12th Entry

Okay, I know the paper should be pretty much outlined now and I should start writing but I need to keep blogging and figure out what I am going to write. I completely ignored half the prompt while sketching but i think and hope I can figure it out in this post.
Going through the prompt, the desire for acceptance drives human beings, it is that we want to be accepted for our true selves what we consider our perfections and flaws to be accepted, this quote I found in the book the power of empathy says, "By acceptance I mean a warm regard for him as a person of unconditional self worth- of value no matter what his condition, his behaivor, or his feelings. It means a respect and liking for him as a sepreate person, a willingness for him to possess his own feelings in his own way. It means an acceptance of and regard of his own feelings and attitude of the moment, no matter how negative or postive, no matter how much they may contradict other attitudes he has held in the oast. This acceptance of each fluttering aspect of this other person make it for him a relationship of warmth and safety, and safety of being liked and prized as a person seens a highly important element in a helping relationship" (179). I believe that since human beings crave acceptance, have an inherent desire to push for acceptance, and this desire often times overcomes us and creates a hesitance inside of human beings to help others in their quest for acceptance. So in this case I don't think human beings are born innocent, I also don't think we are born evil but I think there is this hesitance/fear we are born with that a formal civilization has to tame. In the JFK Jr. example in my last post, his mother, Jacqueline Kennedy, serves as a formalizied civilization where she is a source of acceptance that others to diminish. Our civilization needs to try to abolish this fear of accepting others because it could affect our own acceptance we crave. It doesn't make sense that we are hesitant to accept others, with it being such a factor in human nature, but that why a formal civilization is needed to tame this factor and help human beings in their quest for acceptance. I think that people's natural hesitance varies in effect, which is good. Civilization needs to send a feeling/message to the people within that it is okay to be yourself, be different and break the barriers of the norm, and still be accepted by others. Civilization needs to make areas where everyone has a opportunity to be accepted. I am going to keep thinking about this civilization stuff and hopefully start my rough draft.

11th Entry

Okay, so I went to the library once again today and was reading the book The Power Of Empathy by Arthur P. Ciaramicoli and Katherine Ketcham while I was babysitting and looked up acceptance in the back of the book and found a story of JFK that relates to my point so here's the passage:
Okay their telling a story of JFK after his death about his childhood:
"Many years ago o a ski slope, John Jr. was crying. His uncle Bobby came up to th boy, put an arm around his shoulder and said, 'Kennedy's don't cry.'
John lookd up at his uncle and said, simply, 'This Kennedy cries.'
With insight and wisdow far beyond his years, a young boy speaks to the truth of who he is. I am not like everyone else, he announces to the world. I am unique, my own person, my own individual self. Even in my weakness-no, especially in my weakness-I accept myself for who I am.
There is a poignant epilogue to the story. Hearing her son's words, Jackie Kennedy smiled proudly and offered him a hug, an affirming gesture that goes a long way explaining why John F. Kennedy Jr., was so accepting of himself. Encouraged by his mother to be himself, he was able to find courage to stand up for himself and defy other people's expectations of his behaivor. In the safe surrond of his mother's empathy, he was given the opportunity to become himself... Only when we have accepted ourselves with all our "good" and "bad" parts can we learn how to accept others with all their strengths and weaknesses" (179).
-Wow, that passage hit practically every single point in my thesis, I am going to use this somehow as my evidence.

10th Entry

I got some books from the book about Philsophy and here's some of the things I read about:

"Good company is beneficial to humans, too. Hearing a familair voice, we smile easily and feel secure. People who suffer from loneliness or don't get along with others will have a hard time experiencing positive feelings. Friendships and family warmth are like a loamy soil in which happiness thrives.
'If you take friendship out of the life, you take the sun out of the world," said the Roman statesman Cicero'" (Klein 151).

The Dalai Llama Article:
-"The tendency to closely bond with others, acting for the welfare of others as well as oneself, may be deeply rooted in human nature, forged in the remote past as those who bonded together and became part of a group had an increased chance of survivial. This need to form close social ties persists up to the present day" (59).

Well I started working on my outline and got caught up in that, so this is not going to be a long post. My thinking right now is that people have a natural tendency to subject other to misacceptance due to their own urgent desire for acceptance.

9th Entry

Ok I really need to come up with a question to a response I've already formed or some sort of new idea. My main points I have reached through blogging is that acceptance is what drives human beings, the need to be accepted for our true selves (to have someone love our flaws just as much as our "perfections") to be completely understood by someone other than ourselves and still be accepted by them, that is the ideal everyone is searching for, but we make it difficult for others and with that nature we make it difficult for ourselves to find and achieve the acceptance we thrive for. The acceptance we thrive for can come in many different ways, but the most popularizied is popular that of love. But even with our drive for acceptance and acknowledgement of our need for acceptance shown to us throughout life with personal experience and experience from others, we make it difficult for others to find acceptance, let them into our lives and give them acceptance. So I guess my ultimate question is Why do we make it so difficult for others to achieve acceptance, and with this in our nature it ultimaetely makes it difficult for otherselves to achieve acceptance? I keep making the same points so I am going to list them instead of making a big long paragraph like I have been doing:
-Human's feel insecure with their standing with such a strong desire for acceptance, and if it is reached there is hesitance to go out of their way and risk their standing with acceptance it will be difficult to help someone else in their quest for acceptance
-When there is someone else a person can help with acceptance, it gives reassurance that they are not the worst off and their is someone lower than them, this makes a human feel superior and in charge of life which often is difficult
-It is difficult to step down from a superior position and move to an inferior position to help another
-I am not making these points as a generialization in every situation, but there are natural thoughts in everyone's minds of fear of being misaccepted or outcasted for helping another in their quest for acceptance
-Okay so my main point is that there is an inherent desire for acceptance engrained in every human being, which creates a hesitance to help others in their quest for acceptance
I don't think it is a selfish way of people, but I think it is out of fear. Fear of their need being demolished, which I don't think it is selfish, it could be considered selfish by some but that isn't what I am arguing, but there is a fear/hesitance installed in human beings with the desire of acceptance, they correlate (arguement point thing we used today) in that with such a strong desire the fear of not fufilling this desire stalls our compassion for others in their quest for acceptance. so since the desire is so strong with it being so difficult to achieve we make it difficult for others to achieve acceptance to, it is like a never-ending cycle that is hard to break.

8th Entry

Many different forms of acceptance are apparent, but the one I generally focus on is from human acceptance. I hust have this strong feeling from the pain I have experienced, and the pain others have had around me due to feelings of loneliness. The tears cried from lack of acceptance, the loneliness contrived from not being accepted. I know it seems like a girl thing, the major part of high school for teenage girls but everyone experiences this, people of all age, gender, and back ground. There is still a longing for adults for acceptance and compainionship. Compainionship and acceptance go hand in hand, acceptance can be achieved through compainionship. You wonder why all those older women read those trashy romance novels, or the ones about the trials of friendship or sisterhood. I mean I've read the back covers of some of my mom's novels and definetely see a reoccuring theme. Then there are those romance novels for teens that makes billions of dollars, definetely not by coincidence or chance. These writers tap into this drive of human nature that we cannot ignore. There is a demand for novels with the drive for human nature fufilled, an ideal or fantasy fulfilled is what human beings want to read because it coincides to real life. Humans are driven by the ideal of acceptance, but then I find myself questioning this once again. If acceptance is so important to human beings, why do human beings make it so difficult for others to find some form of acceptance? I still find myself asking why, why do we want something so bad and we know how bad we want it (the longing we have for it) but often times we make it difficult for others to reach it. There are a select few in the world that hlp others, but you can never avoid the thoughts in your head saying what a loser or I'm glad I'm not them. Maybe what someone like Mother Theresea doesn't have those exact thoughts, but she must have had at least one similair thought in her whole entire life. You can't escape those thoughts, which makes it a natural inclination. But why is it a natural inclination, why do we do this to others. Human beings are social by nature, and thrive for human interaction but I think it makes someone feel superior in that the fact that they are inferior (that there is someone less than us in comparison). The struggle we have to endure when searching for acceptance leaves us with feelings we can't ignore. The scars are definetely deep within us, never going to disappear and leave us the way we were before we experienced from lack of acceptance. I'm trying to search for those perfect words to explain why we make it so difficult for others in our and their quest for acceptance, but I think I'm almost there, just more thinking and blogging will help me with my thesis.

7th Entry

Thinking about Lord of the Flies; it seems like there are a lot of examples of desire of acceptance (like every person wanted to on the strong side filled with acceptance):
-Samneric: perfect examples of acceptance (the combination of their names; one of them for the other that they can easily identify with; never feel alone (no sense of individuality; conform to the side that offers acceptance)) They are two boys that found their ideal form of acceptance in another, and then how they are practically bought into joining the Jack's tribe with little hesitance shows the nature of human beings in allowing them to go down the path of easier acceptance that society would frown upon.
I like gasped when I started thinking about Samneric, I couldn't demonstrate a better example of a person with acceptance, a person that latches onto other and becomes so close that they never have to worry about not being accepted. I mean they only have one name, it's like Golding made it physically impossible for one of them to be identified, and then they enter Jack's tribe after being a part of Ralph's. They give Ralph advice but they don't actually help him with acceptance, stand up to the rest of the crowd that doesn't accept Ralph. Human nature of making it difficult for others to become accepted after being accepted and sitting in a comfortable place. It's weird because I wasn't really thinking about Lord of the Flies, and when I did I was thinking more of Piggy or Simon (even Ralph and Jack) and all the others, but then the idea of Samneric fell on my lap and I can point out all my main points in their actions throughout the novel. I just need to find some more philosophy to back up my point.

"She Like's Me For Me" Entry

I feel in love with the lyrics of these songs, when he says "what she sees/are my most rending desisions/my insecure conditions/and the tears upon the pillow that i shed," I just flipped. The conditions we try to hide from people like him being indecisive, insecure, and a cryer are just so restraining sometimes. But then acceptance comes into play when he says that she sees this but still likes him, the fact that she likes him for him (with emphasis) just perfects my feeling that humans strive for acceptance for themselves, for their perfections and imperfections. That they are loved for what they view as their bad qualities as much as their good ones. Then the feeling he gets because she likes him for him (" but what she sees/is that i cant live with out her/my arms belong arround her/and im so glad i found her once again/i found her once again/once again/yeah im so glad i found her once again.") is so overwhelming that he says it like 5 times. This is what human beings want, need, and strive for. Having it somewhere where these guys can sing about just signifies the importance. We want someone to accept us by understanding our idiosyncrasies and still love us even after discovering them. I mean there are like a million other songs out there that have a similair message, but this one just hit me like a brick wall. The simple phrase of she likes me for me just puts it in such relatable and understandable terms that any human being can relate to. Nobody really wants to hide themselves, they may do it because of that strong penchant towards acceptance (my main point), but to be able to be accepted for our true selves is ideal (what human beings stive for). There is definetely people that push for acceptance through negative terms, and this point can't be ignored. I believe human beings are born innocent, are naturally good but through their journey in life, humans can often take a detour down a path frowned upon in society, because human beings often have a strong inclination to enter an easier path which is often "evil," but they do because of their desire for acceptance and the easier it is to reach it the more likely they are going to go down that path. An easy path of acceptance, like drugs, sex, and violence overcomes human beings and the strive for acceptance pushes people down this path. I feel like I better understand what I am arguing right now, but I have so much thinking to do.