Good morning!!! i have a question if you knew a person was mad at you why the hell would u get pissed at them and make it worse!!! i hate ppl no two ways about it!!!! whenyou no longer feel apart of ur family does that mean it is time to find a new one??? find someone you can make a family with?? i miss my bf alot and my family doesn't have room for me any more i feel like i am an outsider where ever i go i want to be loved and to love someone i want to hug and kiss but my bf is miles away and i have no one my own dog abandoned me last night grr a roar why why why!!!!!!!!!

“The power of truth is in the belief,

The power of love in the heart

The power of faith is felt in the mind

With every member of your being a part

Yet the power of change is hard to adjust

Because temptation is so hopelessly strong

While the power of right is substantially hard
You must overcome the power of wrong

But the power in you is much greater than all
In you his power is born

So when the unfairness of life takes your power away,

Remember to whom the power belongs...”

Dennis Taylor

            The poem written by Dennis Taylor has a very true meaning when it comes to “power”. As children we are blessed with the strongest power of all, the power of ignorance. We care not about the world or anyone in it. We are merely living in it and discovering as much as we can, not knowing that by doing this we will ultimately be giving up much more. There is truth in the statement, though, that when we give up one thing something is always gained in the processes, even if the outcome is not how we would desire it to be. Childhood is an adventure that is always controlled in some aspects. As children our sovereignty is diminished because of society. The people that surround us control us. If there is no control on our sovereignty what would life be like? To have no fear of if this outfit will be accepted, or if no grade controlled our life, would life be better? In life we survive on others’ opinions; we strive for the best but will the best ever be good enough? If it is true and we control our own power within us, why is the influence of society so strong? There are many questions but I have only a few answers. Personally I let society control me, and I am guilty of following the rules. As a child I was in control of my sovereignty but as I grew older it started to diminish.

            I can still remember the day when I took control of my sovereignty and lost it within hours. It was spring and the flowers were blooming; I was three years old, and an evil genius. All day my sister, Melanie, had been babysitting me and I was getting tired of her being in control. I remember thinking as I swung on the swing set “it is my turn to be the babysitter!” I coyly asked my sister to swing with me and said I bet you can’t get higher than me. It was time; she was swinging high, within seconds I jumped off and ran inside. While inside I went to all the doors and locked them. I was in control! It felt good, no more bossing me around. I might have been an evil genius but I was three and I never thought things through all the way. My sister started banging on the door furiously, “Open up!!!” she screamed. My answer was, of course, “NO”.  While outside my sister remembered my parent’s room window was open but it was just out of her grasps to climb in; however she was able to get the cordless phone on the nightstand.  Minutes later the phone was ringing and it was a familiar voice, my mother. She said for me to stop fooling around and let my sister back in the house, and of course I said no. There were many other attempts and a half an hour later there was no progress. I would not give up my little power for no one. Finally my father called and said if I did not let my sister in he was coming home from work and I would get a licking. Panic set in but I was and still am very stubborn, must be the Irish in me; my answer to him was NO.  What was it inside me that made me hold on to the power? Why was I rebellious? As children the thought of control angers us. We are constantly reminded why we must listen, they are bigger, smarter, and stronger and we are smaller, inexperienced, and weaker. Are we though? We hold our power and don’t want to give it up; to us it is our treasure. At the time we may not know it but we feel it. I knew it and wanted to keep it at all cost. As I sat there and waited for my father to arrive I felt hopeless and scared, but as I mentioned before I was an evil genius and as all evil geniuses have a backup plan so did I. Minutes after hanging up with my father, I called my grandparents and told them to come over quick cause daddy was going to beat me. I knew at this very young age that my dad would never touch me in front of my grandparents. The power was mine again and the feeling of comfort began to ease in. I agree with Ernestine Northover when she writes “How advanced they are, these children of the future, Like small adults, within their tiny frames…”() in some ways my intellect was equal to an adult that day but it was also my first glimpse of sovereignty and how it would be taken away within minutes. Although I regained my sovereignty, I lost something else that day; I lost part of my ignorance. The person that said ignorance is bliss hit the nail right on the head.  

            As we progress in age I observed that we form habits based on society: we wear the right clothes, follow the rules, and repeat the words of others. Our habits become our life; they overtake us and become us. Our sovereignty is slowly diminished and taken away. In Walker Percy’s essay the “Loss of the Creature”, he brings up the book “Brave New World”; in a way it is ironic. The book is about the future, where everything is the same, and all morals are lost and everything is supposedly perfect. But is it ever? In a sense the people in this world never truly ever had their sovereignty; it was gone since day one. Who is it that controls us? When or where is it decided that we must follow these rules? Percy also writes about a man, the sightseer, who goes to the Grand Canyon and desires a view away from all the tourist attraction. The sightseer is trying to regain his sovereignty, his childhood.

            I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t conscious about my outer appearance. To this day I am always thinking about how I look to others, always trying to put forth my best appearance, to be “normal”. I let my fears control me and hinder myself by doing this. Although I try to not let little things bother me like funny looks from people or comments, they all seem to hit home to me. In a way I also control by myself by the influences of others. By doing this we lose as Percy said, “IT”. But what is it, is it the same for everyone, no, not really. It can be Power, or security, love, strength, or even Christmas magic. How is it that one thing can be so many things to us. But once we lose it we know immediately, the feeling is instantly there and will not go away. Since this happens to everyone is it a possibility that it must happen in order to grow and learn, must we sacrifice one for the other? As I said before, I notice that as we grow, our sovereignty weakens but something more powerful grows in the process. An example is Christmas Day. For a child it is an exciting time, but as we grow older and find out the truths of Christmas something is lost, we tend to not want to wake up at the crack of dawn to open presents, but we instead go through the motions. When Christmas comes I am still happy and excited but I want things to last a bit longer; I want the memories to sink in, not rush through them as a child. So in a way I lost the Christmas magic but gain a sense of knowing, without even realizing it. It was my sacrifice, to give up some excitement of Christmas for wisdom.

            Although we may lose the “it” factor because our sovereignty is lost, or we lose the “IT” in a different way. We always gain something. I admit I follow society and their ways; I know even though I lose my power I know I can get it back, because in the end I am the one controlling my own sovereignty. I might let society rule me now but if I ever want my power back I shall do as the sightseer did in Percy’s essay. I shall find my own view of the Grand Canyon away from the tourist attractions to find my “IT” again. Whether it is the Christmas magic or wearing and doing as I please not what others think it should be. I shall be the eyes in my own life to regain my sovereignty now that I stepped out and really realized where I am in power. The question then is do I really know when it is my decision or others? Do we ever have a conscious choice or is it always because of other factors around us? So will I ever know the answer to these questions,… probable not because once you start to think about it, it sort of drives you crazy. The simplest task like deciding whether you like or dislike a pair of shoes, can and will be affected by society. Somewhere or sometime, subconsciously or consciously, by free will or forces, the urge to follow is too great we are affected by society. How do we know what style we like? Is it because that famous movie star likes it or because it is just like what your mother would wear? Never is it really and truly for us. Occasionally we see the glimpse of our sovereignty, like when the lights are turned on in the morning after sleeping all night, it hurts but it opens our eyes. As children we are like the sightseer, but unlike him we don’t know the difference between the tour’s side and the nature’s side. All we do is absorb the information like a sponge. Slowly the information starts to engulf us; the question is where and when?  When is the tipping point when things like opinions and choices start to matter? We may never know because it is different for each individual. A person could go crazy trying to answer these questions and since I am a freshman in college and I have many years ahead of me I shall end my paper on this notes and let my readers decided for themselves what the answers may be.

As Percy Walker begins his story in “The Loss of the Creature”, he starts to tell a story of a place which has many personal ties to it. The Grand Canyon, at first we are drawn into the abstract version of the “Loss”, he tells us that when something is discovered for the first time it is beautiful for just that one person. But sometimes there is an exception, another man might see the beauty but not exactly the same, his beauty is in the self satisfying way of recovering and changing it. One thing that connects the concrete and abstract in the first example is the place, the Grand Canyon. It is the same place but many years later, and this time there is a sightseer. His desire of knowing and wanting to be able to experience this place connects him to the spot. The spot where there is no barrier, it is just him and the land.  This is where he can understand the abstract view and still maintain his concrete roots. The two are interconnected to one another, without the one; something is loss, the “IT”. A person knows when something is lacking in our world; you have a feeling of loss, almost like an incomplete feeling. The couple understood this in Walkers essay. As they traveled to Mexico they knew “it” was missing. Just as the sightseer was feeling the human being desire of the unknown, he desired the abstract feeling of beauty, but also craved the concrete. Without the concrete we may feel like a child lost in the mall during the Christmas season. We can feel the world moving around us and it is terrifying. As the couple explored the unknown and went down a street, not on the map, and discovered their own “Formosa”. .It was a beautiful secret, yet the need to connect it with a concrete act was overwhelming. They had to share their beautiful “place” with someone, the ethnologist. As their human behavior took over, the need to see his reaction was of the most importance. To say the words “didn’t we tell you?” was all that mattered. At that very moment the place was lost, it no longer held interest as the first time. The dance was ignored and their desire to see the ethnologist’s reaction took all of their attention.  The little village connects back to the spot in the first example; it is where all “sightseers” of the world crave to go. The place is the “it” factor that is missing. The little village was not even on a map but had a strong impact on people, who by chance took a different road and found a “place” of beauty. While our views may be abstract or concrete on a subject we hope to gain both in the end. The loss of either will affect our personal character. At one point in time that man, the sightseer, desires a place not tampered or overflowing with tourist, but a quite solitude. Our get away in life is to become one with nature in a society full of fast pace, electronic, and state of the art life styles. To just sit on the edge of the Grand Canyon and know you are at a place many desire to get to. To fight to be what one desires, a sightseer, an explorer, or even just a reader.