Reflective Writing #5
ENGL 220
April 8, 2014
Well, the new semester is over.
After my second attempt at 220-Level English, I still cannot say that I’m
satisfied with my progress. I’m not sure if I have been reluctant this whole
time to sacrifice all my desires and leisure time to cater to my work, school
and family lives, or if I really am as lazy as they say I am. I am always
tired, and every time I wake up, I feel like I have to prepare myself mentally
for some intense 12 hours or so, as if I’m in military camp or something.
I’m seriously digressing here,
though – what I should be contemplating is everything I have learned so far in
this course. For starters, I have learned that zombies are, as a concept,
especially important to modern philosophy. In some ways, humanity is at a
crossroad, and we are starting to question the ethics and rights of all living
things, not simply heterosexual, white, well-off, God-fearing human beings. I
am still not fully certain why zombies are more hyped than any other fictional
monsters, but I do know a good deal about different “types” of zombies; I also
know that the types that are most plausible are the types that are still alive,
and still very much human. For example, in a previous essay, I explored the
sense of loss of “humanity” that leads to zombie-like behaviour. In that, I
explained that what makes us human is not just to express emotion, but to
rationalize and understand the motive and purpose behind every emotion we feel,
as well as how our emotions affect the actions that influence other humans and
living things in our environment. On a regular basis, people tend to forget
some parts of their humanity in one sense or another, as a result of fatigue,
intoxication, mental illness, etc.
I still much prefer this class over
my last English 220 class; I find it intriguing the way my instructor has been
able to open our minds up to the different possibilities outside the windows of
such trite themes as zombies and the zombie apocalypse. I appreciate that,
while I still struggled to comprehend most of the material, for at least two
and a half hours every week, I was taken beyond the borders of what the
curriculum was intended to teach us, and for that I am verily grateful.
No comments:
Post a Comment