Generating Writing
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Text Published:
Walking takes a person to places and to people
A poet said that “no man is an island” (John Donne). Such words fits real life. Human connection is a basic need for a road to a healthy, happy and meaningful life. Life presents many opportunities to anyone exercise human connection. Unfortunately, many modern ways of living might distance people one from another. One example is owning and making use of a car for transportation. Today it is almost impossible to get out of one’s house, get life going on, and have no opportunity do talk and interac with another living soul between beginning and ending the driving. When people walk while taking care of life’s necessitites, there are plenty of opportunities to connect with people, unless someone chooses to do so. That’s why walking takes you to places and to people.
I love to walk but it has not always being like this. I don’t necessarily walk to exercise; most of the time I move around on foot in order to take care of life. First, I had to learn. Without a choice, I had to walk to do things because I didn’t have a car nor money to use public transportation. Latter on in life, I learned by choice, and it has been so far. I was born in a very small village and we seldom had to venture beyong our everyday social and geographical environment. My social and geographical environment has expanded a lot, thanks to walking, too. Today, I move quite a lot and travel a great deal. I came to love walking so much that it became part of my life, part of my identity. Besides doing some exercise, I meet people, talk to them, teach them and learn from them - including strangers – ... and save some Money, the least importante aspect about walking. Let’s see.
A city of aproximately 800 thousand inhabitants is my current place. My work requires me to do some errands every day: go to different kinds of places in the neighborhood, mainly, and visit people. I can go by car – there is one provided by the company– or I can take a taxi – which the company pays for -. Said that, I prefer to walk or even take a bus. The same happens outside the work place, when I need or want to visit people, or to go the bakery, for instance. Although having a car myself, I prefer to do it on foot as much as possible. But why not take advantage of such a facility in life?
Many wonderful opportunities happens when I walk, like talking to people and seeing new things, many of them impossible from inside a car or a taxi. The pleasure is real withou being a novelty for me. Since my “small village days”, I had lived in many different places around the world: small, medium size and big places. In all of them I had given these wonderful opportunities to be open to whatever life presents. The necessity to walk by lack of money is gone; the necessity to walk in order to connect with people remains.
This walking behavior has been a good teacher to me and a great value in my life. Curiosity for living in abundance and search for oneself and the most profound meaning of the very living has been the tools in helping create my identity. I love to start conversation with strangers. There is so much to teach, and a grater deal more to learn. It’s “contagious”. It can start with a simple and fast “good morning”. The good we do to others is replicate beyhond. Well, it is not necessarily like this, but goodness happens, and it is better the good than the bad. The outcome results from meeting and knowing new people, having real connections with them, learn and teach, are real, materially and espiritually speaking.
Persons are more valuable than things. Or should be. Connecting with people is what life is all about. I try to put in practice that atitudes are more importante than beliefs. I do value my behavior and culture identify. Unfortunatelly, such behavior is not well considered among all my peers and in the country where I live – Brazil. There is a huge social pressure on having material things in order to express one’s “good” identity. Like having a car, for example. Owning a car can be a big show off, “proving” status and style. Generally speaking, I am well accepted among the people I work and live with, except when it comes to my conception about the value of a car. I do have one and I am usually critisized about not using it much. They reason that I am not a poor person anymore. They don’t understand that my whole identity is not about “having”.
Simplicity and connectiviness with people marks me as a peson. Walking and thaking public transportation are among the best oportunities life gives me to be with real and new people. The words my group and my community uses to refer to me are: connection, communion, participation, curiosity, passion por people ... and degradation. They still believe that I don’t value myself enough by being "so" simple a person. No mistake here: I do have a good life, I do by expensives things and so on.
I believe my outward appearance reflects well my identity. I am a member of a number of communities, not all completely integrated one with another: work, family, social, church, among the most importante ones. My identity within these communities can add to or be in contrast, depending the subject considered- our religious affiliations may influence our political views; our hobbies might interfere with our work; etc. The identities I privilege or feel are most central to me is to respect the other person, whomever they might be.
I recommend a especific vídeo. In my opinion, it shows what makes sense in life, a subject which is relevant to me and matches my identity, “because kindness keeps the world afloat”, and helping others is what life is all about: The video can be found here, at YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePWUeVWy3Sw
Twice I traveled to Europe, thirty three days in the first trip and two months in the second. Two years passed between both trips, when I traveled with belongs that fit in a medium size backpack. It was the first experience of my life as a "backpack traveler". I was over 50 years old and deepened my cultural “thing”: how to let things go, how to intensify meeting new people and making sense of such every bit of life. What was different from my previous vacation is that the majority of people I found in the hostels had the same attitude as mine: to meet people, talk to them, exchange experiences and live a simple life, by choice. And I walked. Boy, how I walked those three months.
Birth is certain (I am alive); death is another sure reality (I will die). So far, no choices, unless we consider what happens between those extremes. Life is a road and every step counts. Today is the day, here is the place, now is the time. As I saw on the movie “The Way”, life is more than exercising a choice; it is living one.
A poet said that “no man is an island” (John Donne). Such words fits real life. Human connection is a basic need for a road to a healthy, happy and meaningful life. Life presents many opportunities to anyone exercise human connection. Unfortunately, many modern ways of living might distance people one from another. One example is owning and making use of a car for transportation. Today it is almost impossible to get out of one’s house, get life going on, and have no opportunity do talk and interac with another living soul between beginning and ending the driving. When people walk while taking care of life’s necessitites, there are plenty of opportunities to connect with people, unless someone chooses to do so. That’s why walking takes you to places and to people.
I love to walk but it has not always being like this. I don’t necessarily walk to exercise; most of the time I move around on foot in order to take care of life. First, I had to learn. Without a choice, I had to walk to do things because I didn’t have a car nor money to use public transportation. Latter on in life, I learned by choice, and it has been so far. I was born in a very small village and we seldom had to venture beyong our everyday social and geographical environment. My social and geographical environment has expanded a lot, thanks to walking, too. Today, I move quite a lot and travel a great deal. I came to love walking so much that it became part of my life, part of my identity. Besides doing some exercise, I meet people, talk to them, teach them and learn from them - including strangers – ... and save some Money, the least importante aspect about walking. Let’s see.
A city of aproximately 800 thousand inhabitants is my current place. My work requires me to do some errands every day: go to different kinds of places in the neighborhood, mainly, and visit people. I can go by car – there is one provided by the company– or I can take a taxi – which the company pays for -. Said that, I prefer to walk or even take a bus. The same happens outside the work place, when I need or want to visit people, or to go the bakery, for instance. Although having a car myself, I prefer to do it on foot as much as possible. But why not take advantage of such a facility in life?
Many wonderful opportunities happens when I walk, like talking to people and seeing new things, many of them impossible from inside a car or a taxi. The pleasure is real withou being a novelty for me. Since my “small village days”, I had lived in many different places around the world: small, medium size and big places. In all of them I had given these wonderful opportunities to be open to whatever life presents. The necessity to walk by lack of money is gone; the necessity to walk in order to connect with people remains.
This walking behavior has been a good teacher to me and a great value in my life. Curiosity for living in abundance and search for oneself and the most profound meaning of the very living has been the tools in helping create my identity. I love to start conversation with strangers. There is so much to teach, and a grater deal more to learn. It’s “contagious”. It can start with a simple and fast “good morning”. The good we do to others is replicate beyhond. Well, it is not necessarily like this, but goodness happens, and it is better the good than the bad. The outcome results from meeting and knowing new people, having real connections with them, learn and teach, are real, materially and espiritually speaking.
Persons are more valuable than things. Or should be. Connecting with people is what life is all about. I try to put in practice that atitudes are more importante than beliefs. I do value my behavior and culture identify. Unfortunatelly, such behavior is not well considered among all my peers and in the country where I live – Brazil. There is a huge social pressure on having material things in order to express one’s “good” identity. Like having a car, for example. Owning a car can be a big show off, “proving” status and style. Generally speaking, I am well accepted among the people I work and live with, except when it comes to my conception about the value of a car. I do have one and I am usually critisized about not using it much. They reason that I am not a poor person anymore. They don’t understand that my whole identity is not about “having”.
Simplicity and connectiviness with people marks me as a peson. Walking and thaking public transportation are among the best oportunities life gives me to be with real and new people. The words my group and my community uses to refer to me are: connection, communion, participation, curiosity, passion por people ... and degradation. They still believe that I don’t value myself enough by being "so" simple a person. No mistake here: I do have a good life, I do by expensives things and so on.
I believe my outward appearance reflects well my identity. I am a member of a number of communities, not all completely integrated one with another: work, family, social, church, among the most importante ones. My identity within these communities can add to or be in contrast, depending the subject considered- our religious affiliations may influence our political views; our hobbies might interfere with our work; etc. The identities I privilege or feel are most central to me is to respect the other person, whomever they might be.
I recommend a especific vídeo. In my opinion, it shows what makes sense in life, a subject which is relevant to me and matches my identity, “because kindness keeps the world afloat”, and helping others is what life is all about: The video can be found here, at YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePWUeVWy3Sw
Twice I traveled to Europe, thirty three days in the first trip and two months in the second. Two years passed between both trips, when I traveled with belongs that fit in a medium size backpack. It was the first experience of my life as a "backpack traveler". I was over 50 years old and deepened my cultural “thing”: how to let things go, how to intensify meeting new people and making sense of such every bit of life. What was different from my previous vacation is that the majority of people I found in the hostels had the same attitude as mine: to meet people, talk to them, exchange experiences and live a simple life, by choice. And I walked. Boy, how I walked those three months.
Birth is certain (I am alive); death is another sure reality (I will die). So far, no choices, unless we consider what happens between those extremes. Life is a road and every step counts. Today is the day, here is the place, now is the time. As I saw on the movie “The Way”, life is more than exercising a choice; it is living one.
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Draft:
Walking take you to people and places
I love to walk. Not necessarily walk to exercise, but walk to do the errands on a regular day. I first learned to walk to do things by necessity, and then by choice. The learning came from the necessity to walk because I didn't have money to take taxis or, sometimes, not even to use public transportation. I am talking about walking short to médium distances, something that would take from 20 minutes to 1 hour on a regular passed walking. Today, even though I have a car and money to take a taxi, I still love to walk to do the errands. I love it so much that it became part of my life and part of my identity. By walking or taking a bus I meet people, talk to them - including strangers – and I do some exercising.
The process started, as I already said, by necessity, due to lack of Money. Today, my job requires me to go top laces almost every day: to a store, to the supermarket, and many other places in town. I can go by car, I can take a taxi, but I prefer to walk or even take a bus. When I need to visit my sister or some friends, or to go the bakery, I prefer do it on foot. It is such a pleasure to walk and make life goes on.
Today I walk in Ribeirão Preto downtonw, where I work and live. It is a city with 750 thousand people living in it. When I was young the process starded in the small village where I grew up and since then, having lived in many different places, I have the experience of walking to do errands and visit people from small to very bif cities.
This walking activity has been a goos teacher to me. Necessity in life, curiosity for live in abundance and search for oneself has been the tools in helping create my identity in this dimension of my life. Besides my feet, my tongue has being a great teacher. I love to start conversation with strangers. Always using a car makes me looses many oportunities to meet and talk to people. And I am a good listener, too.
The outcome results in meeting and knowing people, having real connections with them, learn new things with real lives who strugle for survive, both materialisticaly and spiritualiticatly speaking. I had wonderful conversations with people, and was able to help them, learn from them and teach what I know, besides learning more deeply what life is all about.
I value people more than things, atitudes more than beliefs, and behaviors and culture(s) identify. People are more important than things, and by walking and tanking public transportation connects me to them with a good frequency.
This behavior of mine, this identity, is not well consider among my peers and the country I live – Brazil. Here they value having a car, and car is a big show off, demonstranting your status and your style. I am well accepted among the people I know, but when it comes this identity of me, I am usually critisized. A am a person who loves other persons, whomever they might be, poor or rich, uneducated or educated.
What marks me is my simplicity and connectiviness and the words which my group or/and my community sees in me is: connection, communion, participation, curiosity, passion por people, but dummy when it comes to taking pleasures in using material things, and walk or take a bus is more suffering than a pleasure, according to mosto f them. But they reflect a common knowledge and cultural aspect of our society.
I believe my outward appearance reflects well my identity. I am a member of a number of communities – work, family, social, church, among the most importante. My identity within these communities can compliment or contradict one another - our religious affiliations may influence our political stances, or our hobbies might interfere with our work, for example. The identities I privilege or feel are most central to me is to respect the other person. The religious people I interact with are the ones that have more afinity with me because they value simplicity and people more than the value material things.
This vídeo, in my opinion, is what makes sense in life, tha subject is relevant to me and it goes with my identity, “because kindness keeps the world afloat”, and helping others is what life is all about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePWUeVWy3Sw
When I traveled to Europe for two months with only a medium size backpack, I encountered a new cultural experience: how to let thing go, how to intensify meeting new people and making sense of the meeting. Staying in hostels helped me to see, experience, live, in a more profound way, that there are many people who loves to meet people and live a simple life.
On the other hand, when I started this new job, I encountered a cultural tradition, value, and ritual, that is very different from my identity: they value having material things, expensive matiral things, having and using a car, and things like that. In the beginning this limited my participation with them. They still say that I am not a poor person anymore, and because of that I should use car instead of walking or use public transportation. They still believe that I don’t value myself enough by being simple.
One, when I was driving, I saw a old man and who I suppose was his daughter, with a problem: flat tire. I was driving from work to my house. I worked as a painter and my clothes were durty and full of paint spots. I stopped and offered help. When I finish the work I was saying "goodbye" when the man offered me money. He said it was for the work I've done. I explained to him that I stopped to help and I didn't say anything about money, "my work" or stuff like that. He insisted on paying me and I refused, and had to insist in the refusal. He ended up not paying me because I didn't want to be paid because I stopped and offered my help, not my work. Well, it is cultural to accept money (even expect) in situations like this. Well, I don't agree with this becuase I do believe people should help each other no matter what.
I love to walk. Not necessarily walk to exercise, but walk to do the errands on a regular day. I first learned to walk to do things by necessity, and then by choice. The learning came from the necessity to walk because I didn't have money to take taxis or, sometimes, not even to use public transportation. I am talking about walking short to médium distances, something that would take from 20 minutes to 1 hour on a regular passed walking. Today, even though I have a car and money to take a taxi, I still love to walk to do the errands. I love it so much that it became part of my life and part of my identity. By walking or taking a bus I meet people, talk to them - including strangers – and I do some exercising.
The process started, as I already said, by necessity, due to lack of Money. Today, my job requires me to go top laces almost every day: to a store, to the supermarket, and many other places in town. I can go by car, I can take a taxi, but I prefer to walk or even take a bus. When I need to visit my sister or some friends, or to go the bakery, I prefer do it on foot. It is such a pleasure to walk and make life goes on.
Today I walk in Ribeirão Preto downtonw, where I work and live. It is a city with 750 thousand people living in it. When I was young the process starded in the small village where I grew up and since then, having lived in many different places, I have the experience of walking to do errands and visit people from small to very bif cities.
This walking activity has been a goos teacher to me. Necessity in life, curiosity for live in abundance and search for oneself has been the tools in helping create my identity in this dimension of my life. Besides my feet, my tongue has being a great teacher. I love to start conversation with strangers. Always using a car makes me looses many oportunities to meet and talk to people. And I am a good listener, too.
The outcome results in meeting and knowing people, having real connections with them, learn new things with real lives who strugle for survive, both materialisticaly and spiritualiticatly speaking. I had wonderful conversations with people, and was able to help them, learn from them and teach what I know, besides learning more deeply what life is all about.
I value people more than things, atitudes more than beliefs, and behaviors and culture(s) identify. People are more important than things, and by walking and tanking public transportation connects me to them with a good frequency.
This behavior of mine, this identity, is not well consider among my peers and the country I live – Brazil. Here they value having a car, and car is a big show off, demonstranting your status and your style. I am well accepted among the people I know, but when it comes this identity of me, I am usually critisized. A am a person who loves other persons, whomever they might be, poor or rich, uneducated or educated.
What marks me is my simplicity and connectiviness and the words which my group or/and my community sees in me is: connection, communion, participation, curiosity, passion por people, but dummy when it comes to taking pleasures in using material things, and walk or take a bus is more suffering than a pleasure, according to mosto f them. But they reflect a common knowledge and cultural aspect of our society.
I believe my outward appearance reflects well my identity. I am a member of a number of communities – work, family, social, church, among the most importante. My identity within these communities can compliment or contradict one another - our religious affiliations may influence our political stances, or our hobbies might interfere with our work, for example. The identities I privilege or feel are most central to me is to respect the other person. The religious people I interact with are the ones that have more afinity with me because they value simplicity and people more than the value material things.
This vídeo, in my opinion, is what makes sense in life, tha subject is relevant to me and it goes with my identity, “because kindness keeps the world afloat”, and helping others is what life is all about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePWUeVWy3Sw
When I traveled to Europe for two months with only a medium size backpack, I encountered a new cultural experience: how to let thing go, how to intensify meeting new people and making sense of the meeting. Staying in hostels helped me to see, experience, live, in a more profound way, that there are many people who loves to meet people and live a simple life.
On the other hand, when I started this new job, I encountered a cultural tradition, value, and ritual, that is very different from my identity: they value having material things, expensive matiral things, having and using a car, and things like that. In the beginning this limited my participation with them. They still say that I am not a poor person anymore, and because of that I should use car instead of walking or use public transportation. They still believe that I don’t value myself enough by being simple.
One, when I was driving, I saw a old man and who I suppose was his daughter, with a problem: flat tire. I was driving from work to my house. I worked as a painter and my clothes were durty and full of paint spots. I stopped and offered help. When I finish the work I was saying "goodbye" when the man offered me money. He said it was for the work I've done. I explained to him that I stopped to help and I didn't say anything about money, "my work" or stuff like that. He insisted on paying me and I refused, and had to insist in the refusal. He ended up not paying me because I didn't want to be paid because I stopped and offered my help, not my work. Well, it is cultural to accept money (even expect) in situations like this. Well, I don't agree with this becuase I do believe people should help each other no matter what.
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Instructions:
OVERVIEW
As you have seen in our class, smaller pieces of writing can help us to sort through ideas, come to insights, and generally “write to learn.” One of the most valuable lessons a writer can learn is that no piece or portion of writing is wasted. Every time we write, we have the opportunity to learn and to use that learning in generative ways; in other words, each piece of writing we create can generate various sorts of materials that we can then use in other writing and thinking.
DESCRIPTION
In this Writer’s Journal, you will have the opportunity to produce some generative writing that will help you to think about, and possibly generate material for, Writing Project #1. To that end, please choose one (1) of the topics below to write on for this Writer’s Journal:
Describe a time when you learned to do something that relates to a common cultural practice. You might describe how you learned to prepare a cup of tea, or how you learned to play a game, or grow a tomato, or make a paper airplane.
What did you learn to do and how did you learn to do it? Why did you want or need to learn it? Describe the process. Where did your learning take place? Who was your teacher? What tools did you use? What has been the outcome of your learning? What more can you now do as a result of what you learned? How does what you learned relate to the values, beliefs, and behaviors of the culture(s) with which you identify?
Consider your identity as it is defined by your membership in a social group or community. How is your identity defined by your membership in that group or community? Which behaviors “mark” you as a member? What are the words and sayings that identify your group or community? How does your outward appearance reflect your identity?
We are all members of a number of communities, ones that arise from our work, education, religious practices, recreational activities, political affiliations, etc. Our identities within these communities can compliment or contradict one another--our religious affiliations may influence our political stances, or our hobbies might interfere with our work. Of the various communities to which you belong, which identities do you privilege or feel are most central to how you understand yourself? Why?
Find a song, video, poem, etc. that you feel is especially relevant or meaningful to your identity and explain why.
Describe a time when you encountered a new cultural experience, i.e. eating a new food for the first time, participating in a different holiday celebration, learning a new way to greet someone, etc.
Describe a time when a cultural tradition, value, ritual, etc. that is important to you limited your ability to participate in an activity or an event. Alternatively, describe when you had to explain a cultural tradition, value, ritual, etc. that is important to you to someone who had never experienced it before.
Be sure to be as detailed and thorough as possible, and use examples to help explain your response. Be sure to read over your response to be sure it says what you want it to say.
SUBMIT
Once you are satisfied with your response, then do the following:
1. Type or copy and paste this writer's journal into your portfolio. Click here to log into your Weebly Account
2. Type or copy and paste this writer's journal into the box provided below in the Self Assessment assignment.
DUE
This Writer's Journal is Due (3/28/2016 at 7:00am UTC). Once the due date has passed, you will no longer be able to submit this assignment. Please plan accordingly!
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Done!
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