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Thursday, June 17, 2010
Initial Response
The Giver's context of a perfect Utopian world, let me appreciate the current world that we live in where there is colour, love, happiness and other emotions which makes up the part and parcel of life. If life was always smooth sailing and everything was provided for, we wouldn't learn to provide for ourselves and appreciate life for what it really was. For example, towards the end of the book when Jonas was faced with difficulties like starvation and drought, he learned to appreciate the times when food and water was always provided for at every single meal. In the same way, I look at the difficulties in life as opportunities for us to grow and learn as people and is what makes us stronger everyday. Although they are painful at times as shown in the book, there are always the moments in life when we are happy and we learn to appreciate and enjoy those times even more. Living in a world of darkness like Jonas and his family, not knowing the true meaning of life honestly is a scary sight for me to imagine.
Another interesting part of the book which caught my attention was the idea of having a committee to decide your job as an adult. I believe that as long as someone sets their mind to something, nothing is impossible. Although as people we may be more suited for certain jobs, at the end of the day it is still our choice to make because its the basic respect that we can give to every individual in society. Through hard work, every individual will be able to accomplish that job. Furthermore if we never gave people the chance or opportunity to make a mistake, we will never ever learn in life because its from these mistakes that we learn and become wiser as people. This is something I myself can relate to, because right now I am striving very hard to become a lawyer which is something I may not be suited for. Therefore it is also the reason why I am working so hard in both academics and in my co-curricular activity to ensure that I can become a good lawyer when I become an adult. Although I may not be the best person for the job, I believe hard work makes up for everything thus every individual should be given this opportunity to choose what they want in life.
Overall, after reading this book, it really gave me quite a substantial number of things to ponder about, if whether I myself would have wanted to live in such a Utopian society. However at the end of the day after giving much thought to it, I appreciate the current world that we live in more than I ever have before.
Another interesting part of the book which caught my attention was the idea of having a committee to decide your job as an adult. I believe that as long as someone sets their mind to something, nothing is impossible. Although as people we may be more suited for certain jobs, at the end of the day it is still our choice to make because its the basic respect that we can give to every individual in society. Through hard work, every individual will be able to accomplish that job. Furthermore if we never gave people the chance or opportunity to make a mistake, we will never ever learn in life because its from these mistakes that we learn and become wiser as people. This is something I myself can relate to, because right now I am striving very hard to become a lawyer which is something I may not be suited for. Therefore it is also the reason why I am working so hard in both academics and in my co-curricular activity to ensure that I can become a good lawyer when I become an adult. Although I may not be the best person for the job, I believe hard work makes up for everything thus every individual should be given this opportunity to choose what they want in life.
Overall, after reading this book, it really gave me quite a substantial number of things to ponder about, if whether I myself would have wanted to live in such a Utopian society. However at the end of the day after giving much thought to it, I appreciate the current world that we live in more than I ever have before.