Final Exam Essays: Jared Larsen

Religion and Rhetoric

Rhetoric and Religion's relationship historically resembles that of Ross and Rachel: Constantly breaking up and getting back together for varying, petty reasons. Anciently, in the Pre-Socratic eras, Philosophy and Rhetoric were actually created to spite the predominate religion of mythological gods and goddesses, putting the two at odds from birth.

As Christianity gained popularity, it brought with it yet another point of tension: While Roman views on humility didn't contend with popular virtue, Christianity's inherent focus on the private righteousness of the individual greatly contrasted the general view of rhetoric's fundamentally public function: "For man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart" (1 Sam 16:7).

It really wasn't until Saint Augustine, born of the very romanized city of Hippo, attempted to combine them that the two truly enriched each other.  Having a background in the progymnasmata and other rhetorical training, he was initially dissuaded from the religion by the lack of eloquence he saw in its preachers and teachers.  After a spiritually revelatory experience, he "pick[ed] up and read" the bible, and discovered the vast amounts of rhetoric the Jews and others had used in its creation.

Augustine then wrote De Doctrina Christiana, or "On Christian Teaching," wherein he postulated that an understanding of rhetoric is necessary in order to interpret the bible:  Without an understanding of things like figurative language, someone reading "follow me, and I will make you fishers of men" could be easily confused or mislead.

The world has certainly come a long way since then.  While there remains tension based on common association between the word "rhetoric" and those of "politics" and law," Augustine's views seem to be generally accepted in that rhetoric, while of secular origin, can be used to enhance the teaching and learning of religion.  Our own apostles are "guilty" of its use within their General Conference Addresses, as noted by prior blog posts.

In general, rhetoric can be used as a means of enlightenment, and if "that which is of God is light" (D&C 50:24), then that which brings light is likely of God as well.

Rhetorical Analysis of Jacob 2-3

Jacob, while greatly remembered as a man of God and terrific prophet, lived his life in the shadow of his brother, Nephi- and it's greatly apparent he felt Nephi superior in many ways, evidenced greatly by Jacob's vocalized decision to call his own people, the Jacobites, after the name of Nephi (Jacob 1:14).  He wouldn't even have his calling as a priest or teacher if it weren't for the hand of Nephi (Jacob 1:18).  And yet, Nephi is dead, and the filling of his grave left an emptiness in the leadership of both the people and the church, and, with the plates falling to Jacob, so too does the responsibility for the people.  It is under this kairos that he goes to give his first post-Nephi sermon to a wicked, apostatized people.

All in all, this sermon is replete with rhetorical devices.  To begin, he reminds the people that he's been diligent in fulfilling his callings thus far, and that he isn't alone: He's got the all-powerful Creator on his side, and he can read minds.  All of this goes to build his Ethos.  He then introduces a major theme of Pathos, discussing in congery form the general feeling of pain and suffering by using words like "grieveth... tender... delicate... healeth the wounded... burdeneth... enlarge the wounds... daggers placed to pierce their sould and wound their delicate minds."  The general feeling in these words impresses the true weight of what Jacob plans on discussing, and he creates his own kairos to overlay anything else that might already have existed at the temple that day.

However, what I think Jacob is most well-known for is his exuscitatio: Stirring others by one's own feelings.  He constantly reminds his audience how much he dreads preaching to them on this matter, telling them "I am weighed down with much more desire and anxiety... which sin appeareth very abominable unto me... it grieveth me and causeth me to shrink with shame... it burdeneth my soul... and were it not that I must speak unto you concerning a grosser crime, my heart would rejoice exceedingly because of you."  This enforces Jacob's position as a link between God and his people, giving the people a third-party perspective from someone whom they know truly understands their ways.  It also tells the people how they should feel about their own crimes, facilitating change.

The most interesting device to me, however, is the permutatio by argument Jacob makes regarding the people's choice to take multiple wives.  He could have compared them to numerous people in religious history who chose the same, but the two he picks are David and Solomon.  Whilst Abraham and Jacob were "guilty" in this same manner, there were obvious distinctions in kairos that separate these two groups.  By alluding to the prior group, Jacob shows further his condemnation of his people, assimilating them with the sin of some of the most wicked men in religious history.

Institutional Authority and Communication in Family Mediation

Evan placed his ceramic mug on the composite-wood, cherry-finished table, glancing at his surroundings whilst wiping warm dairy from his upper lip.  He frequented this bookstore/cafe when he needed time to think: Time he really didn't have to spend in so lax a manner, but necessary for his sanity.

I don't think I could spend another minute in that court room, he thought to himself wearily, stretching his arms high above his head, interlocking and cracking the joints of his fingers, then lowering them to rest once more on the belly of his hand-tailored dress shirt.

His smartphone buzzed, and a text notification appeared.

Honey, don't forget: your membership fees for the American Bar Association are due soon.  I hope I'll get to see you tonight, but if not, I love you! [Authoritative Organization]

Evan slumped in his chair.  Would it really be so bad to be disbarred? He thought vainly.  Maybe I'd see my family once in a while?  Or go to my cousin's wedding?

Sighing sorrowfully, he pulled out his laptop and quickly navigated to the Bar's webpage to pay his dues... When something caught his eye.

"Annual Spring Conference for Alternative Dispute Resolution?" He muttered to himself, clicking the link. [Influential Event]  It was only a few months away.  Evan had seriously considered mediation when first choosing his career, but it was such a new avenue with very few professionals and experts, and, after reading the official standards of practice, he had several concerns about the lack of national requirements to become a mediator; now, in just a few short years, they had their own community, supported by the Bar! [Regulating Standards]

He quickly paid his fees, and added a few extra dollars to join the ADR community- After all, they promised to send their semi-annual edition of the official ADR magazine, an opportunity to join their roster of certified mediators, and a monthly newsletter. [Authoritative Publication]

The more he read, the more excited he got: It looked like there was even a "Mediation Week" he could attend this month where he could raise his certification concerns. [Challenging Authority]

Signing up for everything he could, for once, Evan had hope of taking his wife for a proper honeymoon.  For once, Evan was happy.

Biblical Eloquence in Romans 8:38-39

These verses are some of my absolute favourite scriptures of all time, and a rhetorical analysis of thereof may perhaps explain why they're so tantalizing to my mind and ears.  First, here those verses are:

38: For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which in in Christ Jesus our Lord.

...Pretty poetic, eh?  But what makes it so?
Is it the polysyndeton, where Paul lists these attributes of existence in a rapid-fire manner, using the negative form of these junctures to emphasize how nothing can separate us from the love of God?

Or perhaps it's the abundance of coupled contraries, each establishing spectrums of life's characteristics on which everyone resides, but are all apparently moot in this instance?

Maybe it's the use of climax, since we don't know what Paul is talking about until the moment of arrival at the end of the verse, but we definitely understand its importance by that time?

Whatever the case may be, this scripture's abundance of poetry and rhetoric makes it memorable, provides room for an emotional connection, and teaches truth in a simple (yet powerful) way: And Paul's own ethos, having experienced just how far God's love can reach after meeting Christ on the road to Damascus, is in no way less important.  Love it.

Flashlights and Fuzz

First Version - Flashlights and Fuzz

Kairos: Okay, to be honest, I don't tell my own stories a lot- My closest friends looked through my list and only recognized the one they were present for.  But this story's different.  This story is the epitome of my life, and I love telling it!  My friends hear it referenced or told whenever I need to quickly and adequately stress how accident-prone I am... Well, either this story, or the time I got in a car accident without an adult on April Fool's Day the day before my license test... but either way, there you have it. This telling is for a "mixed" audience: Where the majority of listeners have already heard the tale.  (This is highly truncated... for the full version, go here)

How I looked back then. *Shudder*

Basically, I used to use a flashlight to move around my house.  I also didn't sleep very well.  These
two factors resulted in many nights lying awake, grabbing snacks and using the facilities by flashlight.  On one such occasion, I noticed police lights flashing behind my house, so I went to check on my sister, then returned to bed.

All was well... Until the phone rang.  At 3 AM.  My mom answered it in a hushed tone.  I heard rustling and moving, and suddenly my mom meandered down the stairs.

Without my glasses, I followed a few paces back, but stopped at the top: Watching as she conversed with two fuzzy fuzz.  I overheard the words "suspicious light" and "potential prowler," and the truth hit me:

I was the prowler.

Guilt and flashlight in hand, I came down to tell my tale.  When it was finished, the officers whispered in their radio, and we watched as several concealed attack dogs and officers retreated.

I signed the paperwork, the officers left, my parents shook their heads, and we all went back to bed...

...By the light of my flashlight.

Second Version - The Fuzzy Fuzz

Kairos: This one's for first-timers only, and only when I'm in the mood/have an excuse to tell it.

One night, I found myself characteristically [Definition] awake in bed, but [Ellipsis] overcome by the urge to walk to the bathroom.  I grabbed my flashlight and completed the task, but, on my return, I noticed red and blue lights flashing behind my house.  Intrigued but fatigued [assonance][apposition], I walked twenty paces to check on my sister.  By the light of my flashlight, I found her snoring and, assuming all was well [apposition], returned to bed: Irked at the lateness of the hour, but grateful I'd be allowed to slumber unencumbered [assonance].

...Or so I thought.  3 AM brought with it the pings and pangs [Paronomasia] of every phone in the house exploding with classical tunes.  Irritated, I rolled over to return to dreaming.

...My mom didn't.  Answering the phone in hushed tone, she was met by a pleasant-yet-urgent woman.

"Are you Denise Larsen, living at *---?*" She asked.

"Mmm... [Onomatopoeia] Yes?"  My mom questioned, sleep ensnaring her.

"My name is Peggy- I work with the Orem Police Dispatch office.  Two officers are waiting outside your front door.  Would you go meet them?"

...The sleep left.  "Of course!"

Me: The Awkward Formative Years

Running through in her mind the "last known position" of each child, she threw on her bathrobe and blundered down the stairs.

My concern piqued, I crept to the top of the stairs to observe.  Having no time to grab corrective lens, I was blinded by both sight and sleep, but listened.

Mom opened the door with caution, but caution turned to question as she viewed the empty doorstep.  About to close it once more, two darkly dressed men moved quickly from concealment.

"Ma'am, is there anyone else in the house?"

"Ju... Just my husband and kids?" She replied.

"Are you positive? Who's that man on the stairs?!"

Turning around, she responded, "It's just my husband!"

They conversed a moment, but when I heard mention of a suspicious light and potential prowler, it dawned on me.

I was the prowler.

Humiliated, I came down the stairs.  I concluded my tale, the officers looked at each other, one grabbed his radio and muttered the appropriate code...

At that moment my parents and I realized the extent of my screw-up.  Four attack dogs and at least ten other officers moved from hiding places, retreating to their vehicles.

I signed some paperwork, the officers left, my parents rolled their eyes at me, and I went back to bed...

Using my flashlight the whole way.

Personal Stories Catalog - Jared Larsen

1)  The story of my journey to Drum Major.  [Unexpected Blessings, Unintended Results, Marching Band].  I tell parts of this story when "Leadership Experience" comes up, typically regardless of physical setting.

2)  ...And that's how I got my own cult!  [Embarrassing Story, Inspiring Story, #jaredlarsenisthecoolestpersoniknow].  I usually tell this story when people closer to me ask me why I'm "nice" to everyone, even those I don't know.

3)  I wasn't all that left when I went on my mission.  [Death of a Loved One, Faith-finding Story].  I tell this story when I'm asked about the hardest thing I've ever done.

4)  The story of 8-year old romance and a phone call from the airport. [She Moved Away,  My First Girlfriend].  Generally, this story comes up when the subject of "first love" rolls around.

5)  "Let's go, Rolanda!"  [Working Fast Food, Customer Service Nightmares].  I share this story whenever someone asks if people are as polite to me through the drive-up as I am to them, or when I talk about customer service to my employees.

6)  The story of winning the Q.U.E.S.T. competition- but tying for first.  With a girl.  [Why I Love English, Other Things I Love].  This story finds its home whenever "Awards" or "Honors" becomes the topic of discussion.

7)  The Bottle Story: the time my trainer and I ruined P-day over a 4-hour dispute on "recycling."  [Pride Story, "He isn't so bad after all" Story,  Faith-Building Story].  I tell this story all.  The.  Time.  But definitely more often in either religious settings or "mission-story" settings.

8)  "How do you 'accidentally' smash your leg through a window?" "Obviously, you don't know Jared."  [Embarrassing Story, Funny Story, Character-Revealing Story].  This story comes up whenever someone asks me what dumb things I've done.

9)  The story of how a 3 a.m. S.W.A.T. team gave me my "criminal" record.  [Cop Story, #mymomsstillmad].  I tell this story whenever "Cop Stories" show their faces.

10)  The time I let my feelings for a girl dupe me into a cross-dressing saxophone duet in front of the whole school.  [Love's Labors Lost, Courage-Finding Story, Embarrassing Story].  I tell this story when someone asks what my most embarrassing moment is.

Storytelling in Familial Arbitration and Mediation

Foreword
When families seek the services of a mediator, the officiate occasionally weaves the facts and stories of both sides' cases into a more poignant, easily understood narrative illustrating the key points and issues in a more middle-ground fashion.  These stories vary in length and serve as a means of allowing the families to analyze their own situations from a third-party, less-biased perspective, enabling the wronged on both sides to understand their "opponents."

I made up the following story- As I don't yet have... Err... Any experience in my field, I honestly can't guarantee how much it typifies the stories my future colleagues are currently using: I only have second-hand knowledge from my Career Exploration professor, career fairs, and the occasional expositive mediation specials on television.

Example Story

• Setup: Four siblings seek mediation over the unequal estate settlement of their deceased parents, three of them feeling the house inherited by one, we'll call him Gerald, outweighed the monetary compensation received by the others. 
• "Gerald, in your parents' joint-will, they opted to leave you your childhood home: as far as liquid assets go, the home doesn't (and wouldn't) provide much financially.  In fact, its state of disrepair after all these years poses a substantial financial obligation, making it, in many ways, a negative asset for your portfolio.
  
  "However, your siblings feel there is immense difficulty in placing a price on sentimentality.  You now own the doorstep on which your sister had her first kiss, the living room where your family celebrated every Christmas, the tree under which the family dog was buried... In essence, your inheritance's value is more 3-dimensional than you may have previously accounted for, and shows just whom your parents trusted the most.  You now own a physical representation of every positive and negative experience of your siblings' childhoods, and they wish to negotiate an agreement wherein their emotional upheaval can be assuaged."

Analysis

This story restates what "Gerald" told the mediator, showing that, whatever decisions are to be made, he is, in fact, understood.  It also serves as a representation of similarity/difference, exposing to the intended audience the views of, in this case, his opponents.

Retelling the Story

• If the mediator in this story were to speak to Gerald's siblings instead, he would probably flip the order in which he addressed each party's grievances, establishing understanding communication before introducing difficult subject matter.
• "If I'm understanding you correctly, you three feel, first off, caught off-guard by your parents' apparent favoritism and special treatment of your brother.  They left him your childhoods: Memories of almost every "first," the grave of your family pet, the time capsules hidden in the now finished basement...

• However, Gerald was rather confused at the contents of your parents' will.  The years of neglect due to your parents' senescence have left the house in a sorry state of disrepair, cutting its financial value significantly.  As a negative asset, the money your parents left to you far outweighs the physical worth of Gerald's inheritance.  That being said, he wants to ensure everyone agrees to something: Whether or not it's the exact contents of your parents' will."

Blame the Romans for Your Textbooks

Fewer things have had a greater impact on my life than my love of a good book.  My parents first learned this when, at the age of 3, I'd tricked them into thinking I'd learned how to read by memorizing, word for word, Green Eggs and Ham: page turns included.  From that point forward, I was rarely seen without a book in hand: Even late at night, my parents would catch me hiding under my covers with a flashlight, stealing every precious moment I could before nighttime narco overtook me.

Turns out, every book I learned to love can trace its physical lineage back to ancient Rome!  While knowledge had formerly been disseminated through the use of clay tablets and paper scrolls, the Romans began making the codex: First a series of bound, wax tablets, then the wax was later replaced by dried animal parchment.  Without these Roman renditions, my days would have been spent in ways much less conducive to pursuit of intellect, and I largely doubt I'd be where I am today!

Midterm Essays

Prompt #6

When it comes to categorization of rhetoric, humanity is presented with a peculiar paradox of the sort I'm sure the Greeks would have loved: Rhetoric can only be categorized through the use of rhetoric.

That said, I believe strongly that The Funeral Oration of Pericles exemplifies epideictic oratory, specifically encomium, in a more pure form than is often seen across the board:  Conflagration arises when people misinterpret what it's actually an encomium of.  However, Pericles himself states the subject of his speech is "the spirit in which [Athens] faced [its] trials," or Athens herself.

Encomiums typically hit 5 major bullet points: 1) The subject's origins, 2) the subject's progression (development), 3) an exposition of deeds brought to pass by the subject, 4) favorable comparisons, and, finally, 5) an exhortation to emulation.

With these points in mind, it's easy to spot them in the content:
1) Pericles begins by speaking of the birth of the Athenian Spirit through the reference of stories of their ancestors, who, through their "courage and their virtues, have handed [Athens] on to [their posterity] a free country."
2) He goes on to speak of the development of their society through the introduction of democracy, invention of laws (both social and judicial), and appreciation for all things beautiful as elements of Athens' backbone.
3)  He posits that Athens' open borders, ability to defend and attack sola impetum (alone), and politically active citizens are what make "no invading enemy ... ashamed at being defeated."
4)  Pericles even goes so far as to say the legacy of Athens will outshine and outlast the words of Homer!
5)  The closing statements are filled with suggestions for each group of citizens as to how they could more fully enjoin themselves with the spirit that has long fueled the Athenian ways, remarking, "We who remain behind ... must resolve to keep the same daring spirit."

Naturally, the closing remarks are tailored to the individuals to whom Pericles speaks, showing the necessity of even encomium to be kairotic.  I think it's also clear the intent was to stir patriotism from the hearts of a people whose family Pericles had just lead to their deaths, but this is a calculated side-effect of his employment of epideictic oratory, showing how skilled of rhetoricians both Pericles and Thucydides must have been.

Prompt #1

Drama serves a unique purpose amidst the art world, and it's one that hasn't died for millennia.  In our world, drama is an escape: a way for a viewer to leave their dimension and enter someone else's for a short time.  During that brief breach from reality, an audience becomes engrossed in situations they may never run into in their lives, but it doesn't matter: every member of that audience is now living life through the eyes of the performers, feeling as they do, thinking as they do, and, most importantly, understanding as they do.

As a playwright, Euripides gains fame from the severity and coarseness of the lives he makes his audience live.  In Electra, his viewers ache with the title character for the loss of a loved one, burn with vengeance towards Clytemnestra, churn with sorrow over the lost mother-daughter relationship, and pity Electra for the monster she becomes.  He forces us to watch and feel Electra's sanity slipping away, bit by bit, as her actions become less and less human, less and less rational.

While Electra's response to her situation creates feelings of disgust and pity, deep down, the audience finds the true horror in realizing they actually understand how Electra feels: They see how, given the same circumstances, they could make the same irrational choices she does.

True, this thought doesn't initially strike as pleasant, but comfort resides in the simultaneous discovery that these irrational emotions of grief, fear, and vengeance cross the boundaries of humanity.

Irrationality scares us- that's just what it does.  If something cannot be understood, defying categorization, explanation, and all aspects of logic, we become terrified, desiring to shun or shy from it. Through this shared experience, while not a form of true understanding, comes a sense of familiarity: And familiarity we can handle.

Senior Saint Spins Scintillating Stories, Stirring Spiritual Strength

The order of the speakers in General Conference almost always add an interesting element of interpretation to the talks, and the pair of cardiothoracic surgeons who spoke one after the other proved no different.  Upon hearing the woeful tale of the demise of Elder Renlund's young heart patient Chad, participants were given but a few short verses of "How Firm a Foundation" before President Russel M. Nelson took his place at the pulpit.

President Nelson has long been characterized by his predominantly jagged, avian-like features, which juxtapose nicely his warm, inviting smile and tone.  When he speaks of levity, he elevates this tone: When his topic is something of a grave matter, he drops to almost nothing, occasionally finishing his sentences with brief aposiopesis (Pauses brought about by oncoming waves of emotion), evoking powerful pathological connections with his listeners.

His talk began as an encomium, of sorts, of the deceased apostles (whose replacements had finished speaking only a few chords prior), and he established his ethos largely through his personal stories about each of their lives and passings.  Emotional pauses were aplenty as he described vividly the experiences of each surviving wife, and a picture of Sister Packer and her late husband were even thrown in for good measure.

Perhaps the most powerful persuasive moment, however, occurred as he shared his experience in losing not one, but two of his patients on the operating table: the two patients being sisters, and the third child lost to those parents.  Given Elder Renlund's emotional conveyance of a similar story only moments prior, the audience's fresh wounds were opened, and the impact of both stories hit as President Nelson described himself lying on the living room floor, completely inconsolable.  In this moment, President Nelson became so human- so relatable, despite the difference in years and knowledge between us. This ecphrasis made me want to do whatever it was he asked: and he made sure to ask, using his wife's response as a means of telling women to "speak up and speak out."

All in all, President Nelson provided a well-articulated experience showcasing many of the powers of rhetoric.  While I didn't largely notice his logos, that could well be due to its lack of impact on me; it's a lot easier to analyze what I personally connect with.

Shadows

The written word can be much more powerful than a physical personification of the same ideas.  How do I know this?

...Because you're reading my blog post.  Due to certain anxieties and fears, I don't often comment in class: And when I do, I find myself hoping, as the prophet Jacob did, that I do not "stumble because of my over anxiety." Unfortunately, still, I find my face flushed and my finesse flustered before I've finished my first sentence.  Yet in this written, digital forum, I can be entertaining- and, occasionally, insightful.  I can comment on another person's blog post without my heart beating as fast as a hummingbird's wings.  I can articulate my thoughts in a manner that accurately portrays them, and when it doesn't, I have the opportunity to revise them before I hit that "publish" button.

Does my inability to speak without preparation mean my thoughts are not my thoughts?  No- ask Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Louisa May Alcott (author of Little Women), or Nell Harper Lee (the full-named author of To Kill a Mockingbird).  All of these women published their works under male pseudonyms in an effort to have their work respected and valued, and each succeeded in a way they never could have if their works had been presented as their own: Either orally or verbally.

Surely, a person with the ability to command his pen and pen his commands truly creates better ethos, but both speech and writing are merely mediums of conveying the essence of our souls: like artists, some are better with different mediums.

Is it Tragic? Or Just Sad?

Upon first reading through the text of the play, I found myself thoroughly engrossed in the lives of these fictional characters: They had me clinging to each ornate phrase, urging me forward to the resolution... Until there was none.  I sat and stared at the end of the text with so many questions: What becomes of Chrysothemus?  Does the Tutor tell Orestes how much his mother loved him?  What happens to Electra now that her sole purpose of existence has come to pass? WHERE IS MY KATHARSIS?

...Frankly, I was quite irritated with Sophocles' apparent break from Aristotle's formulae for Greek Tragedy, and I found myself wondering how I would feel at the end of the actual play.

So there I was- the theatre dark, Aegisthus' having bade his penultimate farewells, the chorus' final words lingering on the air- when the play didn't end. Bewildered by this turn of events, with the anxiety creeping further into my stomach, I sat bolt upright in my seat, carefully studying the actions of the only character left still in motion: Electra.

She glided slowly to her mother's corpse, kneeling beside her with what began as smirk of victory, but steadily gave way to grimace of grief...  All at once, she threw her arms over the body, sobs racking her own as her estranged-sister, Chrysothemus, gingerly slid to her side.

...Woah.  Ending where it did, the text of the play provided no realization of the horrors of Electra's fatal flaws: Yet there, on stage, I watched as Electra seemed to recall (and, this time, take heed of) the words of ill-fated Clytemnestra: "A mother may be wronged, but she never learns to hate her child."

With one silent scene, these actors turned Sophocles' Drama into Aristotle's tragedy. Electra realized she had always been the thing she hated, had always loved the thing she'd been, and perhaps never truly hated the thing she now knew she loved: Her mother.  Electra knows Clytemnestra was not the only soul lost in her quest for "justice."

Finding Support from Those Without

It's difficult enough to prepare an eulogy for a man who died under relatively pleasant circumstances- let alone a mass burial for soldiers who expired during a failed excursion.  I suppose the main reason such a speech seems a daunting task lies in a general feeling of inadequacy: How, under any circumstance, could one person deliver the proper words to accurately convey the emotions, thoughts, and dreams of another?

In the Spring of 2013, my father passed away unexpectedly from a pulmonary embolism.  As we made preparations for the funeral, there was particularly heavy deliberation surrounding the speakers, and I ultimately felt, as Pericles stated, "Our belief in the courage and manliness of [a man] should not be hazarded on the goodness or badness of [another] man’s speech. ... The man who knows the facts and loves the dead may well think that an oration tells less than what he knows and what he would like to hear."  Despite what Isaac said in his post, that's exactly what I wanted from the speakers at my dad's funeral: An admission that, no matter how hard they tried to capture his essence, their words couldn't compare in the slightest to the experiences and personal history I had with him.  Frankly, I really wish tradition didn't dictate the necessity of attempt.

Assuming the Grecians felt similar ties to their loved ones, Pericles' words and decision to speak instead of the reason those men fought in the first place created a greater sense of healing and closure for those in attendance.

In speaking so deliberately of each soldier's dedication to the valor of Greece, Pericles' call to action is difficult to miss: True to the form of encomium, he exhorts his audience, "It is for you to try to be like them."  Of all people to attempt to convince of the necessity to uphold an empire, I feel the greatest success is to be had with the bereaved- so much raw emotion comes from such circumstances, and it can prove destructive.  However, Pericles' invitation provides a route through which to channel that energy: Raising children, enjoining the war effort, and attempting to remember that "One’s sense of honor is the only thing that does not grow old, and the last pleasure when one is worn out with age, is not, as the poet said, making money, but having the respect of one’s fellow men."

Contents Under Pressure

The year was 2005.  I was an 11 year old boy: Pyromaniacs, the lot.  Ergo, a few summers prior, I'd accidentally set fire to a portion of my backyard.  Undaunted, I bought nine cigarette lighters off an older boy.  When my sisters then began regularly watching an action movie I wasn't yet allowed to see (Paycheck- I highly recommend it), I snuck onto the staircase overlooking the family room just in time to see Ben Affleck torch a man's face using a standard can of hairspray and, you guessed it, a cigarette lighter.

Cue: A few days of me coating the bathroom sink with Lysol and subsequently cleaning the blackened porcelain before anyone knew what I'd been up to (yes, there may have been cackling).

I wasn't alone for long, of course: I had to show my friends the cool trick I'd learned.

After a few experiments, we learned that, if applied to one of our hands, we could temporarily create the visual of ignition without the pain of combustion.  Pretty cool, right?  And it was... For a time.

From the instant I'd shown them my magic, my friends began scheming ways to apply it, and they weren't content with our little "It doesn't actually burn me!" gag (They later invented "Fire Ball:" Soccer with a flaming ball... But that's off-topic); they wanted something more like this:

Convincing me to spray Lysol all over my body took a while, but they kept saying things like, "Come on, man- we'll put it on StupidVideos" and, "We're guys! We're not afraid of anything!"

...Long story short, that's how I ended up with my eyelashes melted together and a ruined sweater.

Turns out you really shouldn't try everything you see on TV.

And your friends won't actually record it.

The Measure of a Man

"How we see ourselves does not come from who

 we really are, but rather from how we believe others see us." 

-Joachim Vogt Isaksen on "The Looking Glass Self"

This idea, first published in 1902 by sociologist Charles Horton Cooley, asserts that how others perceive and treat us will, without conscious contrary action, overpower a personality, opinion, or even identity of an individual- be that for better or worse (see The Stanford Prison Experiment).  Cooley had finally solidified why man has always, to some degree, feared his peers, and this base fear actually manifests as the root of two semi-effective rhetorical devices:

What A Relief!

I consider myself neither artist nor history buff, but my sole connection to Grecian history might prove the contrary.

I'm actually decent at Bas Relief! To create it, a sculptor begins with a flat portion of raw material and chisels, carves, or sands away portions until they "uncover" the sculpture beneath. While not invented by the Greeks, many argue that they were "the first to realize [its] true potential."

Here's where I wish I had a picture of me, late at night, chisel in hand, coated in marble dust... Unfortunately for you and I, marble isn't my medium of choice.

...Okay, I just carve pumpkins, and it's actually more similar to the "Intaglio Relief" found on ancient pottery of the area, but hey- relief is relief.

The Ancient Greeks found beauty in eternalizing temporary moments, hence the use of marble as a medium; however, I appreciate that my carvings are, typically, as fleeting as their subjects.  It reminds me of how important it is to look for and create beauty in today's world because, no matter how much there's been, the world will always need more.