announcing that the snacks had proven to be a “great hit” because they were all gone, but his words were like a padded fist slamming against a solid steel wall with a pathetic thunk and the dark cloud he had brought to the party grew only heavier.
Seconds later, the party host Aunt Barbara came out and walked close to Merrickel, putting her face close to his. Barbara had short-cropped silver hair and thin lips. She was a proud woman, a former FBI agent who spent her last ten years working as a security supervisor at a pricey department store before retiring with top honors. She looked at Merrickel sorrowfully and said, “Do you know anything about the life you just ruined?”
That’s rather dramatic, Merrickel thought, but then Barbara explained the caterer Becky. Forty-year-old single mother. Six months ago her abusive husband left her for a younger woman. Her three teenage kids needed dental work their mother couldn’t afford. She was recently laid off at the ports where she struggled with part-time work as a longshoreman. “This job gave her pride and dignity,” Barbara said. “And you took that away from her.”
“I just bought some chips.”
“But we have plenty of food here.”
“Which wasn’t to be served for another two hours after we got to the party. I was feeling faint for God’s sake.”
“Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? You could learn to space two hour intervals between your feedings, Merrickel.”
“I hadn’t eaten since breakfast.”
Hearing the conversation, Merrickel’s wife Aubrey said, “That’s bullshit, Merrickel. You had almonds and blueberries with your second cup of coffee after breakfast. And that’s only what I saw you eat. God knows what else you shoved down your throat while I was giving the girls a bath.”
In fact while his wife was bathing the twins, he had snuck a little snack of two hard-boiled eggs doused with Tabasco sauce followed by an oversized red apple sporting an unsightly bruise. But he remained silent on that matter.
“Merrickel’s eating habits aren’t the issue here,” Barbara said. Turning to him, she continued, “You called Becky a little shit.”
He had never called her that. He had thought it. Or did he indeed say it? He could no longer be sure and his doubts deflated any chances of standing up to the party’s silver-haired matriarch. It was at this point that Merrickel’s wife stepped in. She offered to take over the catering because Becky was, thanks to Merrickel, too demoralized to show her face any more. Aubrey turned to Merrickel and said, “And you’ll watch the kids for the rest of the party.” She knew her husband well enough that having to watch the kids for two full hours was a punishment, a prison sentence of managing what Merrickel called “The Traveling Fusstropolis.” And she added, “When we get home, you’re going to have a time-out.”
He spent his time-outs in the garage where he’d read books, listen to sports talk on the radio, do a kettlebell workout. But this time-out had been announced at a party. It amounted to public humiliation. He found himself too angry and too forlorn this time to do anything. He closed the garage door, turned on the industrial fan full blast and curled up on the floor.
When I assign a B to an essay, I’m assessing that’s it’s a solid, competent essay. It has a clear organizational design and a clear thesis. It’s well supported. It’s documented appropriately.
So why isn’t it assigned an A?
A paper assigned a B, and not A, is determined to be
Let us look at the competent B essay:
It’s not exceptional in that it doesn’t raise the reader’s consciousness with new insights.
It doesn’t sparkle with language and precise and varied word choice.
It doesn’t sparkle with varied sentence structure providing powerful rhythm that serves as a rhetorical device giving “music” to the essay’s meaning.
It doesn’t nudge the reader to see the theme in a fresh, original way.
It doesn’t have memorable moments in its illustrations, analogies, and examples.
Literary Present Tense
Make sure to use the literary present tense when you write essays about literature, short stories, novels, etc.
Make sure to use a variety of signal phrases to introduce quotations and paraphrases.
Grammar Check: Find the 21 Errors in the Following Paragraph
In Ha Jin’s “A Good Fall” is a novel of short stories featuring character’s lives that can be describe as tormented, excruciating, myopic, and, at times lugubrious. Take, for example, A Composer and His Parakeets; which renders a man so emasculated by his manipulative wannabe actress girlfriend that his only intimacy is with a needy bird. Which begs the question: Our the characters in Ha Jin’s story collection two cartoonish to be taken seriously? Although, at times they do descent to maudlin buffoonery and foolishness, but there psychological complexity as they clash with the excesses of American life helps lift “A Good Fall” beyond easy satire, in fact, I will venture to say that Ha Jin’s collection is a masterpiece, it is an exquisite, nuanced picture of Chinese immigrants wrestling with a myriad of America’s most malevolent forces, these include slave labor, prostitution, exploitation of naïve Chinese immigrants, and the cultural constraints that make good people sell themselves short, indeed, for all the humor of these stories; there is an underlying sadness and melancholy that pervade each one.
Essay 2: A Good Fall by Ha Jin, 150 points
In a 5-page essay, contrast helplessness and its resulting recurring cycle of futility with the Third Eye and its resulting effective action in at least 2 of the stories. Use personal interviews to give further depth to your contrast of helplessness and the Third Eye. Your sixth page, your Works Cited page, should have my blog, the book, and your personal interview.
Suggested Structure
Paragraph 1: Define learned helplessness and Third Eye
Paragraph 2: Give examples of both from your own experience, personal interview, movie, book, story, etc.
Paragraph 3: Transition to a thesis about learned helplessness and Third Eye as they pertain to Ha Jin's stories.
Paragraphs 4-6: Body paragraphs devoted to learned helplessness (block form)
Paragraphs 7-9: Body paragraphs devoted to Third Eye
Paragraph 10: Conclusion
Defining Learned Helplessness
Learned helplessness happens to all of us when we become frustrated over and over to the point that we feel we no longer have control over our destiny. We can see this with unemployment in which the unemployed go into a deep depression and in many cases become unemployable.
Ten Characteristics of Learned Helplessness When It Becomes a Pathology (Mental Illness)
One. It's a role we play or a mask we wear that can become disconnected to reality.
Two. Learned helplessness reinforces itself through repitition. The more we behave in a helpless fashion, the more helpless we become.
Three. It is a repeated habit and as such it is mindless, which means it's a very difficult habit to break unless we have the Third Eye.
Four. Learned helplessness can be an expression of narcissism, self-pity, and self-victimization; these emotions can be addicting.
Five. Learned helplessness requires the abnegation of responsibility.
Six. Learned helplessness is a self-fulfulling prophecy.
Seven. Learned helplessness is a self-betrayal in which the energy we manufacture to "be helpless" is greater than doing our responsibilities.
Eight. Learned helplessness causes death bed regret.
Nine. It causes a wasted life, a life squandered on nonsense.
Ten. It makes us a burden to others.
“Choice” (49)
I should say as a preface that while this is not my favorite story, I think it is the BEST story. There is a difference between favorite (the way life should be as in "A Good Fall," my favorite story and the way life really is, "Choice.")
1. Why does the narrator Dave Hong hate his father? 50 His father belittles any aspiration that doesn't entail money and power.
2. Explain the different meanings of the story’s title. David's choices, and Eileen's, and her daughter's.
3. Explain Dave’s sense of dislocation and lack of belonging on page 54. He lives alone, not sure of his choices, wondering if he's doomed to a life of loneliness and destitution.
4. Explain the significance of Old Feng on page 59. He represents Eileen's joyless duties at work, catering to the paranoid needs of an obscure writer. She is someone perhaps too busy to deal with the drama of a young boyfriend who has fun the affections of her daughter.
5. What evidence is there that Sami feels Dave and Eileen’s relationship betrays her recently deceased father? 63 Sami sulks and becomes passive-aggressive when she sees evidence of intimacy between Eileen and Dave. Perhaps the mother fears, having lost her husband, that a relationship with Dave could cause her to lose her daughter.
6. What evidence is there that Sami wants Dave to replace her father, but not replace him in the sense of being Eileen’s husband? Or perhaps did Sami have a romantic crush on him? 66, 69, 71 Sami stole his shirt. She calls them "shameless animals." Sami doesn't want to lose a father figure again. She tells Dave that he'll dump her mom.
7. On page 74, what suggests that Sami and her mother are trying to abate their complicated feelings (way too complicated) for Dave and want to vanquish him in order to save their relationship? How does this situation pertain to the story’s title? (competition for the same man? Guilt over that and their recently deceased father/husband? Both protective of each other’s feelings?)
8. Is “Choice” about choosing the lesser of two evils? Give a personal example. The mother will be "less happy" without her boyfriend but in this case happiness is not the issue. Preserving her relationship with her daughter is the issue. Maturity is being able to take "happiness" out of the equation when you have to. Maturity is knowing when to say "happiness is not relevant."
Perhaps the story's theme is that there is no such thing as "the right choice," which is a myth. All choices are messy, complicated thorny beasts sodden with the hideous and the horrible.
9. What fears does Eileen have?
She fears that she and Sami are competing for Dave, which will obviously compromise her relationship with her daughter.
She fears dating Dave disgraces her husband even though he is dead.
She fears that if Dave dumps her, she and her daughter will have to experience the devastating loss of a husband and father figure all over again.
Argumentative Thesis Examples for "Choice" As a Response to Previous Quiz
Some argue that Eileen should not reject Dave, that she is a prisoner of fear, hiding in an emotional prison affording too much protection. But in fact, Eileen made the right choice by rejecting Dave because, in spite of his friendly, helpful personality traits, he presents too much risk to both Eileen and her daughter. His first risk is that he is not anchored to anything. He is a lonely man without a sense of belonging and in this lonely state he is needy. Needy people make bad, compulsive decisions. It is likely that, as Sami predicted, he will eventually tire of his caretaker role, reject Eileen, and waste her time. The second risk he poses is that while he is a helpful presence in Eileen's househould, she has not gone through the grieving process enough to form a stable bond of intimacy with Dave. Finally, Dave is too young to know that he wants to settle down with an older woman who cannot bear him a child. He is fooling both himself, and Eileen, if he thinks otherwise. Taken in its totality, Eileen made the wise and prudent choice by suppressing her passions and expelling Dave from her life. Eileen's discipline shows conclusively that she is not a slave to irrational passions and that in fact she is free.
A Thesis That Counters the Above One
Whoever wrote that Dave presents Eileen a high risk is in grievious error. For one, Dave has been nothing but sincere in his intentions throughout the story. He has no tricks up his sleeve, no skullduggery whatsoever. Second, the idea that all men must be biological fathers is a gross generalization that has no bearing in scientific data or research. Finally, this notion that the possible breakup between Dave and Eileen would be a trauma tantamount to the mother and daughter re-experiencing the father's death all over again is utterly absurd. All of us face the risk of loss in a relationship. All of us are vulnerable. Eileen, and her daughter, are no different than the rest of us.
McMahon's Sample Introduction Transitioning to a Thesis About Free Will and Metacognition
Mario Alzone and I were teenagers when one hot summer night we ignored the No Trespassing sign, climbed over the gate of the swanky Tanglewood Apartments, and took a dip in the luxury swimming pool. Floating in the water was this oversized fluorescent orange bra. Alzone picked it up, studied the extra large cups lasciviously and then announced that he had forgotten to buy his sister a birthday present. I told him he was an idiot and laughed, assuming he wasn't serious.
But a few days later I attended his sister's birthday party and Mario presented her with this lurid orange bra, unwrapped, and she didn't even look surprised, apparently desensitized to her brother's troglodyte behavior.
Alzone’s judgment had always been skewed. He once sped a mini bike, lost control, and crashed through a church wall. Two days later he discovered he had broken his leg.
His employment history was sketchy. He never went to college, so he’d get these non-skill jobs: margarine and ketchup factories, slaughterhouses, Toys R Us . . . the list seemed endless.
One day I went with him to the unemployment office and I was disgusted by the nicotine-coated building, the unfriendly, ghoulish, brain-dead functionaries working behind the cracked plastic partitions and I realized my days with Alzone were near the end.
Metacognition kicked in: More self-aware than before, I got serious about my college studies, got off the academic probation list, and started earning straight As.
Should I pat myself on the back for my college success? I don't think so. My success wasn't based on any "choice" I had made. Rather, my motivation to succeed was no choice at all; it was a compulsion based on vanity, the need for a job that I could boast about at cocktail parties, and disgust for a life dependent on unskilled jobs.
I've never been someone possessed by free will. Rather, I am driven by hardwired impulses to be disgusted by a life of deadends, thankless jobs, and lowly status. In other words, my biological and psychological makeup compel me to embrace those things that will lift me higher up the Darwinian food chain.
Likewise, most of the characters in Ha Jin's stories don't appear to be endowed with any free will. Rather, they are driven by unconscious impulses, which include insane jealousy, cultural obligation, guilt, and curdled love gone bad.
After each sentence, write C for complete or F for fragment sentence. If the sentence is a fragment, correct it so that it is a complete sentence.
One. While hovering over the complexity of a formidable math problem and wondering if he had time to solve the problem before his girlfriend called him to complain about the horrible birthday present he bought her.
Two. In spite of the boyfriend’s growing discontent for his girlfriend, a churlish woman prone to tantrums and grand bouts of petulance.
Three. My BMW 5 series, a serious entry into the luxury car market.
Four. Overcome with nausea from eating ten bowls of angel hair pasta slathered in pine nut garlic pesto.
Five. Winding quickly but safely up the treacherous Palos Verdes hills in the shrouded mist of a lazy June morning, I realized that my BMW gave me feelings of completeness and fulfillment.
Six. To attempt to grasp the profound ignorance of those who deny the compelling truths of science in favor of their pseudo-intellectual ideas about “dangerous” vaccines and the “myths” of global warming.
Seven. The girlfriend whom I lavished with exotic gifts from afar.
Eight. When my cravings for pesto pizza, babaganoush, and triple chocolate cake overcome me during my bouts of acute anxiety.
Nine. Inclined to stop watching sports in the face of my girlfriend’s insistence that I pay more attention to her, I am throwing away my TV.
Ten. At the dance club where I espy my girlfriend flirting with a stranger by the soda machine festooned with party balloons and tinsel.
Eleven. The BMW speeding ahead of me and winding into the misty hills.
Twelve. Before you convert to the religion of veganism in order to impress your vegan girlfriend.
Thirteen. Summoning all my strength to resist the giant chocolate fudge cake sweating on the plate before me.
McMahon Grammar Lesson: Mixed Structure
Mixed construction is when the sentence parts do not fit in terms of grammar or logic.
Once you establish a grammatical unit or pattern, you have to be consistent.
Example 1: The prepositional phrase followed by a verb
Faulty
For most people who suffer from learned helplessness double their risk of unemployment and living below the poverty line.
Corrected
For most people who suffer from learned helplessness, they find they will be twice as likely to face unemployment and poverty.
Faulty
In Ha Jin’s masterful short story collection renders the effects of learned helplessness.
Corrected
In Ha Jin’s masterful short story collection, we see the effects of learned helplessness.
Faulty
Depending on our method of travel and our destination determines how many suitcases we are allowed to pack.
Corrected
The number of suitcases we can pack is determined by our method of travel and our destination.
Mixed Structure 2: Using a verb after a dependent clause
Faulty
When Jeff Henderson is promoted to head chef without warning is very exciting.
Corrected
Being promoted to head chef without warning is very exciting for Jeff Henderson.
Mixed Structure 3: Mixing a subordinate conjunction with a coordinating conjunction
Faulty
Although Jeff Henderson is a man of great genius and intellect, but he misused his talents.
Corrected
Although Jeff Henderson is a man of great genius and intellect, he misused his talents.
Faulty
Even though Ellen heard French spoken all her life, yet she could not write it.
Corrected
Even though Ellen heard French spoken all her life, she could not write it.
Mixed Structure 4: The construction is so confusing you must throw it away and start all over.
Faulty
In the prison no-snitch code Jeff Henderson learns to recognize variations of the code rather than by its real application in which he learns to arrive at a more realistic view of the snitch code’s true nature.
Corrected
In prison Jeff Henderson discovered that the no-snitch code doesn’t really exist.
Faulty
Recurring bouts of depression among the avalanche survivors set a record for number patients admitted into mental hospitals.
Corrected
Recurring bouts of depression among avalanche survivors resulted in a large number of them being admitted into mental hospitals.
Mixed Structure 5: Faulty Predication: The subject and the predicate should make sense together.
Faulty
We decided that Jeff Henderson’s best interests would not be well served staying in prison.
Corrected
We decided that Jeff Henderson would not be well served staying in prison.
Faulty
Using a gas mask is a precaution now worn by firemen.
Corrected
Firemen wear gas masks as a precaution against smoke inhalation.
Faulty
Early diagnosis of prostrate cancer is often curable.
Corrected
Early diagnosis of prostrate cancer is essential for successful treatment.
Mixed Structure 6: Faulty Apposition: The appositive and the noun to which it refers should be logically equivalent.
Faulty
The gourmet chef, a very lucrative field, requires at least 10,000 hours of practice.
Corrected
Gourmet cooking, a very lucrative field, requires at least 10,000 hours of practice.
Mixed Structure 7: Incorrect use of the “is when,” “is where,” and “is because” construction
College instructors discourage “is when,” “is where,” and most commonly “is because” constructions because they violate logic.
Faulty
Bipolar disorder is when people suffer dangerous mood swings.
Corrected
Bipolar disorder is often recognized by dangerous mood swings.
Faulty
A torn rotator cuff is where you feel this intense pain in your shoulder that won’t go away.
Corrected
A torn rotator cuff causes chronic pain in your shoulder.
Faulty
The reason I write so many comma splices is because the complete sentences feel logically related to each other.
Corrected
I write so many comma splices because the complete sentences feel logically related to each other.
Faulty
The reason I ate the whole pizza is because my family was a half hour late from coming home to the park and I couldn’t wait any longer.
Corrected
I ate the entire pizza because I’m a glutton.
In-class exercise: Write a sample of the seven mixed structure types and show a corrected version of it:
One. Verb after a prepositional phrase
Two. Verb after a dependent clause
Three. Mixing a subordinating conjunction (Whenever, when, although, though, to name some) with a coordinate conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so)
Four. The sentence is so confusing you have to start over.
Five. Faulty predication
Six: Faulty apposition
Seven. Incorrect use of the “is when,” “is where,” and “is because” construction
"A Composer and His Parakeet"
1. Why do couples settle into a relationship based on lies?
You can say people are blind or they choose to blind because it's easier to be deluded on a certain level. Of course, it's really not easier.
Blindness is easier than dealing with real frustration. Often people "fall in love" to distract themselves from the fact that there is no love in their life, which makes their situation worse.
It could be argued that Fanlin and his girlfriend Supriya are both saddled down by some rather heavy delusions. What are they? Think of the musical score, The Blind Musician. Both are blind; therefore, they can never be free.
Or one can argue they are free to assert their will to be blind.
Or one can argue their blindness is not chosen; it's an unconcious impulse. I tend to agree with the first argument.
The crux of the matter:
Fanlin is blinded by his own neediness, which compels him to commit to a vain person who is not willing to offer him reciprocity. In spite of being in a relationship, Fanlin is lonely and bonds with a bird more than his own girlfriend.
Fanlin is afraid of the "A" word: alone, so he settles for a BS relationship.
Supriya is too vain to acknowledge that she is using Fanlin as her lackey or servant to groom her career.
They're both using each other in an unhealthy way.
In America, we would say that Supriya is shillyshallying or dillydallying or lollygagging until someone better comes along. She shows contempt for her boyfriend, which means she must have contempt for herself.
Perhaps I'm being pessimistic, but is Supriya really on the verge of a breakthrough in her acting career or is she, like most actors, doomed to a life of small bits here and there?
Perhaps her needy boyfriend is willing to massage her delusions and reinforce their symbiotic relationship so he doesn't have to confront "A."
2. The relationship between Fanlin and Bori casts light on Fanlin’s relationship with Supriya. Explain.
Story's Major Theme:
Life is what happens while you’re waiting for the grand moments that never come; closer to Bori; farther from Supriya. In other words, there is no real life with Supriya; it's just a dream, a life that will always come later. He's waiting for that life to come with Supriya, but it never will come. His real life is in the here and now and it's with Bori.
3. How is Supriya using Fanlin? She is blind to the fact that she uses her boyfriend, that she doesn't love him and therefore doesn't love herself, and that she has a zero acting career. See 12 and 13. She won't marry him and settle down. She's dilly-dallying until someone better comes along?
4. What evidence is there that Fanlin and the bird are bonding? (blister, travel companion, etc). Most importantly, see 23, the change in the second half of Fanlin’s music score, more depth, melancholy, beauty in the face of the death of his beloved bird.
Thesis Samples
Freedom is rare in Ha Jin's stories but when characters do become free, they do so because of the cultivation of the Third Eye which is evidenced by _______________, ______________, ________________, and __________________.
An acknowledgement of Einstein's Insanity Rule
Letting go of the ego
Letting go of selfishness
Letting go of fear
Deciding to no longer play the role of a helpless victim; in essence deciding to fight against the condition of learned helplessness.
Free Will and Determinism in Ha Jin's Stories
"The Beauty" : no free will; Dan is driven by jealousy. Dan becomes more and more odious and disgusting as the story progresses. He becomes a more intense version of his already lame self. He is what we call a centripetal character.
"Temporary Love": no free will; Lina is driven by a sense of guilt and duty; Panbin is overcome by curdled love that leads to bitterness and nihilism.
"A Composer and His Parakeets":
There is free will in a subtle way. Fanlin slowly lets go of his denial about Supriya's lack of love for him and undergoes the slow, arduous journey toward acceptance rendered in his melancholy musical composition.
Fanlin has grown as a person; thus we can say he is a centrifugal character.
"Choice": There is free will: Eileen cuts short her passionate affair with Dave because it's destroying her relationship with her daughter. Eileen ultimately asserts discipline and self-denial in the face of temptation for the sake of her daughter.
For your essay you must develop a thesis, perhaps an argument, about the topic of freedom as it pertains to Ha Jin's stories.
McMahon argues, in part, that freedom is an illusion. We are in fact motivated by things we cannot control such as fear, vanity, disgust, hunger for social status, the desire to be superior to others, greed, avoiding family shame and rejection, desire to please others, desire to conform to culture and/or family.
Now if you don't have the above motivations, what happens to you? You become lazy. You have no motivation.
McMahon has a problem. His list of motivations is only only bad motivations. Did McMahon have an agenda? Yes, McMahon was being dishonest. He was hiding good motivations in order to support an argument and to persuade you to "his side."
In reality, however, McMahon was tricking you, showing you how easily you can be manipulated and deceived.
What does McMahon really believe? Ninety-nine percent of us have no freedom. We are indeed driven by the above stated motivations.
However, if you look at history's heroes like Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, what you'll find is that success, meaning, courage, nobility, heroism can be found without being slaves to our lower passions. A few people are free and they always want to free the rest of us.
McMahon Grammar Exercise: Identifying Phrases, Independent Clauses, and Dependent Clauses
Identify the group of words in bold type as phrase, independent clause, or dependent clause.
One. Toward the monster’s palace, we see a white marble fountain jettisoning chocolate fudge all over the other giants.
Two. Before going to school, Gerard likes to make sure he’s packed his chocolate chip cookies and bagels.
Three. Because Jack’s love of eating pizza every night cannot be stopped, he finds his cardio workouts to be rather worthless.
Four. Maria finds the Lexus preferable to the BMW because of the Lexus’ lower repair costs.
Five. Greg does not drive at night because he suffers from poor nocturnal eyesight.
Six. Whenever Greg drives past HomeTown Buffet, he is overcome with depression and nausea.
Seven. People who eat at Cinnabon, according to Louis C.K., always look miserable over their poor life decisions.
Eight. After eating at Cinnabon and HomeTown Buffet, Gary has to eat a bottle of antacids.
Nine. Towards the end of the date, Gary decided to ask Maria if she’d care for another visit to HomeTown Buffet.
Ten. Whenever Maria is in the presence of a gluttonous gentleman, she withdraws into her shell.
Eleven. Greg watched Maria recoil into her shell while biting her nails.
Twelve. Greg watched Maria recoil into her private universe while she bit her nails.
Thirteen. Eating at all-you-can-eat buffets will expand the circumference of your waistline.
Fourteen. Larding your essay with grammatical errors will result in a low grade.
Fifteen. My favorite pastime is larding my essay with grammatical errors.
Sixteen. Larding my body with chocolate chunk peanut butter cookies followed by several gallons of milk, I wondered if I should skip dinner that evening.
Seventeen. After contemplating the benefits of going on a variation of the Paleo diet, I decided I was at peace being a fat man with a strong resemblance to the Pillsbury Dough Boy.
Eighteen. In the 1970s few people would consider eating bugs as their main source of protein although today world-wide food shortages have compelled a far greater percentage of the human race to entertain this unpleasant possibility.
Nineteen. Because of increased shortages in worldwide animal protein, more and more people are looking to crickets, grasshoppers, and grubs as possible complete protein amino acid alternatives.
Twenty. The percentage of people getting married in recent years has significantly declined as an economic malaise has deflated confidence in the viability of sustaining a long-term marriage.
Twenty-one. Before you decide to marry someone, consider two things: your temperament and your economic prospects.
Twenty-two. To understand the pitfalls of getting married prematurely is to embark on the road to greater wisdom.
Twenty-three. To know me is to love me.
Twenty-four. To languish in the malignant juices of self-pity after breaking up with your girlfriend is to fall down the rabbit hole of moral dissolution and narcissism.
Twenty-five. Having considered the inevitable disappointment of being rich, I decided not to rob a bank.
Twenty-six. Watching TV on a sticky vinyl sofa all day, I noticed I was developing bedsores.
Twenty-seven. While I watched TV for twenty consecutive hours, I began to wonder if life was passing me by.
Twenty-eight. Under the bridge where a swarm of mosquitos gathered, the giant belched.