zerotohero

Towards the end of this quarter, I would like to dedicate this blog to all the wonderful things I learnt, and how I gained different perspectives in my English class. Since the theme of the class was to define a hero, we went on to summarise all our viewpoints and define a hero as someone who works for the benefits of others irrespective of the hurdles and does not stray away from doing the right thing.

As the course advanced, I realised that a hero could be an ordinary person and need not be idolised or framed to be a specific set of people such as Batman, Superman or Spiderman. I analysed the hero’s journey cycle in my previous blogs where I stated that the journey cycle is a theory that cannot be implemented to every person and that this theory contradicts my belief and claim that everyone is a hero.

 

On delving deeper into the subject, we went on to analysing villains. Many people believed that heroes are the supreme power. I would like to argue that villains also hold tremendous amounts of power, as much as the hero does. I also believe that villains are extremely strong, intelligent, competent, and courageous as they have the guts to face the hero and I believe that a hero is what he is only because of the villain. The hero is able to fight the villain only because he is able to put himself in that position and think like a villain and destroy that thinking.

We discussed various aspects of heroes in The Hunger Games, and also made a lot of claims on who should be categorised as a hero. We also came across various viewpoints about veterans, firefighters, famous celebrities etc. as heroes. So as a conclusion to all these perspectives, I would like to say that I believe a hero is a someone who strives to do what he believes is right, and works hard for the betterment of the people around him, irrespective of the hardships he faces. A hero is determined, focused, and can differentiate between right and wrong and even the smallest spec in this world works towards its goal in life which makes it a hero. Life is like a huge stage and everyone is the hero in their own play. It is up to the audience how they perceive this play.

Pangolins are mammals that are found in various parts of Asia and Africa. These mammals have protective scales made of keratin that has made them one of the most trafficked mammals in the world. An estimated 116,990 – 233,980 pangolins are trafficked every year. United Nations and the IUCN red list, world’s most comprehensive list of endangered species, have added all eight species of pangolins in their ‘critically endangered’ list. National Geographic has released its biggest awareness campaign where they released a video titled, “world’s weirdest species that have been endangered.”

We as college students and responsible citizens of the world grabbed the opportunity to raise an awareness campaign all over our campus in a hope that some person would get to know, by word of mouth, about this trafficking and would stand up against this illegal abuse of the pangolin. As a part of our research, we realised that Pokemon, the famous cartoon TV series, was among the first TV shows to raise awareness about the pangolin. They named the pangolin inspired Pokemon as Sandshrew whose evolved form was called Sandlash. In the series, there was a show dedicated to this Pokemon where Team Rocket, the villains in the show, keep a huge Sandlash hostage in their den where they planned to “torture and use the Pokemon as their slave.” Towards the end, Sandlash fought Team Rocket and escaped their treachery that symbolized the pangolin’s victory over illegal trafficking.

Once we realised this, we decided to use our knowledge of technology and raise awareness to people in and around our area by creating a Snapchat story and by printing out the old 90s Pokemon and adding its snaps to Snapchat and putting them all over the campus. We will continue doing this all over the week and we aim to induce the picture of this cute little mammal into our fellow college mates and also sensitise this issue of its illegal trafficking. Surprisingly, we have been getting a lot of positive responses from people all over the campus and it is overwhelming to see that there are people who do really care about the environment and the creatures on this planet.

More on Pangolins and its trafficking:

http://www.latimes.com/world/global-development/la-fg-global-pangolins-vanishing-snap-story.html

https://www.nrdc.org/experts/elly-pepper/world-bans-international-commercial-trade-pangolins

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/04/opinion/sutter-change-the-list-pangolin-trafficking/

https://qz.com/170554/demand-for-traditional-chinese-medicine-is-killing-off-the-worlds-quirkiest-animal/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/15/pangolins-13-facts-about-the-worlds-most-hunted-animal/

The Internet has opened up a plethora of knowledge and information that we could gather. Because of the developing technology, we are able to view every single event sitting in any corner of the world. But as it is said, “with great knowledge comes great responsibility,” we seem to have forgotten our responsibilities towards the community and towards the people around us. In olden days, there used to be sections in the newspaper that were set aside just for the critics would put forth their views. With the advent of internet, all of us have turned into critics. Being a critic is also an art. One must realize that healthy criticism is always accepted and right. But racial criticism is something that is unacceptable as it not only changes a lot of people’s perspective in the wrong way but also opens up a huge discussion where people worldwide could discriminate and pass racial slurs.

The article ‘Racist Hunger Games Fans Are Very Disappointed’, speaks about how the fans disapprove of the characters who played Rue, Thresh, and Cinna only because of their skin colour. There was a similar article where racist fans lashed out at an artist who drew a picture of the harry potter cast with Hermoine as a black girl. These articles prove how narrowminded we tend to get. Instead of appreciating the actors’ hard work, we have now become critics who look at the most irrelevant issue and point it out on a public platform where more and more people could talk about flaws more than the positivity. As days progress, we as humans should develop some civic sense and not be so narrow-minded. Instead, we are just making the world a horrible place where a lady isn’t safe, where a person with black or brown colour skin will be treated as inferior, and where judicial laws do not even listen to such “inferiors.” How does this make the world a better place? Instead of being responsible enough, people choose to aggravate such topics by writing and sharing the racial slurs even more. And it is sad to say that not only have we failed as critics, but we have also dropped our standards to be called humans.

Articles:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/28/showbiz/movies/hunger-games-black-actors/index.html

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/harry-potter-hermione-racists-artist_us_59c258fee4b0f22c4a8de570

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/entertainthis/2016/06/06/jk-rowling-slams-bunch-racists-against-black-hermione/85499252/

Chapter ten of They Say/I Say, describes the ways of incorporating metacommentary into our writing styles. Most of us unknowingly use metacommentary on a regular basis. It is basically a sentence that explains and guides the readers through the author’s claim. When readers misinterpret the writer’s message, it becomes essential to use metacommentary to guide readers through the thinking process involved to understand the author’s claim. The book uses a lot of different styles and templates to explain this. “What I meant to say was _________,” “My point was not ____, but ______.” are some of the very common uses of metacommentary that can be used to enhance the clarity of our writing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

From this chapter, I clearly understand the importance of incorporating metacommentary in our writing styles. No matter how clearly an author writes, every person has a different perspective and different experience to relate to one single claim. In such scenarios, it becomes very important for the author to mention what he/she wants the user to interpret. In my opinion, the most precise and thought-provoking writers are the ones that create a multi-dimensional opinion. These multi-dimensional perceptions create a lot of ambiguity and reduce the essence of the author’s message.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although this is a different point of view, in my opinion, metacommentary also helps enhance a claim of the author. It helps the reader stay focused on what the author wants to convey and allows the reader to think on the same terms as the author. I personally feel that this form of writing could also act as an emphasis on a topic and the main thesis. Though it is mainly used to prove the author’s point, it can help generate the main topic and tie up various viewpoints that culminate to the main focus of the topic. So as a conclusion, what I mean to point out is that, we as authors, must try to incorporate metacommentary templates in our writing and not stray away from guiding our readers and making a clear point.

 

The ‘Craft of Research’ is a comprehensive tool and the bible for every researcher who wishes to publish a robust yet crisp paper. It gives an detailed insight on how researchers or students should go about writing, editing, revising papers. Chapter 13 of the craft of research focuses on the importance and tips for essay revision, organisation and structure. Although as a student I had my own methods of revising essays, the professional way of writing is very different from high school writing.

The venn diagram below represents the clear difference between revising and editing. The craft of research altered my methods from being very random to actually creating a proper analysis.

The various tips that I gathered from this Chapter surely helped me revise a lot of essays and papers. The chapter focuses on viewing the essay from a readers perspective which is when I realised the importance of being clear enough while trying to explain things on an essay. It becomes necessary to proofread as a third person as it helps develop an idea as to how one might perceive the essay and whether or not the message is being portrayed clearly.

After completely going through this section of the book I came up with a exhaustive set of methods I could follow for revising and editing my essays.

1. Know what is to be delivered to the reader. Is the claim clear, are the evidences convincing, is the text self-explanatory or does it raise questions ?
2. Understand the prompt before getting into anything.
3. Instead of randomly stating thoughts, divide the essay into a structure where different thoughts can be segregated and added on.
4. Remember to link claims with the argument and keep reminding the reader what he should expect. Support argument with facts and evidences.
5. Make sure that the ‘so what’ factor is clear and exciting enough for the reader maintain an interest to continue reading.
6. Keep shifting paragraphs around in a systematic way so as to make the flow of the essay clear.
7. Lastly, remember to link the conclusion of the essay with the main claim and convince the reader to choose his stand on the topic.

All these methods, in my opinion, when put together surely make a well rounded essay.

Every writing portrays heroes as the “good guy” and the villain as “the evil guy who is completely tearing apart the entire universe.” In the episode of “advanced dungeons and dragons”, the tables completely turn around when the hero discovers that the villain is actually good and doesn’t mean any harm.

Although everyone takes the hero too seriously, a hero isn’t a hero without a villain. The villain brings out the best in the hero. Every single power of the hero is challenged when the villain ruins the hero’s plans and causes mass disruption. There are several movies and book series that have turned around the plot by revealing the goodness of a villain. Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series, for example. It took JK Rowling 7 books to ultimately reveal that every single evil and suspicious step that Snape pursued was just a way to save Harry from “you know who.”

Another wonderful example of a villain portrayed in a different light is from the movie “Thor: the Dark World.” Loki, who was always Thor’s jealous brother, ultimately reveals his soft side by rescuing Jane and giving up his life for Thor. Though his death is unclear, he did indeed turn out to be transformed.

From previous discussions about the journey of a hero, I would like to cite a fact that we all tend to ignore. Although the hero has an adventurous side, a motto, and other qualities that make him the star, a villain is also intelligent, competent and daring enough to fight someone as tough as a “hero.” Every hero has a villain inside him which is one main reason he is able to fight the villain, which is why I would end this argument by quoting one of my favourite sayings by the Joker, “we stopped checking for monsters under our bed when we realised they were inside us.”

Is the term ‘hero’ cliched ?

What is the journey of a hero ? Are they extraordinary people doing different things or are they ordinary people doing the same work daily? In my view, they could be anyone of us. Most of the comic and hero based movies are very predictable. The main characters are just regular people who had a group of people who were a little less capable than them and they, together fought one single villain and the main character turned into a hero. Is this what heroism is all about ? I don’t think so. The hero journey cycle is a theory that, to me, cannot be implemented in our regular life. To begin with, most heroes in this real world are people who faced massive hardships and overcame those difficulties to succeed in their field. They did definitely had a call to action and they most certainly faced failures in their road to success. But all those are the qualities that made them heroes. Name any person who is successful or famous. They all have one thing in common, they were very ordinary people who dared to dream.

Every ordinary man is a hero. Cliched heroes are good but they cannot be role models in real life. Life is way more difficult than having a bat mobile and expensive gadgets (like iron man) and saving cities from alien invasions. True heroes are the ones who do not stick to any such stereotypical theories like “the hero’s journey.” They are the ones who don’t wish to fit into any mould and are their own self irrespective of how people categorise them.

 

Soldiers have created their mark as the flag bearers of heroism. Are they really heroes? My answer to that is yes, and no. It is true that soldiers are a perfect example of the phrase “men of steel”, but symbolizing them as heroes for just their job as soldiers is mere injustice to a lot of others soldiers who make bigger sacrifices for their country. Pat Tillerson, for instance, did not go on to sacrifice his life for his country. Instead, he faced a tragic death in a war that he did not believe was even right. Politics might have covered up his death story but that does not make him a hero.

An example that I would like use as a comparison is the life of Captain Vikram Batra. Capt. Batra is known as the hero of Kargil War. He was one of the key members of the Indian National Army who led one of the toughest operations during the Kargil war in 1999. During the mission Batra was seriously injured but still managed to kill enemy soldiers in solo combats. He was a part of one of the most difficult missions that the Indian army attempted as the Pakistani forces were placed on a peak that was 16,000 ft high. He handled the mission all by himself and shooed away people with families so that they could return back home safely.

Pat Tillerson and Capt. Batra were both serving the nation but their stories were entirely different. So, to answer the question I asked before, I would say that soldiers are definitely courageous for the massive amount of sacrifices in their lives but whether or not they can be symbols of heroic activity should be carefully looked into before generalizing the term.

 

People have many ways of describing their heroes. Every human is born different and everyone has a definite purpose in life. after coming across the quote, “People make choices to be good or bad. Their race religion, nationality doesn’t matter” from the passage in Heroes who they are and what they do, I began contemplating on how true and relevant this quote is in today’s fast paced world.

In today’s ever changing world, people want to turn into heroes overnight. So who really are heroes ? What do they do ? To me, every spec in this fascinating world is a hero. A tiny ant is a hero as it lifts humungous pieces of sugar and works relentlessly its entire lifetime. A cleaner who cleans glass windows by hanging outside a skyscraper is a hero because he risks his life every single day which we would otherwise not do. There are many heroes around us. It is just up to us whether or not we choose to look at them.

My hero is our spiritual master, Sri Sathya Sai Baba, or ‘Swami’, as we call him. The reason why I chose to write about Swami is that his work and contributions to people globally resonates with the teaching that Irena Sendler’s father gave her. Swami’s mission believes that access to high quality, free healthcare, education, and food is a fundamental right of every human being and to this end the Global Sathya Sai Organisation provides access to these facilities irrespective of race, religion, and nationality. He has followers globally and I find myself extremely inspired by him to give back to the society we live in. People may or may not recognise him but to me he is my superhero.

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