DOROTHY JOY B.

NADELA BSEd English 2C

ACTIVITY 6– FAMILIARIZING ESSAYS

1. FAMILIAR ESSAY
Title: Life is Short (by Paul Graham)
link source: http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html

Life is short, as everyone knows. When I was a kid I used to wonder about this. Is life actually
short, or are we really complaining about its finiteness? Would we be just as likely to feel life was short if
we lived 10 times as long?

Since there didn't seem any way to answer this question, I stopped wondering about it. Then I had
kids. That gave me a way to answer the question, and the answer is that life actually is short.

Having kids showed me how to convert a continuous quantity, time, into discrete quantities. You
only get 52 weekends with your 2 year old. If Christmas-as-magic lasts from say ages 3 to 10, you only
get to watch your child experience it 8 times. And while it's impossible to say what is a lot or a little of a
continuous quantity like time, 8 is not a lot of something. If you had a handful of 8 peanuts, or a shelf of 8
books to choose from, the quantity would definitely seem limited, no matter what your lifespan was.

Ok, so life actually is short. Does it make any difference to know that?

It has for me. It means arguments of the form "Life is too short for x" have great force. It's not
just a figure of speech to say that life is too short for something. It's not just a synonym for annoying. If
you find yourself thinking that life is too short for something, you should try to eliminate it if you can.

When I ask myself what I've found life is too short for, the word that pops into my head is
"bullshit." I realize that answer is somewhat tautological. It's almost the definition of bullshit that it's the
stuff that life is too short for. And yet bullshit does have a distinctive character. There's something fake
about it. It's the junk food of experience. 

If you ask yourself what you spend your time on that's bullshit, you probably already know the
answer. Unnecessary meetings, pointless disputes, bureaucracy, posturing, dealing with other people's
mistakes, traffic jams, addictive but unrewarding pastimes.

There are two ways this kind of thing gets into your life: it's either forced on you, or it tricks you.
To some extent you have to put up with the bullshit forced on you by circumstances. You need to make
money, and making money consists mostly of errands. Indeed, the law of supply and demand insures that:
the more rewarding some kind of work is, the cheaper people will do it. It may be that less bullshit is
forced on you than you think, though. There has always been a stream of people who opt out of the
default grind and go live somewhere where opportunities are fewer in the conventional sense, but life
feels more authentic. This could become more common.

You can do it on a smaller scale without moving. The amount of time you have to spend on
bullshit varies between employers. Most large organizations (and many small ones) are steeped in it. But
if you consciously prioritize bullshit avoidance over other factors like money and prestige, you can
DOROTHY JOY B. NADELA BSEd English 2C
EM7-Contemporary, Popular,&Emergent Literature TTH 1:30PM – 3:00PM (TAC 407)

probably find employers that will waste less of your time.

If you're a freelancer or a small company, you can do this at the level of individual customers. If
you fire or avoid toxic customers, you can decrease the amount of bullshit in your life by more than you
decrease your income.

But while some amount of bullshit is inevitably forced on you, the bullshit that sneaks into your
life by tricking you is no one's fault but your own. And yet the bullshit you choose may be harder to
eliminate than the bullshit that's forced on you. Things that lure you into wasting your time have to be
really good at tricking you. An example that will be familiar to a lot of people is arguing online. When
someone contradicts you, they're in a sense attacking you. Sometimes pretty overtly. Your instinct when
attacked is to defend yourself. But like a lot of instincts, this one wasn't designed for the world we now
live in. Counterintuitive as it feels, it's better most of the time not to defend yourself. Otherwise these
people are literally taking your life. 

Arguing online is only incidentally addictive. There are more dangerous things than that. As I've
written before, one byproduct of technical progress is that things we like tend to become more addictive.
Which means we will increasingly have to make a conscious effort to avoid addictions — to stand outside
ourselves and ask "is this how I want to be spending my time?"

As well as avoiding bullshit, one should actively seek out things that matter. But different things
matter to different people, and most have to learn what matters to them. A few are lucky and realize early
on that they love math or taking care of animals or writing, and then figure out a way to spend a lot of
time doing it. But most people start out with a life that's a mix of things that matter and things that don't,
and only gradually learn to distinguish between them.

For the young especially, much of this confusion is induced by the artificial situations they find
themselves in. In middle school and high school, what the other kids think of you seems the most
important thing in the world. But when you ask adults what they got wrong at that age, nearly all say they
cared too much what other kids thought of them.

One heuristic for distinguishing stuff that matters is to ask yourself whether you'll care about it in
the future. Fake stuff that matters usually has a sharp peak of seeming to matter. That's how it tricks you.
The area under the curve is small, but its shape jabs into your consciousness like a pin.

The things that matter aren't necessarily the ones people would call "important." Having coffee
with a friend matters. You won't feel later like that was a waste of time.

One great thing about having small children is that they make you spend time on things that
matter: them. They grab your sleeve as you're staring at your phone and say "will you play with me?"
And odds are that is in fact the bullshit-minimizing option.

If life is short, we should expect its shortness to take us by surprise. And that is just what tends to
happen. You take things for granted, and then they're gone. You think you can always write that book, or
DOROTHY JOY B. NADELA BSEd English 2C
EM7-Contemporary, Popular,&Emergent Literature TTH 1:30PM – 3:00PM (TAC 407)

climb that mountain, or whatever, and then you realize the window has closed. The saddest windows
close when other people die. Their lives are short too. After my mother died, I wished I'd spent more time
with her. I lived as if she'd always be there. And in her typical quiet way she encouraged that illusion. But
an illusion it was. I think a lot of people make the same mistake I did.

The usual way to avoid being taken by surprise by something is to be consciously aware of it.
Back when life was more precarious, people used to be aware of death to a degree that would now seem a
bit morbid. I'm not sure why, but it doesn't seem the right answer to be constantly reminding oneself of
the grim reaper hovering at everyone's shoulder. Perhaps a better solution is to look at the problem from
the other end. Cultivate a habit of impatience about the things you most want to do. Don't wait before
climbing that mountain or writing that book or visiting your mother. You don't need to be constantly
reminding yourself why you shouldn't wait. Just don't wait.

I can think of two more things one does when one doesn't have much of something: try to get
more of it, and savor what one has. Both make sense here.

How you live affects how long you live. Most people could do better. Me among them.

But you can probably get even more effect by paying closer attention to the time you have. It's
easy to let the days rush by. The "flow" that imaginative people love so much has a darker cousin that
prevents you from pausing to savor life amid the daily slurry of errands and alarms. One of the most
striking things I've read was not in a book, but the title of one: James Salter's Burning the Days.

It is possible to slow time somewhat. I've gotten better at it. Kids help. When you have small
children, there are a lot of moments so perfect that you can't help noticing.

It does help too to feel that you've squeezed everything out of some experience. The reason I'm
sad about my mother is not just that I miss her but that I think of all the things we could have done that
we didn't. My oldest son will be 7 soon. And while I miss the 3 year old version of him, I at least don't
have any regrets over what might have been. We had the best time a daddy and a 3 year old ever had.

Relentlessly prune bullshit, don't wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have.
That's what you do when life is short.

(PERSONAL NOTE): I just recently searched this article online, and as I was reading it I felt bored at
first knowing how common this article is, but I later on was amazed, on how “bullshit” was being written
so boldy, not in the snese of bad “bullshit”, but it is more on intellectual “bullshit”. The article was bold
and informal and fully opinionated writing. Aside from that, I get to know that life really is short
depending on who are you living with and what things you wanted to do in your whole existence.

2. DESCRIPTIVE ESSAY
Title: The Corner Store (by Eudora Welty)
link source: https://literarydevices.net/descriptive-essay/
DOROTHY JOY B. NADELA BSEd English 2C
EM7-Contemporary, Popular,&Emergent Literature TTH 1:30PM – 3:00PM (TAC 407)

Our Little Store rose right up from the sidewalk; standing in a street of family houses,
it alone hadn’t any yard in front, any tree or flower bed. It was a plain frame building covered over with
brick. Above the door, a little railed porch ran across on an upstairs level and four windows with shades
were looking out. But I didn’t catch on to those. Running in out of the sun, you met what seemed total
obscurity inside. There were almost tangible smells — licorice recently sucked in a child’s cheek, dill
pickle brine1 that had leaked through a paper sack in a fresh trail across the wooden floor, ammonia-
loaded ice that had been hoisted from wet croker sacks and slammed into the icebox with its sweet butter
at the door, and perhaps the smell of still untrapped mice

(PERSONAL NOTE): The description on little store is clear and concise. I love how the author showed
not just its description but also the images that could flash to the readers’ minds. It also has sensory
detailed information about the subject, and that adds to the meaning of the essay.

3. BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
(by Emily Jenkins)
link source: http://www.emilyjenkins.com/biographical-essay

I grew up in the Boston area in the 1970s. My mother was a pre-school teacher and my father a
playwright. I remember visiting my mother's classroom and reading to the children there; even more
vividly, I remember sitting in the back row of theater after theater, watching rehearsals – seeing stories
come to life.

My mother read me countless picture books, but at my father's house there wasn't much of that
nature. He read me what was at hand: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Huckleberry Finn, Sherlock
Holmes. He also made up stories for me and recounted the plots of Shakespeare plays.

I was a raw child. In fact, I am a raw adult. This is a hard quality to live with sometimes, but it is
a useful quality if you want to be a writer. It is easy to hurt my feelings, and I am unable to watch the
news or read about painful subjects without weeping. I was often called over-sensitive when I was young,
but I've learned to appreciate this quality in myself, and to use it in my writing.

Growing up, I spent large parts of my life in imaginary worlds: Neverland, Oz, and Narnia, in
particular. I read in the bath, at meals, in the car, you name it. Around the age of eight, I began working
on my own writing. My early enterprises began with a seminal picture book featuring an heroic orange
sleeping bag, followed by novel-length imitations of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken
and Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren.

I have never kept journals or notebooks for my own sake. I am a writer who writes always with
the idea of an audience in mind -- and at nine I was determined to share my Pippi story with the world. I
got my father to type it up in a book format and photocopy it 50 times. Then he took me to an artist
friend's studio where we silkscreened 50 copies of a drawing I'd made for the cover. I gave it to everyone
I knew. That was my first book.
DOROTHY JOY B. NADELA BSEd English 2C
EM7-Contemporary, Popular,&Emergent Literature TTH 1:30PM – 3:00PM (TAC 407)

I have always been interested in picture books as a form, which stems (I suppose) from my
background in theater. I am fascinated by the intersection of words and images – the way meanings of
words can be altered by changing their presentation. An actor varies her intonation, or an illustrator
changes a line – and the story is new. In college, I studied illustrated books from an academic standpoint.
I went to Vassar, where children's book writer Nancy Willard was on faculty. She introduced me to
illustrator Barry Moser, and the interview he gave me was the centerpiece of my senior thesis. While I
was there, I spent three years as a student assistant in Vassar's lab pre-school, and after graduation found
work as an assistant teacher in a Montessori school, teaching 6-9 year olds. That year, I began to write a
novel with my father – through the mail. I was in Chicago and he was in New York. We thought it would
be a fun way to keep in touch. I wrote a chapter – then he wrote a chapter. We rewrote each other's
chapters. And rewrote them again. It took a long time, but eventually that story was published as The
Secret Life of Billie's Uncle Myron.

Now I write full time in Brooklyn.  Here's a picture of on of my favorite corners in Cobble Hill,
done by Lauren Castillo for our book together, What Happens on Wednesdays.

(PERSONAL NOTE): I have chosen this biographical essay, because of the writer itself. Some may
express themselves and show to the readers what common things they have, or basic things like where
they live at. But this is different, well it has the basic things also but it highlighted the personal hobby of
reading and sharing her favorite books, theater and her personal interest in literature.

4. CRITICAL ESSAY
Title: Critical Essay on Vertigo by Alfred Hitchcock
Link source: https://www.paperwritings.com/free-examples/critical-essay-on-vertigo-by-alfred-
hitchcock.html#more-762

For some mysterious reason the name of Alfred Hitchcock is related in the public consciousness
to the genre of horror movies, although the closest to horror movies he ever filmed are his iconic
psychological thrillers, which are about as similar to horror films as Rembrandt’s paintings to comic
books. Vertigo is one of the most picturesque examples of his creative work, becoming the constant
source of inspiration and imitation for the decades after it had been shot.
The main characteristic feature of this film is its incredibly tangled plotline that makes several
very sharp turns in the course of action, always taking the most unusual and unexpected direction every
time it happens. It is also marked by the usage of a plot device that is typical of Hitchcock (some people
even consider him to be its inventor) – the so-called McGuffin. McGuffin is some idea, object or concept
that is of considerable importance for most characters in the story, while presenting no interest
whatsoever for the reader or viewer. It may be money, papers, jewels or something unexplained – in this
case, it is the history and personality of a long-dead woman that the main character considers to possess
another person. It, of course, after several plot turns, happens to be completely wrong.
The movie turned out to be highly successful in its time and became a subject of many imitations,
such as Wild Things and Color of Night, which, although having completely different plots, still show a
DOROTHY JOY B. NADELA BSEd English 2C
EM7-Contemporary, Popular,&Emergent Literature TTH 1:30PM – 3:00PM (TAC 407)

lot of similarities in style and method. All in all, it may be considered to be the classic of genre and,
probably, the best film shot by Hitchcock at all.

(PERSONAL NOTE): This kind of writing is written academically. The author really had an idea of what
he is trying to say, like analyzing and evaluating a topic so much. His ideas are so much supported with
other claims, that the readers would believe and carried right away.