21 - The Light at the End of the Tunnel

“If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.”

                                                                                                               ---Dolly Parton

            Each outcome has a cause, yet that cause is not always the most jovial situation. Sometimes, the most optimistic results come of sullen journeys, and although this may not always be the case, it often is. Even the most perfect of journeys have bumps in the road, times where life is not the most fair or just experiences. However, enduring these times is crucial if you wish to see the “light at the end of the tunnel”, as it is often put. Dolly Parton, a singer-songwriter turned philanthropist, once stated that “if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.” Taking this into a deeper, more figurative context, rainbows are often seen as the highlights of optimism and childlike-joy, whereas rain is more of an ominous, foreshadowing device. Parton’s idea can be related to countless anecdotal pieces, but one special case can be derived from the college experience.

            Dolly Parton simply claims that in order to gain the optimal result, you must endure the bumps and hiccups of the journey. This concept can be applied to many students’ journeys through college; a series of successes and failures endured in order to gain their diploma. The students seek their diploma, as it is a token of achievement and success valued greatly by our society and the job market. The obtention of this diploma, however, is not a smooth ride. From homesickness, to mid-terms, to final projects and papers, to simply learning to survive on their own, college students must endure a great deal on the road to their diploma. If they do not push through this roller coaster of a few years, they will not earn their diploma. These years are not the most enjoyable, hence would be the “rain” of Parton’s idea, yet they yield the “rainbow”: the college diploma and off of that, a greater opportunity for successes in a career and life in general.

20 - The Courageous Ones

“I learned that courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         ---Nelson Mandela

            Fear can either freeze or motivate people. At the sight of fear, some people cower and hide, while others overcome and are encouraged by its existence. Nelson Mandela, a philanthropic South African president who inspired the world with his words and ideas, argues that the attribution of “courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man,” he contends, “is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.” Mandela’s claim, in plainsman’s terms, is the philosophy that those who surmount fear are the courageous ones, not those who simply lack or avoid exposure to it. This is most commonly the case of the soldiers in the military, including that of the United States.

            Nelson Mandela declares that those who are courageous are no those who do not feel fear, but those who overpowers the fear. The epitome of this idea is shown in the soldiers of the United States military. The soldiers are pushed to their breaking point during boot camp in order to prepare themselves for the war, forcing the recruits to overcome their fears. For when you are in Afghanistan, the insurgents do not care if you are afraid, they simply care that you are their opposition. It is life or death out in the sands, and is not for the weak at heart. For this reason, the soldiers of the United States military are especially courageous because they not only run towards their fears (for everyone has a somewhat fear of dying), but overcome their fears in the interest of serving for their country. These soldiers are the courageous ones, Mandela claims, instead of those of general population who avoid their fears and self-proclaim themselves as courageous even though they live a life without fears.

19 - Morality and Oppression

         For one group of sector of people to oppress another, the oppressors cannot have any attachment to those who they are oppressing. Even when the oppressors have convinced themselves that those who they are oppressing are wrong or to blame at their core, the basic human instinct is to never harm a fellow human. Therefore, oppressors must remove the human label on those who they are oppressing in order to be completely free of guilt or consciousness when they complete their task. As a result, the oppressed cannot appeal for their freedom via a road of morality because their oppressors have striped themselves of moral convictions. This was especially true during the Holocaust and the Mongol seizures of the early 1200s.

18 - Freedom of Existence

       Many people of current times question whether we truly live in a free world. Albert Camus claims that the only way to defy a world stricken by constraints is to have one’s existence purely be one of rebellion. His idea is that in a world where you do not have freedom, the only thing you have complete control of is yourself, and in that aspect, your existence must be your own act of rebellion. If a society is so restricted that individual freedoms are reduced to simple existence, then it is absolutely possible that one’s existence can be an act of rebellion. This can be shown to be the book Fahrenheit 451 and even in real-life in some traditional Islamic villages.