When I was six years old, I hated car rides. To a six year old, a car ride was the epitome of boredom. There was nothing to do on a car ride except sit there for hours watching the trees. I would get carsick every single time I was in my mom’s Volvo. If I wasn’t sick or bored, I was waiting painfully in the backseat for the next exit ramp so my mom could turn off the road for a bathroom break. My mom would have to bribe me with candy or some other special treat just to get me in a car everyday. Some six year olds were afraid of monsters and doctor’s visits; I was afraid of the car. About ten years later something happened, a change. When I finally got my driver’s license at age sixteen, I was no longer afraid of the once dreaded car ride.
At first I did not know why or how it happened, I just was not afraid anymore. I did not get bored, I did not get sick, and I did not have to painfully wait to use the bathroom. What was once a time of fear and unease turned to a time of tranquility and delight. I was excited to drive my car, and I felt good while driving. Maybe it was because the music I was listening to calmed me. Perhaps it was the beautiful sights I saw outside my window. It could have been because it was a time when I got to leave my troubles behind me and relax. It may have been that I was driving the car rather someone else, or it could have been a combination of all of these things. All I knew was that I had a 35-minute drive to school everyday, and I enjoyed it.
My drive to and from school everyday became a deep Emersonian experience. It was not so much that I was getting in touch with nature; it was that I was getting in touch with myself.
A Modest Proposal For Making Driving More Entertaining, While Creating The Same Risks For Everyone On The Road
Davis, Robert. (2005, March 3). USA Today. “Is 16 too young to drive a car?”
On that note, I shifted my truck into reverse and vacated the parking lot of the college I was dual-enrolled at. The thirty minute ride to my high school could not be over soon enough, as my destiny for the upcoming summer was at stake. The multitude of emotions I experienced on the seemingly endless car ride overcame me as my speedometer pushed the speed limit. Feelings of nervousness, excitement, optimism, courage, and anxiety crept into my mind.
“Do not go where the path may lead you; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, the father of Transcendentalism, emphasized the importance of nonconformity in a world filled with followers. Instead of molding into society’s creation, or following “the path,” Emerson promoted abstaining from losing one’s individuality and creating a new “trail.” Emerson’s belief in refusing to conform and protecting one’s differences remains an integral part in living a transcendental life. As one of the fundamental rights of the movement, maintaining a distinct identity was an elusive but interesting concept, especially in the nineteenth century. Moreover, the act of finding one’s self in nature exists prominently
Both Emerson and Thoreau’s still have something to teach us today. The ideas that they share in “Self-Reliance” and “Life without Principle” are still relevant in today’s world. When students are taught about these writers they feel as if it’s a waste of time, but in reality if they paid close attention they would understand that it is for their benefit.
With the opening of America’s first roller coaster in 1873, a new innovative market was introduced into the American industrial market. With it came a new set of challenges that pushed the limits of the engineering methods used at the time. Oddly enough though, America’s safest roller coaster ever built was also the simplest; the Mauch Chunk Railway was originally used to bring coal down the mountainside of a Pennsylvania mine. The now unused 2,322 feet of track was re-opened a few months later for the purpose of carrying passengers down the side of the mountain. The rail cars used did not have brakes or an engine; they simply used the force of gravity to take the train and its passengers, sometimes at speeds upwards of 60 miles per hour, down the side of the mountain until it came to a rest at the bottom. “The railway offered spectacular views of the Lehigh River and the Blue Ridge Mountains for the region's visitors to see. The area became a large Nineteenth Century tourist attraction and people came from all over to be thrilled by the M.C.R.” (Sandy). Throughout the ride’s 56-year span of passenger operation, not a single injury was reported. Since the ever-simplistic entertainment methods of the 1920’s, our industrial capabilities have grown in geometric proportions; however the one problem is they have been severely lagged by the safety and control systems that govern them. Recently, however, advancements in computer technology have yielded a drastic improvement in these control systems that have allowed ride designers to design increasingly safer and more reliable ride systems.
My car slows as it approaches a stoplight. I take this opportunity to allow my mind to become engulfed with my surroundings: the bright fierce red of the traffic light, the brilliant blue sky with its specs clouds, and the mass of hurried people. The four corners of the intersection are filled with people who are preoccupied with their fast-paced lives to notice the little things, such as animals and anxious cars awaiting the traffic light. My thoughts vigorously put all of the information that my mind has gathered from the intersection to order.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was a philosopher and transcendentalist of the 19th century, composing controversial, philosophical and religious essays in order to inform people. Emerson was a strong influence on other personalities of his time, including American figures such as; “Henry Thoreau” and “Walt Whitman”. “Emerson’s father (William Emerson) influenced the good taste of Emerson’s essays due to he was a man of the church.” William died because of a stomach cancer just two weeks before Ralph Waldo fulfilled eight years old. This death leads the family to an edge of poverty and a life of limited luxuries. That’s the point when Emerson’s career began. “His mother managed so that all of her children could get accepted into Harvard University with scholarships.” There was Ralph's stop when he was only fourteen years old. In Harvard College he was an apprentice under the president of the constitution. The task was to accuse his colleagues in criminal activity letting the ‘faculty’ know. Meanwhile, Emerson began keeping a list of books he had read and started a journal in a series of notebooks that would be called ‘World Wide’. Emerson performed odd jobs to cover his school expenses, including as a waiter for the Junior Commons and occasionally working as a teacher with his uncle Samuel in Waltham, Massachusetts. He began his famous Journal, an anthology and patchwork of passages that surprised and astonished his readers with their comments, ended up reaching 182 volumes. In his senior year at Harvard, Emerson decided to take his middle name as Waldo. He attended class Poetry; as usual, and presented an original poem on Harvard's Class Day, a month before his official graduation. On August 29, 1821, when he was 18 not noted as a student he...
In the opening paragraphs of his first chapter, Emerson finds that nature, like stars is always present and creates a reverence in the observer, but is also always inaccessible (14). Emerson also brings forth the idea that not everyone can really observe nature, but one must have the correct mental/spiritual state, as a child might. He discusses the improving aspects one can find in nature - youth, reason, and faith. Intrigued by visual perceptions, he claims that he looses contact with everything but nature becomes a 'transparent eye-ball' and feels that "I am part or parcel of God" (16). Emerson's emphatic words are perhaps the best description of the enthralling emotions of a 'sublime' experience as possible.
Driving. While I haven’t had the greatest experiences with driving related problems; I’ve run into some pretty funny ones. When I was about four years old my family was over at my grandpa’s putting in a well for him. I of course was sitting in the unattended van on the top of the hill in the back seat. While many people would think that it was completely safe and there’s nothing to worry about they are wrong. You see I was a clever little toddler and could at that time unbuckle herself and climb over the center console right into the front seat. Also being the genius child that I was I managed to switch the car from park to neutral and begin to roll down the hill. Now I don 't remember my mom and the other adults running towards the van to
Thoreau and Emerson both believe that to transcend and achieve this oneness with nature, man must educate himself mentally and spiritually. While both writers recognize the importance of books and reading as a precursor to spiritual growth, they also both feel that one ca...
In Walden, Henry David Thoreau explains how a relationship with nature reveals aspects of the true self that remain hidden by the distractions of society and technology. To Thoreau, the burdens of nineteenth century existence, the cycles of exhausting work to obtain property, force society to exist as if it were "slumbering." Therefore, Thoreau urges his readers to seek a spiritual awakening. Through his rhetoric,Thoreau alludes to a "rebirth" of the self and a reconnection to the natural world. The text becomes a landscape and the images become objects, appealing to our pathos, or emotions, our ethos, or character, and our logos, or logical reasoning, because we experience his awakening. Thoreau grounds his spirituality in the physical realities of nature, and allows us to experience our own awakening through his metaphorical interpretations. As we observe Thoreau¹s awakening, he covertly leads us to our own enlightenment.
A guilty feeling surged through me as I snuck out of church early, but I could not wait any longer to show my friend, Jonathan, my new Chevrolet Cavalier. As I raced out of the parking lot, I heard ambulance sirens in the distance, and I felt a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach as if butterflies were fluttering around trying to get out. I paid the feeling no mind as I merged onto the interstate at Gray and headed toward Johnson City. Little did I know those sirens would change my life forever.
...ming with life. The smell of the flowers was intense and enlivening. The breeze that was not restricted by car windows, the heat that was not reflected by a rooftop or eradicated by air conditioning, the rain that was not repelled by anything more than my poncho, I was one with all of it. As I biked past, I moo'd as loud as I could at the cows in the fields and felt happy doing it. I even occasionally rode in the van when I was tired.
“Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of unintentional deaths for teens (16-17),” reported The New York State Department of Health. The most exciting thing about being sixteen in the United States is driving. Teenagers can not wait to be sixteen to drive, however, they do not understand the dangers that come with driving at such a young age. Sixteen is the age between child life and adulthood. It is a time when they are not stable and undergoing change, which makes them unsuitable to drive. Many teenagers would say that they need to get to places. In response to that claim, there are public transportation systems and bikes as available alternatives for young drivers. The financial stability and matureness of eighteen year olds proves