The Giver Reflection Essay

Experts are people who have learned to reflect on their own thoughts while reading. They can read something and simultaneously think about aspects of their life than are relatable. Being able to do this makes life and thinking less cluttered and clearer. I struggle with this. Unless the reading is something I care deeply about. I find myself thinking solely about the content and what I’m expected to take from it. I don’t want to spend unnecessary time reflecting on what I read. I want to get the assignment done and move on. You can be a prisoner of your own thoughts because you don’t know better. The mind is a complex thing. When an infant is born they have no understanding of the world around them. The mind helps the infant develop patterns

Mindless and mindful both have uses. The mindless part is the part that follows certain directions without much thought. It’s the parts that active during certain activities like breathing, brushing your teeth, and your morning commute. Being mindful is being consciously aware, curious about whatever you’re doing, while seeking new methods of understanding, new perspectives.

This remind me of the book the “The Giver” Jonas has models that he’s had his whole life. The giver gives him new memories that shatter those models. They challenge everything he knows and break his models forcing him to build new ones. Being mindful is not easy a conscious effort has to be made to be mindful. If no conscious effort is made mindfulness can turn into mindlessness. Mindfulness pays attentions to new signals while mindlessness assumes there is only one perspective.

One way to be mindful is to change an absolute to conditional. Language can limit or expand our thinking. Changing the language can open up a world of possibilities. When something is presented as an absolute it can lead to mindlessness whereas if something is presented as a conditional the mind can come up with different possibilities or additional limits. It is actively engaged in the material this can lead to deep