Reflection #8

Nicholas Dadds 

March 25, 2013

Reflection #8

          The one time I had my beliefs challenged severely was the day of my Confirmation into the Catholic Church. Before the rites commenced, the soon to be confirmed students had an opportunity to speak with the bishop of our dioceses, Bishop Daniel Jenkie. I had a burning question to ask him that had been bugging me ever since I began to think about death and the afterlife. When my opportunity came, I asked him, “My little brother is autistic and has no communication skills. Even though he can’t understand what is going on around him, can he still get into heaven? Does God love him?” The bishop paused for a second, looked me dead in the eyes and said, “No.” and then just moved on to the next student. To say that I was in shock and hurt is an understatement. Here I was an eighth grade student who had blindly followed the teachings of the Catholic Church for as long as I could remember, and now a leader of the Church, had just told me that the person I care most about in the world, who didn’t choose to be born with a disability, is damned to an eternity of suffering and pain. That thought alone was too much to bear, and since then I have renounced my faith and cut all ties with the Catholic Church. Even if they are right, and my little brother is damned, at least I’ll be right there along with him, burning for all eternity. 

          The main difference between the two, is the hide able powers allow me to continue my normal life as it has gone, but with certain super powered perks, but with the other one, I could only imagine a life of obscurity and isolation, my life would be completely different. Again, with the first group, I could continue my life as normal, keeping the same friends and even possibly being in the same fraternity that I am in now; in the second group, I would probably completely avoid all forms of human contact, remaining in some form of isolation from now until my family needed me. The X-Men tell the outcasts and other people considered deviant and odd by the mainstream members of society, that not only can they fit into the normal society, it won’t be easy, but it is possible to rise above and become idols for the mainstream members of society, to be idolized instead of feared or shunned.

          I feel as though the mutant I identify most with is Rogue. I find myself being able to fit into most social scenarios, until I do something odd and people seem to see past the facade, and realize that there is something off about me, causing me to be either shunned, or brought in to the group more. I wouldn’t go looking for a cure. If I was given a gift, I should use that gift to better mankind, not try to get rid of it like a common ailment. 

Reflection #7

       After completing a few of the exercises outlined by Chopra in the back of his book, I noticed a few changes almost immediately. First of all, I noticed a clarity that I haven’t experienced in a long time, I finally found myself having the ability to step back and take an outside perspective of my issues. I felt relaxed, calm, and collected I found myself feeling far more relaxed and capable of sitting down and working, rather than dreading working and putting off various necessary tasks until the last minute. After my previous experience with these exercises, I will defiantly be doing them on a weekly, if not daily basis. The positive changes I felt after doing these exercises were far greater than I had hoped for and continuing would only help me improv on my life. 

       

       I believe that the majority of my friends fall under the friendship of pleasure category, much like many other people my age. As is the case with most people, I like to be around people who share similar interests as me. I believe there is a possibility for one or more of my current friendships to evolve into a friendship of virtue, however; I don’t think it is possible while still in college, especially at Monmouth College. Specifically because we rely on each other so much on campus because of the small size of departments and student organizations, we all must make friends for utility and pleasure, but there is very little call for friendship of virtue. The people I view as possible being friends of virtue are going to be the ones who stick around after college, those who are still involved in my life years after we leave Monmouth, the kind of people who will eventually be involved in the life of my children, not because we need one another to get through a project, or assistance is needed on a paper, but because we honestly want to help each other out, because we care about one another. That is what I believe a real example of a friendship of virtue. That, in the end, is all I, and I assume most other people, want in a perfect friendship. 

Reflection #6

When I think back to my childhood, one particular memory involving imagination and creativity sticks out among the rest. That memory would be when my grandfather passed away. I was unable to cope with the idea that my grandfather would no longer be around, so I used my imagination to pretend that he was still around, teaching me how to play piano and the cello, how to throw a knuckleball and how to knock the wind out of another person without doing permanent damage. Although I was painfully aware of the fact that he wasn’t there to teach me more, I was able to replay everything that he did teach me over and over until I was finally old enough to accept the fact that hanging on to him that strongly wasn’t health. I needed to move on.

In more recent times, imagination and creativity has been exceedingly helpful in order to fix problems. For example, over the summer I had the opportunity to be the set manager for a 114 person cast of Hairspray. During the run of the show, my job was to make sure everything technical ran smoothly, including set changes, costume changes, actors being in place, etc. and to fix anything that broke during the show. On one such night, we had a heavy rainfall during the day before a show, due to that rainfall, our toilet for the jail scene cracked. The crack was small enough that, unless you happened to be looking at the exact place at the perfect angle, it would be missed. Unfortunately, during the first act of the show, the rolling platform it was on was bumped, causing the crack to grow into a full blown split, causing a large chunk of the toilet to fall off and shatter. With little time and even fewer resources, I had to jerry rig a way to cover the gaping hole in the back of the toilet. I found some tin foil and laid it over the hole, then, I use spray paint to blend the tin foil into the rest of the toilet. It didn’t look pretty up close, but from the audience’s perspective, it looked close enough to the real thing to not raise any extra questions.

One superhero in particular who uses his creative abilities often, is Iron Man aka Tony Stark, one time in particular is the Extremis storyline. In this storyline, a super solider gets loose and begins terrorizing the United States, Iron Man is dispatched to fight him, but the super solider quickly gets rid of him due to a lapse between the time commands need in order to transfer from Stark’s brain to his suit. In order to solve this problem, Stark takes the Extremis serum himself and uses it to not only link his brain to all technology, but also repair his heart so he doesn’t require the arch reactor in his chest at all times.