Vulnerability

    In her Ted Talk, Brené Brown covered a wide range of pertinent and significant subjects, many of which center around vulnerability. What is a vulnerable state? As Brené stated in her Ted Talk, vulnerability is what makes people fall short of perfection. Ironically, a person's vulnerability really makes them the most flawless person ever. Without accepting your weaknesses, you will never be a complete person, or as she put it, "wholehearted." During her research, Brené spoke to a few people she thought were wholehearted, and she realized that the only thing they all had in common was the courage to talk about their weaknesses and not hide them, the courage to be imperfect. 

    This leads her to her second argument, which is the importance of self-love and compassion since we are unable to show compassion for others if we do not first have compassion for ourselves. People frequently try to conceal their weaknesses and avoid talking about them because they believe doing so will make them feel worse. The most crucial point, in my opinion, is when Brené discusses how vulnerability may trap us in a risky loop. There is no option for people to decide the feelings they wish to numb. When someone attempts to suppress their positive emotions—happiness, joy, love, etc.—they unavoidably suppress their positive emotions as well, such as vulnerability, fear, disappointment, and humiliation. Therefore, they end up living a miserable life and that makes them vulnerable again, and the cycle starts again. This is very true because a person is never complete unless they accept their mistakes or problems, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities, them not acknowledging and accepting their negatives they will never be fully happy in life. 

    Breaking down the walls that have been so strongly erected between you and your emotions requires being completely open to expressing and experiencing your emotions. Vulnerability is expressing yourself openly about something you care so deeply about, even when doing so might result in criticism or retaliation. In order to be considered human, one must first admit that one is imperfect. Recognizing your imperfections is what makes you human. What defines us as humans are the aspects of ourselves that we are not proud of, the aspects of ourselves that make us feel frail or vulnerable. They make it possible for us to empathize with other people and form stronger connections with those we interact with. They also motivate us to want to assist other people and to establish a personal connection with the people we assist. We are all susceptible to these weaknesses, and we are unique and essential in the world because of these flaws.

The Danger of Neutrality

Those who stay neutral are arguably worse than the oppressors they turn a blind eye to. It was Italian poet, Dante Alighieri who first said,  "The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis." The idea of neutrality being viewed with a negative connotation has been in circulation for decades now, as early as the 14th century, but why is that? Surely those who choose to stay impartial cannot be viewed as immoral as the oppressors and murderers, but Anna Baltzer seems to digress. 

Anna Baltzer is a Jewish-American public speaker and orator who grew up with a Zionist mindset amidst her Jewish grandmother, listening to the horrifying stories of Nazi Europe and how her grandmother was one of the lucky few that survived such a dark period in time. Anna's upbringing was no different from any other Jewish kid's childhood. Anna believed in the Jewish state of Israel because of the generational trauma that all Jewish people carried.  It wasn't until Anna grew up and visited Palestine that her opinion began to change. 

 The issue that Anna believes most people face today is being neutral and not having a firm opinion or a side in major political debates. Anna argues that one can only find themselves when one takes these sides as it allows you to understand the type of person you are. The way to navigate through which side you should support in a general sense is, to look for the side that is underprivileged, those who don't have power and are denied fundamental human rights. When you determine which side is not getting the justice they are entitled to, that is the side you must support. 

This mindset of equity over equality should be the bases for any issue that comes to mind. Anna compares what's happening in Palestine to slavery in the U.S and the Black Lives Matter movement, "it's not that other lives don't matter," she says, but that black lives are being under valued and therefore need the extra help and protests. 

The Danger of a Single Story

In this TED talk, author and storyteller Chimamanda Adichie discusses the risks that result from a "single story." She begins by discussing her early years and education in Nigeria, where she was exposed to much "whitewashed" literature. The characters in the stories were white, blonde, and blue-eyed, they ate apples and drank ginger beer while playing in the snow. These western portrayals of people in the novels and literature Chimamanda grew up reading stuck with her and the ideas carried on in her early works of writing, where her characters followed the same format and were unrelated to her style of living and the environment she grew up in.

Novelist Chimamanda later relates her experiences to that of her college roommate in America, where she studied. Her roommate expresses the stereotypes she believed to be true about people from Africa. Growing up with American cousins, I felt like I could relate to Chimamanda because of how my cousins and their white friends would ask me questions and make assumptions based purely on my ethnicity of how my life was like and what my experiences were "supposed to be". 

Choose Beautiful

          "Choose Beautiful" is an advertisement or more like a movement form Dove the popular shampoo brand. In the video a social experiment occurs where above the doorway to what appears to be a mall are two signs. Above the doorway it says "average" and above the other door way there is a sign that says "Beautiful." The experiment is setup to see how women of any age would react and most importantly which door way they choose. The significance to which door way they choose reflects upon their self confidence but also how they view themselves. While watching the video it is surprising to see how many women choose the "average" doorway and how most of them are so insecure about going through a door that they choose the average door. I think that main reason that they choose to go through the average door rather than the beautiful door is that they are comparing themselves to the supermodels they see in the media who are photoshopped and die in such a way that are only beneficial their social media presence and not at all contributing toward a healthy lifestyle. As we saw in "The Beguiling Truth" comparing yourself to these people is not what you should be doing but instead accepting yourself for who you are.

              As for the very few women who chose the beautiful door, Those are the women you should look up to because those are the people who know what's what and they don't evaluate themselves based on others but rather how they feel they themselves look and when it boils down to that, everyone is beautiful. I think we should have more campaigns like the one Dove made and help raise awareness for the young women who are beautiful but choose to think otherwise due to the effects of the people around them. The other campaigns shouldn't all be social experiments but instead a petition for more diversity in the media or a woman self appreciation day. I believe many women are struggling with this and we should shed some light on the manner. While there are people out here trying to make a difference in the end the change starts with you and how you view yourself. That's all I have to say about this particular video from Dove because it was such a short and simple video but the topic itself is way more important and complex and shouldn't be left unspoken about.

The Lucky Day

It started like any other day at the Sahel woke up had breakfast went to the beach for a couple of hours then pool for a couple more, had Lunch and then we went out. Me and my family went to stella walk and they had dinner there. Than all of a sudden a huge group of people are gathering around and I can't see what's happening. I lift my sister up and she telles me she sees Amy Samir Ghanem. At first I didn't belive her but my cousion told me her dad is shooting an ad at stella so it could be true. I start walking closer to the croud and now in to it. All I wanted was to tell her I thought she was a good actor and that I really liked "نلي و شريهان" a popular one season show that aired in Ramadan. I eventually got to her and told her, she appreciated it and asked if I wanted a picture so...

The Sahel

I was recently in the Sahel and it was the first time I've travelled since last year. It was a blast but one day was unlike the others. Our compound is Lavista Cascada but we visited other ones because we had friends and family there. Just for context our beach is in my experience the best beach I've been to. We were heading to Telal which is one of the most beautiful and gorgeous places in Sahel but, their beach was way diffrent then ours. Our beach dosen't have any rocks on the shore or in the water, also the sand is natural meaning no one bought the sand and but it near some water. In Telal their beach is practically one huge stone. You know how sometimes on a d beach you see a sand rock and it kinda looks like a rock but it's fragile and easy to crumble. In Telal all their sand is sand rocks but their "sand rocks" are literally almost as strong as regular rocks. Wgen you put them in water they dont just instantly turn into sand but they stay rock for a bit then they only half turn into sand but mistly this werid red stuff which I'm pretty sure is Iron. I mentioned that our beach didnt have any rocks in the water, well Telal has so many rocks in the water that they literally have a bridge that goes over the rocks to the only part of their beach where you can even enter which is usally filled with people. There was this thing I guess you could call it a floating playgroung so me and my cousion sawn to it avoiding rocks left and right and it took like 10 minutes to get there and when we did we climbed on and we fealt good, but it didn't last. Turns out you had to pay 200 EGP an hout to play on some weird floating stuff they had which wasn't worth it at all. The other this he told us was that we would come wearing a life jacket and give him a ticket so we would go on. One things for sure I'm never going back to Telal. Thank you and have a great summer.

Socrates

Socrates was born in 469 BC in Alopece and he spent most of his time in Athens Greece but other than that there is not much to say about his past because nearly nothing is documented. He was a philosopher and one of his most famous quotes is "True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing" Here he is trying to uproot ignorance which was very common back then. He also went around his city pressing people's beliefs revealing they know nothing and it made them rethink what they're lead to believe.This way of thinking was called the Socratic Method and it's used as a form of critical discussion in English and Law classes. Socrates was also an open critic of the city's newly formed democracy. Socrates was later charged with not believing in the Athenian way in 399 BC and they claimed that he used his ideas to corrupt the youth and he was sentenced to death by poison. That was the end of Socrates as a man but his soul and ways will carry out through out our lifetimes and his way of thinking and how wise he was will never be forgotten.