Month: November 2024

How Effective Is What You Say?

In my draft, I do identify the alternative that I am arguing against. One place where I write about this is my final paragraph, where I write “in order to hold on to joy, it is imperative to decide what brings you joy and seek it out, because only by making the effort for joy can we see through the darkness of our modern world.” Here I argue why I think finding joy in our daily lives is important, and discuss briefly why my stance is important. To go into more depth with this, it might be useful to identify opposing arguments that would assert that joy is not essential, perhaps because it is a distraction from dealing with the real issues of the world. That way the reader can see a clear contrast between what I believe and what “they say”. This would also help with making the “they say” and “I say” arguments more cohesively connected. I also offer numerous examples to explain how our sources find joy in different areas, but it might be beneficial to explain how that relates to the greater argument of the importance of seeking out joy in daily life.

How Well Do You Represent What Others Say?:

I use a couple different sources to address my argument, including Ross Gay and Maria Konnikova. For Ross Gay, I think I represent his stance well when I paraphrase from his writing and explain how he uses long, drawn out metaphors to challenge the popular understanding of sorrow and how it connects to joy. However, It might be beneficial to have more summary that explains his writing in more detail so I can be sure I am representing his full stance. For Konnikova, I do take her stance out of the context of its original writing, which was focused on social media relationships versus those we make in real life, however despite her not actually mentioning joy, It is clear how she feels about those experiences through her writing and I believe it is appropriate to equate those experiences to something that she feels would bring joy. It might be useful to identify this in my writing so the reader knows that although Konnikova isn’t directly speaking of joy, I don’t believe I am misrepresenting her argument by inferring joy as a product of those connections.

1. Gay advocates that we “lay down our swords and invite sorrow in.” What does he mean? Do you agree? Why or why not?
2. What, very specifically, incites joy in your life? Make a specific/descriptive list of at least ten things: the moment just before my favorite band walks on stage; walking through crunchy leaves; the feeling after a difficult but fruitful conversation, etc. Be as specific as possible.
3. What do you notice about your list? What does the list reveal about you and the ways in which you engage with the world?
4. In what specific ways does Ross Gay’s essay interact with Zadie Smith’s? What’s the value of Gay’s essay, through the lens of a college student?
5. Respond, in your own words, and referencing your own experiences, to the validity of Gay’s question: “What if joy and pain are fundamentally tangled up with one another?”

1. While I do think that the question of whether there is a relationship between joy and pain is often true, I think that there are certainly times when joy came without significant amounts of pain. I remember a lot of joy and particularly a feeling of peace when my grandfather passed. Even at his memorial service, I didn’t shed a tear. Not because I didn’t know him well or anything like that. I have very fond memories of our time spent together. There was a sadness, like there always is to some degree when someone passes away, but it was like the sadness that happens when someone you know is going away on a trip, and you won’t see them for a bit. I knew that it was okay to cry, and that no one would think less of me for it. But I never even felt the urge to. Even though I knew I would miss him, there was never a true grief that accompanied it. Not only that, but because all of my extended family had come for the funeral, we got to spend days in a row catching up and laughing about all the stuff we used to do with grandpa when we visited. We got to climb all over Sampson, the giant living oak tree in the backyard whose limbs were so long and heavy that they needed to be supported by wood beams in places so they wouldn’t collapse under their own weight, and whose bark showed all the signs of when the boys would climb up into the tree just because. We played silly games and got into meaningless arguments just because we could. The next time we would all be together like those few days wouldn’t be for years. I honestly don’t think I could have been sad if I wanted to. But maybe that is the connection of pain and joy, that when multiple people experiencing heartbreak come together, that heartbreak is made into something new, or at least significantly dampened.
2. I think that Gay isn’t saying that we should let ourselves become lost in grief and hopelessness, but rather that we shouldn’t fight being sad. Gay is saying that feeling sad is no less valid than feeling any other emotion, even though it is by far one of the most ostracized. Gay is proposing that instead of viewing sadness as the bad emotion that is hindering our recovery, we should let grief do its job without fighting it, which is to help us process a loss. I would tend to agree with Gay here. If we close ourselves off to feeling in the effort of not having to deal with the harsh realities, not only will we keep the wound fresh and festering, rather than allowing it to heal, but we will push away the connection that our sorrow can bring us, leading to intense loneliness. If we refuse to feel pain, then we can never make ourselves vulnerable enough to open up to other people. Those other people will in turn become isolated from you, leaving you alone with only the facade of being stoic and unfeeling.
3. There are a few specific things which incite joy for me. I think number one has to be spending time with my mom. I also get a lot of joy from playing with and cuddling my dogs and my cats. Another thing that brings me joy is learning a new fact about a topic I’m interested it. I also feel joy in being invited to do stuff with a group, drinking a hot cup of coffee in the morning or on a cool afternoon, walking alone through the woods, taking a refreshing afternoon nap, getting a good grade on an assignment I worked hard on, sharing about a topic I have researched, and horseback riding.
4. I think my list reveals that I really like spending time with people I care about, but I also really value getting the chance to be alone with my thoughts and enjoy small things.
5. Gay interacts with Zadie Smith’s essay by focusing on her description of joy as “intolerable”. He really hones in on how joy and sorrow interact, and how they are not mutually exclusive but rather feed off of each other when allowed to gather with others who are experiencing hardships. I think this is particularly relevant to a college student because as a freshman, almost all college students are experiencing the exact same anxiety and isolation that comes with being away from home for the first time, but if we don’t allow others to share in our struggle then we become islands of sorrow that eventually would drown in it.