How much do the decisions we make on a daily basis impact our lives? Even little things we decide to do that may seem insignificant, or like they won't have any impact could determine how the rest of our day goes. While it may be dramatic, even choosing to walk a little faster or slower could cost u...

In William Faulkner's story, "As I Lay Dying", Dewey Dell is the only woman in the Bundren family. With many responsibilities and a baby on the way, she should be thought of as the most pitiable and pitiful Bundren family member. Dewey Dell's predicament reveals that she is stubborn and is cle...

Toxic content and environments are slowly changing our way of thinking! The need to educate ourselves is no longer parts of society's need to succeed in life. A lack of this need is the active ingredient of failure and mischief. Before the internet and modern technology we would gain our knowle...

If there really were an app for living in the Spirit would you or I obey? "If you love me you will obey me", Jesus said. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be pulled under. I have three apps, which if you download them they can change...

Life for children without a secure home to live in is a rough and unstable way of living, especially when growing into maturity. The novel and film, "The Catcher in the Rye" and "The Adventures of Huck Finn" show this lack of protection, as well as the maturity levels that affect...

Dear English Portfolio Committee: It is very difficult to admit that English Comprehension and writing are my least favorite subjects. After twelve years of schooling, I thought my ability to put a cohesive thought on paper would have been accomplished so when I found out that I needed to take rem...

Rene Descartes, a French philosopher, departed to Holland in order to pursue his dream of writing. During this period while he was in Holland, he wrote many works including one of his most known, Meditations on First Philosophy. In this work Descartes uses a specific method, sometimes referred to as...

To write about reality seems simple. All an author must do is portray day to day life in a work. This should not be so difficult, considering said author lives day to day life every day. However, one must assess the differences among each human's day to day lives before assuming to portray a conceiv...

Everyday someone loses a person dear to them. You never know if it will be your last day here in this world. We all just live day to day and don't realize tomorrow could be our last. It's even worse when it could have been prevented. Choices we make can impact our lives and individuals ar...

Although Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" was written centuries ago, the allegory's main themes and concepts are still evident in the modern film, The Matrix. Plato's allegory discusses and analyzes a story by Socrates, which depicts a group of men who are having their minds controlled while livi...

When it comes to trying to define our own "character," usually we attempt to define it based upon our own experiences and thoughts. But just as we all carry with us different experiences and ways of thinking, we all can derive slightly or sometimes even vastly different understandings of what char...

Descartes' Archimedean point is "I think, therefore I am," although the phrasing for that principle is not to be found in Meditations on First Philosophy, but in one of his earlier works. However, he arrives at the same conclusion in Meditation II, which focuses on the fact that the...

Your mind (Greek, nous; German, Geist [often translated 'spirit', but always meaning mind]) is absolute because you are able to think about yourself and know that you exist: you don't need anything other than thinking to prove that you exist. When you think about the world, however, ...

Tolstoy's War and Peace evokes powerful contemplation about the meaning of life, of the nature of the human soul, and of the nature of suffering. In these excerpts alone readers can understand what Tolstoy was trying to convey through his characters' experiences. Both passages address the motif of h...

The problem is point of view. Advances in medicine and science have taught humans that sense information is not to be trusted. High-paid performers have perfected the art of capitalizing on the unreliability of human sensation. The fundamental lack of trust in perception means that every human un...

As 1984 winds to a close, the reader sees an end to Winston and Julia's dreams of creating a more humane and livable society. Instead, Winston finds himself captured by the Thought Police, and reeducated in a prison. The metaphor of the prison structures the entire last half of the book. In...

It is said that going back to school is a journey to a new world of enrichment. It is a garden where the classroom grows one's thoughts and dreams. It is a school building where one constructs new plans for the future. And it is a tower of learning where one can climb as high as one wishes. Thus, t...

In John Locke's philosophy of mind, all people are born with minds that are a blank slate. As such, we build up a body of knowledge through perceptions as we grow. In this way, all knowledge is received indirectly from outside of the human mind. In this, Locke distinguishes between primary a...

When I was a child I viewed everything from a child's point of view. If I was afraid of the dark it was because I believed that monsters dwelled under my bed and in my closets. If I was afraid of loud noises it is because I believed with all my little heart that they led to danger. As I aged an...

Today, when a person says that someone builds castles in the air, they are usually metaphorically describing someone who dwells in a realm of fantasy, and has a poor grip upon reality. The poem "Mopsus, or The Castle Builder" literalizes the metaphor of castle-building in the air in its t...

John Berger, as an art critic, is an enigma; even within the same article written about him by the same author, it is not unusual for him to be categorized in two totally divergent designations. Keeping Berger's unique perspective in mind, this essay will specifically discuss Berger's com...

Since clearly individuals enter into therapy for varied and personal reasons, the outcomes for any method will be very different in specifics. However, there are clearly defined goals that are set early in the therapeutic relationship, and the success of each of these goals can be measured. In Gesta...

Psycho-history lends insight into the possible states of mind of individuals. Historians have attempted to use psychological and sociological theories to explain historical events and show how the human psyche creates historical crises. The psychic crisis theory of the Salem witchcraft hysteria can ...

Apocalypse Now started its scene in the sound of silence genre wherein the viewer sees coconut groves at first and getting a visual smorgasbord of the peacefulness and tranquility that can be found in the Orient. Then all of a sudden the reverie is taken away when the sounds of flying helicopters ...

Descartes posited, "I think, therefore I am." However, his revelation did not end the debate on the nature of the self; in fact, it gave rise to a slew of other opinions on the subject. The nature of the self is a fundamental philosophical question, as it delves into the very nature of our exist...