He should have gone with a Nissan.

There are very key elements to answering this question that are left out from our description. For example, did Grace offer for Vern to keep the old parts of his car after every part was replaced? Or did she simply keep the parts without asking? In a normal situation, the mechanic asks the owner of the car if they would like to keep the piece or not. If this happened in Vern’s situation, then the answer is much clearer.

If Grace asked Vern whether or not he’d like to keep the old parts of his car and Vern said no, then he’s given up ownership of the parts and whatever Grace would like to do with them. They are no longer ‘his’, and if Grace keeps them all and makes a new-old car out of them, then it still doesn’t belong to Vern. His Volvo would be the one comprised of the new parts, which he paid for each time, and we live in a world where ‘If I pay for it then it’s mine.’

That would mean that the Volvo itself changed with the first new piece that Grace fixed. It was still Vern’s car, but it was Vern’s Volvo enhanced version. But the second that Vern turned down the old part, he gave up any claim to it, and therefore the heap of parts cannot be his car.

However, if Grace never offered the old parts to Vern, and simply kept them without telling him (which is a little creepy when you think about it too hard), then ownership still belongs to him. Those parts belonged to the original car that Vern signed off on at the dealership years ago, and he paid for those parts. Not directly, but they came with the car that he paid for on a whole.

Well, if Vern never offered up the parts of his car, and still bought new parts, which car is 'Vern's Volvo'? The car he drives. He paid for each part, and that created a new vehicle of new parts. It belongs to Vern, because each part belongs to Vern individually. The parts that are in Grace's garage that she's been collecting are just pieces of an 'old' car, but not it doesn't make up Vern's car. All the parts are there, but the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts. Vern doesn't drive that pile of car parts. He doesn't use it on an everyday basis, and it's not practical to him. The car of new parts is his car, just not in the same condition as when he originally bought it.

"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions." -Augusten Burroughs

Knowing yourself is something that has layers to it. You can't just know your hair color or eye color or date of birth. Knowing yourself is much deeper than that, and it’s not something anyone can teach you. Knowing yourself means you know your likes and dislikes, you know your faults, you know your strengths and appreciate them for what they are. Knowing yourself means you accept you aren’t perfect, but you can still appreciate the qualities you have. Knowing yourself, most importantly, means knowing your limits. People who push themselves to strive to be something they cannot do not really know themselves. Accepting your limits and knowing when you’ve truly done all you can do to the best of your ability is the key to knowing yourself.

My worst quality is one that has plagued all kinds of relationships in my life: my inability to trust. I have many friends, and a few close friends, and still I find it hard to trust them with secrets, possessions, or even their stories. I have this suspicious air about me often, and usually assume people are lying to me. I don’t know when or why this quality came about, but it has, and now I must learn to deal with it. I do so by trying my best to believe others. I remind myself that not everyone is a liar, and that most people tend not to. I started small, trusting only a few very close friends and family, and believe that, as they have proven trustworthy, I can breach out and be more trusting of others. Of course, I don’t think I’ll be going around spewing my life story at strangers, but I try not to be so closed-off to the world, and more eager to make and actually trust my friends.

I believe one of my best qualities (although this may seem a bit ironic) is how trustworthy I am. And many people seem drawn to this, telling me things about them after having known them for just a short while. I’ve had people treat me as a shoulder to lean on, a shoulder to cry on, or just someone to talk to, like an amateur psychologist. I never spill secrets to others, knowing from my own feelings about how hard it is to maintain someone’s trust. I pride myself in being a confidant. Unless I feel someone is in danger of hurting his or herself, (it’s happened) or being hurt by someone else (hasn’t happened, thankfully), I keep peoples’ secrets to myself. I’m honored that they’d trust me with useless information (who likes who, who said what about who, normal high school drama), and intend to keep it that way. There’s nothing in it for me in spilling other secrets. And when I trust so little, I feel it’s important for me to be trustworthy, or else I’d feel like a hypocrite.

It’s hard to talk about my strengths and weaknesses because I’m only 17 years old. I haven’t fully developed in brain or body, and how can you ‘know’ something that’s unfinished? I don’t know who I’ll be in ten years or even five years. I don’t know what college I’m going to or what my major will be or who I’ll end up living with… And with that much mystery in my life, I don’t think it’s possible to fully know myself, or fully know my strengths, weaknesses, abilities and limits. So I’ve told of my strengths and weaknesses now. I think you should ask this again in five years. And then in ten.

Repainting My Old Fashioned House

This poem reflects an emotion that all of us as humans feel sooner or later in life. In the case of Adam and Eve, it reflects not just the physical journey away from Eden after banishment, but also the emotional and mental journey. Their “old-fashioned house” is Eden, as suggested in the poem, and it is also their mental state of not knowing anything. They are surrounded by perfection, and therefore never are aware of mortality, the bad, or the good. They are ‘unsuspecting’ the perfection of their abode, because they don’t have the knowledge to compare it to anything else. By the time they are banished from Eden, they’ve already left in a sense. They are aware of themselves, aware of their nakedness and their mortality. They ignorantly and innocently left Eden, and even if they tried to come back, it would never be the same. They can try to return to their innocence but ‘discover it no more’, realizing that they cannot un-know anything. They will always be aware of their mortality and the bad along with the good.

Going to college is this same experience in a way. Growing up for most of my life in the upper-middle-class Bethany with the nuclear family, I definitely lived in a form of Eden. I found the perfect comfort of my home for many years. I am opening a new chapter in my life now, pursuing colleges and excited to step away from the nest and leave home, go off and do my hopes and dreams. I’m excited to leave right now, and would like to think that college is going to be this wonderful perfect experience that I will make all my own decisions. But the logical part of me knows that that isn’t how the world works. I know that I am going to crave that feeling of comfort that I find in my ‘old-fashioned house’ or my own Garden of Eden. But the poem makes ‘driving away’ seem like such a bad thing, as if I’ll never be truly happy and comforted once I leave. At least, that’s the vibe I get from reading this poem (It is Emily Dickinson, after all). I don’t think I’ll be completely miserable once I leave my ‘old-fashioned house’ for the big world of college. I think I will find new comforts and new happiness. I don’t think I’ll ever see my home the same way again, or feel the same comforts again. I accept the fact that all of that is changing in life. But I don’t want to believe that all hope is lost. Maybe I’m naïve, but I’m hopeful.

I’m not afraid of returning. I know I will and I accept that it won’t be the same exact feeling, but I’m not convinced yet that the feeling I get from being there. If I were afraid of anything, it would be that it would be just gone. Even if everything has changed when I return, I can still bring back my memories. Of course the feelings will be different if not faded, but they’ll be there. That’s the most important thing. The next step will be creating my own house, with my own comforts, new and old. I have to find my own Eden, because I can never go back.

Never Ever Stop Smiling

He took the pen from my hand and started writing on my fingers, showing off his multi-lingual abilities that I was so jealous of. On my palm was written the word ‘love’, on my forefinger was ‘amour’ and on my thumb was ‘liebe.’ These words were decorated with hearts and swirly lines, another strange creation from the mind of my friend. He gave me the pen back after sufficiently filling my hand with graffiti and smiled. His lips were pale, his eyes sunken, and his bald head rested against the pillow. The hospital room was a depressing block of white, so I found his smile and the words on my hand to be a bit more than ironic.

I stared at my decorated palm while we made idle conversation about sports and the weather. Rain outside pounded on his window, leading to a good distraction or the situation at hand. I had been to the hospital since visiting hours began, and the conversation was beginning to drag. We refused to talk about the hospital, the sickness, or the pain in our hearts. I tried to keep from looking at him so I wouldn’t have to see the IVs sticking out of his arms, the mask on his face to help him breathe, the bones poking out of his ribcage. It hurt me to see my best friend so weak. I took his hand, which was cold and sweaty, reminding me of how much pain he must be in. I swallowed hard to keep from sobbing, choking down my tears.

“Be strong, honey,” he instructed me, his own eyes unashamedly filling with tears. "And please, never stop smiling." I forced a half-hearted smile at him, my graffiti filled hand brushing a strand of hair out of his face. We were only eleven years old, but we were growing up fast. We had been since the diagnosis of his brain tumor. The visiting hours were over and KC squeezed my hand, his cheek now wet with tears. I kissed his forehead lightly, an affectionate gesture I don’t repeat with others. He whispered my name before I left the room, climbing into my Aunt’s car, and watching the hospital as long as I could before it disappeared from view. I leaned back in my seat, staring at the words of love written in KC’s handwriting on my palm. I kissed my hand gently as my Aunt tried to lighten the mood. But the pouring rain on the car matched the flow of tears from my cheeks.

That was the last time I saw him. A week later, I was sitting in my bedroom of my Aunt’s house when she came in, tears in her eyes, telling me that KC had finally passed. She told me it was peaceful and reminded me that now he was out of his pain and in a better place. But I was a wreck and nothing could comfort me. I sobbed quietly for days before the funeral, each passing day left less and less of the pen marks on my hand, until they were all but completely faded. When I spoke at his funeral, my voice was shaking and I almost couldn’t get the words out, but on the top of the paper I had written the words 'never forget to smile' in small handwriting, just as KC had told me a few weeks before.

Every time I see these words or hear someone say them, I know that it’s a reminder that KC is there with me, always. To this day, I know to never stop smiling, because I know, to this day, that he is there, watching me and smiling with me. It was his smile that brought us together as friends so long ago, and my smile that has given me so many new friends to honor him with. Occasionally I’ll trace where the words once were written on my palm. They always fade away, but I know he’s never really gone.

"I am now faced with mortality. Definitely not the most generous move." - Lance Loud

Utnapishtim’s line “There is no permanence” reflected on humanity as a whole, and what it means to be human. Humans differ from any other animal because we are aware of our own mortality. We are aware that we are going to die, and we are not permanent on this planet. We are aware that nothing on this planet is permanent. Everything fades away, dies, or ends. While on the outside this seems like a very pessimistic outlook on life, it really isn’t. Because of this knowledge, humans are unique in being able to live every second of life to the fullest. We know that life is short, so we need to live it as much as we can. Why waste what precious time we have left feeling bad for ourselves and striving to live longer? It’s pointless.

What gives us meaning in life is our ability to feel emotions. Along with knowledge, humans come with emotions. Love, happiness, compassion, pain, sadness. Without these things, we wouldn’t be human. While not all emotions are good, we have to feel them all. And it is worth it. Anyone who has felt love of any kind in their life will agree that it is worth it to be loved. In the musical Next To Normal, they stress this very well, “The price of love is loss, but still we pay. We love anyway.” It’s true. As humans, we love each other despite the fact that we know nothing is permanent, because love is worth it.

Without the knowledge of our mortality or the ability to feel emotions, our lives would be much simpler, but not necessarily better. Yes, we would be blissfully ignorant of death and heartbreak, but we wouldn’t have such great emotions as love to compare it to. That is why in Gilgamesh, Enkidu takes back his curse on the harlot. He is first angry at her for giving him the knowledge of mortality, but then is reminded of all that was wonderful in his humanization. His companionship with Gilgamesh, his glory and happiness. He would never have had that without the knowledge and acceptance of his own death.

Without a mixture of love and hurt in our lives, our lives would be mediocre at best. Yes, heartbreak hurts, but it is worth it. Yes, acceptance of life’s end is hard to manage, but it gives us the strength and motivation to live every second to the fullest. As the 1979 Massachusetts senator, Paul Tsongas said, “Don't fear your mortality, because it is this very mortality that gives meaning and depth and poignancy to all the days that will be granted to you.”

There goes my hero...

A hero can have many definitions for different people. My Macbook has a dictionary application that states that a hero is “a person, typically a man, who is admired or idealized by a wide range of people for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.” Personally, I am neutral about this definition. I believe that a hero is someone who can be appreciated by a single person, and not by a ‘wide range of people’. A hero can be someone who impacts you personally: a person who you look up to for their strength, attitude, and accomplishments. To me, a hero is anyone you can look up to when you really need a boost.

I also do not agree that a hero should ‘usually be a man.’ I think a hero can be a woman as well. With my description of a hero, I say that anyone with a good impact on someone’s life can be her hero. This could mean a sister or an aunt or a good female friend as well. The definition of a hero should not just be confined to men, since women can have significantly great impacts on people’s lives. I think that many people don’t regard women as ‘heroes’ in the sense of novels and epics like in that list because, when people think of these heroes, the think of people diving into battles with fierce monsters, swords and shields at their sides. While this can be a hero, it’s only one interpretation.

I believe that heroes don’t need to have a particular set range of conduct. There’s no rubric to becoming a hero. Last year in English class we wrote an essay on someone we considered a hero to us. I wrote an essay on Matthew Shepard, the boy who was beaten and left to die just outside Laramie, WY in 1998. I wrote that he was my hero specifically because it was never something he set out to be. He became a hero, not for his actions like many heroes in books, but by his symbol and the repercussions of his death. He helped spark a great movement against hate crimes towards LGBTQ people, which I connect to personally. This proves that a hero doesn’t have to have a rubric or a specific code of conduct. A hero doesn’t even have to know they are a hero.

Humans do need heroes. Human nature tends to make people want to have someone to look up to. Looking back on my life, I’ve always had someone I looked up to. This person was my hero. Heroes are people who you can look up to, so they do good things, usually for the good of others.

Bertolt Brecht said “Unhappy the land that needs heroes.” If someone or a group of people is in need of a hero, this means that something is wrong that a hero could fix for them. If people are without a hero, they have no one to look up to, and no one to instill hope into their hearts.