In David Rendall's article, "The Freak Factor", he discusses how he used his weaknesses as clues to find out his true strengths and offers several different suggestions for overcoming weakness in order to achieve success. His arguments are very compelling and I believe that his suggestions are valid and would truly help anybody deal with their weaknesses and view them in a completely different way. Rendall explains that everybody has weaknesses that they can learn from and it is not a bad thing because every weakness has a corresponding strength.
One of the first suggestions the author offers is to not try fixing your weaknesses. At first, this would seem like a rather bad suggestion, but Rendall explains why there are a number of different problems with trying to fix all of your weaknesses. The first is that it is a slow painful process and it is very hard to make progress in our areas of weakness. The second reason, which I believe is the most important, is that trying to fix your weaknesses actually results in being distracted from the things that you are good at and find enjoyable. If you focus all of your attention on trying to fix bad things and never spend time enjoying the things that you like, then you will develop a very negative attitude. His final reason for not trying to fix your weaknesses is that it does not truly work in reality; no matter how hard we try to reverse a weakness, it will never become a valuable strength. The author makes very solid points and for those reasons, I believe this is a valid suggestion and one that I can take into consideration in my own life. Instead of spending time trying to fix my areas of weakness, I can use that time to improve on my strengths instead. As Rendall mentioned, for every weakness there is a strength that corresponds. Rather than waste any time focusing my attention on the negative side of this relationship, I can spend my time in a much more productive manner focusing on areas I am strong in that lead to more positive and beneficial behavior. Another suggestion that Rendall offers to deal with weakness is to find the right spot. To help explain the importance of this suggestion, the author uses the classic story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer as an example. Rudolph had obvious weaknesses, just like all the rest of us do, that prevented him from fitting in. Because of his glowing red nose, Rudolph tried to do what many other people do with their flaws and hide them from everyone so that he had a better chance of being accepted and fitting in. However, his plan to cover up his nose was unsuccessful because it still glowed bright. It was not until Rudolph accepted his weakness and began to use it as a strength by guiding Santa's sleigh that he found acceptance. He had to realize that his unique qualities that first made him un-popular and rejected were actually strengths in disguise. "He didn't succeed in spite of his weakness, he succeeded because of it" (Rendall). The lesson here is that we need to seek out situations that fit to our natural strengths, and I can apply this to my own life when seeking out the right spot. Rather than focusing on situations that I should avoid due to weaknesses I might have, it is more important to look for opportunities where I can utilize the unique characteristics that I have. I believe this is a valid suggestion and the author uses a very good example to help make it more clear.
As part of one of the author's suggestions, he identifies a list of core strengths and weaknesses that are grouped together in inseparable pairs. I found these groupings to be very true and agree that each of the strengths has a weakness associated with it's same characteristics that make them go together. I can personally identify with some of these strengths/weaknesses in regards to my creative process, which I have learned a lot more about this quarter. One of the first pairs that I could relate to the most was dedication vs. stubbornness. When I am working on something creative such as a song or a drawing I become very dedicated to it and put one-hundred percent of my effort into it. I am somewhat of a perfectionist and I like to have total control over every aspect of my creative work so that it is exactly the way I want it. While this dedication can be viewed as a strength because it results in very hard work, it can also be looked at as a weakness because I have a hard time letting others put their input into things that we might have to work on as a group. Another one of my weaknesses is that I tend to be negative in my thinking. However, that same negative thinking can also be looked at as simply being realistic, which I have found often plays to my advantage. I do a pretty good job of planning my time because I am always very realistic in thinking about how long it will take me to complete something, even if it is a very long time and may seem negative to think about.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Blog Assignment #8
http://changethis.com/manifesto/search?search=brainwashed
Seth Godin's, "Brainwashed", explains an idea which says that we have all been brainwashed by the system into becoming eager compliant workers instead of truly educated idea-makers. I could not help but agree with this idea and was interested to read about the solution offered by Godin to "reinvent yourself", which involves several layers. One of the layers, "Be Generous", rewards those who create and give gifts without receiving anything rather than traditional giving to receive something. This will lead to an economy of individuals who support one another, Godin says. Another layer that I could especially connect with, "Make Art", stressed the importance of building a platform for creativity and explained that more markets are beginning to substantially reward art. "Acknowledge the Lizard",the layer in which Godin explains "the resistance", reveals a voice in our head that discourages creativity due to fear of being laughed at.
I found this article to be extremely interesting and thought-provoking. The idea of being somehow brainwashed by the system of public education is very similar to ideas that I have thought about as well. I have often wondered how much of the work that students do is truly teaching us something useful and how much of it is simply training us to blindly accept tasks and complete them, gaining no real benefit. After reading the directions for this blog assignment, I started to think about the layers that Godin describes to "reinvent yourself" and how these might apply to the blog that I have been creating this quarter. I realized that I could not truly connect any of these layers, which are meant to "reinvent" a brainwashed mind, with my blog entries because they were all completed simply because the tasks had been assigned to me. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had completed most of these assignments somewhat blindly simply because they were assigned to me for points, very much like what Godin describes in his article as "an effort to teach you to be taught, to instruct you in compliance, to follow the curriculum"(Godin). Without thinking about what the assignments were truly gaining me, I still completed them just as the rest of the class did. However, while most of the excersises were not specific to my major, I did not find any of these exercises to be completely worthless or even a waste of time. Instead, I believe that there are better ways I could have spent this time exploring the creative process that would be more specific to my area of study. The blog assignments dealt primarily with animation and different elements of movie scenes, none of which truly gave me any more experience with my major which is music production. While I was completing the various assignments such as deconstructing a character, creating a storyboard, and critiquing an animation, I felt like I wasn't gaining any truly beneficial experience with my specific area of study. Keeping in mind that this is still one of the general media courses, I still believe that the class could have been divided into groups based on majors to receive more individualized, applicable assignments. I think that if there had been different blog assignments given to each major, students would be more motivated to spend time on them and gain more from each exercise. The one assignment that was relatable to my major and dealt with song deconstruction was the one that I enjoyed the most and got the most out of.
Seth Godin's, "Brainwashed", explains an idea which says that we have all been brainwashed by the system into becoming eager compliant workers instead of truly educated idea-makers. I could not help but agree with this idea and was interested to read about the solution offered by Godin to "reinvent yourself", which involves several layers. One of the layers, "Be Generous", rewards those who create and give gifts without receiving anything rather than traditional giving to receive something. This will lead to an economy of individuals who support one another, Godin says. Another layer that I could especially connect with, "Make Art", stressed the importance of building a platform for creativity and explained that more markets are beginning to substantially reward art. "Acknowledge the Lizard",the layer in which Godin explains "the resistance", reveals a voice in our head that discourages creativity due to fear of being laughed at.
I found this article to be extremely interesting and thought-provoking. The idea of being somehow brainwashed by the system of public education is very similar to ideas that I have thought about as well. I have often wondered how much of the work that students do is truly teaching us something useful and how much of it is simply training us to blindly accept tasks and complete them, gaining no real benefit. After reading the directions for this blog assignment, I started to think about the layers that Godin describes to "reinvent yourself" and how these might apply to the blog that I have been creating this quarter. I realized that I could not truly connect any of these layers, which are meant to "reinvent" a brainwashed mind, with my blog entries because they were all completed simply because the tasks had been assigned to me. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I had completed most of these assignments somewhat blindly simply because they were assigned to me for points, very much like what Godin describes in his article as "an effort to teach you to be taught, to instruct you in compliance, to follow the curriculum"(Godin). Without thinking about what the assignments were truly gaining me, I still completed them just as the rest of the class did. However, while most of the excersises were not specific to my major, I did not find any of these exercises to be completely worthless or even a waste of time. Instead, I believe that there are better ways I could have spent this time exploring the creative process that would be more specific to my area of study. The blog assignments dealt primarily with animation and different elements of movie scenes, none of which truly gave me any more experience with my major which is music production. While I was completing the various assignments such as deconstructing a character, creating a storyboard, and critiquing an animation, I felt like I wasn't gaining any truly beneficial experience with my specific area of study. Keeping in mind that this is still one of the general media courses, I still believe that the class could have been divided into groups based on majors to receive more individualized, applicable assignments. I think that if there had been different blog assignments given to each major, students would be more motivated to spend time on them and gain more from each exercise. The one assignment that was relatable to my major and dealt with song deconstruction was the one that I enjoyed the most and got the most out of.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Blog Assignment #7
Spider-Man vs. Green Goblin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euJvz0shUlo
There are several techniques used to intensify the action going on in this scene. The first and most obvious thing I noticed was the use of space to exaggerate the characters strengths and abilities. This fight scene extends past the boundaries of four walls into the entire city due to the characters abilities to fly and swing through the air from building to building. This use of an enormous space gives the scene additional weight and makes the scene appear to be much more intense. The characters fast-paced movement adds to the intensity of the large space that they are fighting within. Their sporadic and continuous movement across the screen creates visual interest that keeps the audience interested throughout the entire fight as they fly and swing from building to building, bursting through windows and crashing through walls. When it comes down to the final moment of this epic battle, the theme of the movie is demonstrated in an explosive finale. The visual space of the scene gets smaller to focus on the two characters who stand bloody and beaten in a fiery room. Green Goblin shoots a missile from behind Spider-Man's back as he says, "Bye bye, Spidey". But as the theme goes, good will always triumph over evil and Spider-Man utilizes his super-human abilities to sense the missile coming and backflip over it as it launches forward into the villain and killing him. I think that this final use of movement was a great way to demonstrate the theme one last time and show that good will always defeat evil.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euJvz0shUlo
In my opinion, this intense fight scene from the first Spider-Man movie is an excellent example of a classic theme, good triumphs over evil. The conflict in the movie between the villainous Green Goblin and heroic Spider-Man builds throughout the entire story until this final moment when the two characters battle for one last time. This scene demonstrates a didactic theme that also applies to the movie as a whole which intends to teach the audience that good will always triumph over evil in the end.
There are several techniques used to intensify the action going on in this scene. The first and most obvious thing I noticed was the use of space to exaggerate the characters strengths and abilities. This fight scene extends past the boundaries of four walls into the entire city due to the characters abilities to fly and swing through the air from building to building. This use of an enormous space gives the scene additional weight and makes the scene appear to be much more intense. The characters fast-paced movement adds to the intensity of the large space that they are fighting within. Their sporadic and continuous movement across the screen creates visual interest that keeps the audience interested throughout the entire fight as they fly and swing from building to building, bursting through windows and crashing through walls. When it comes down to the final moment of this epic battle, the theme of the movie is demonstrated in an explosive finale. The visual space of the scene gets smaller to focus on the two characters who stand bloody and beaten in a fiery room. Green Goblin shoots a missile from behind Spider-Man's back as he says, "Bye bye, Spidey". But as the theme goes, good will always triumph over evil and Spider-Man utilizes his super-human abilities to sense the missile coming and backflip over it as it launches forward into the villain and killing him. I think that this final use of movement was a great way to demonstrate the theme one last time and show that good will always defeat evil.
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