Month: June 2020

Curtis Zhang

6/16/20

Walter Mitty

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is a short story that tells about a regular man named Walter Mitty that dreams about doing very great things during his daily life. This story, although very simple, is meant to show that humans want to make themselves stronger and better than they really are. 

When Walter Mitty always thinks about himself being great and being on some sort of adventure, which he is put in the position of power. He is always thinking about this, and so this shows that humans are always thinking about them but better and in a higher position, and doing something respected or good, even if you can’t do that yet. He kept on doing that even though what he was doing in real life is completely boring, sending his wife to get her hair done, getting overshoes, and guying puppy biscuits, all which he pretends is something very important and big. Every time, he shows some kind of bravery and is in some position of power, as well as being in a dangerous situation which he faces with bravery. 

This shows why human beings are good at imagination and have dreams. People want to be able to have power and be in control, so they dream and imagine the day that they can do that. 

Obama was injured and possibly killed in an explosion!!! This is an example of fake news that happens on social media. It could be stopped in the future by new technologies such as AIs or monitoring social media platforms more. However, what exactly is real and what is fake?

How about we design AIs to separate false news from real news? Scientists have experimented on new technologies, one of which is called generative adversarial networks. There is a generator and a discriminator in this machine. The generator creates synthetic information and sees if the discriminator can separate them for testing. As foolproof as this sounds, AIs can’t get everything right so we can’t 100% depend on them.

What if we give the job of separating truth and lie to the government? For example, the government can be our main source of news and they’ll give us the information we need and want with supposedly no false news. This can be faulty though, as you might’ve heard of stories about the government trying to control the citizens and limit their freedom.

If the government can’t be responsible for this job, what if we just monitor or create an algorithm for all social media platforms to make sure no fake news is being shared? People want to have their privacy so monitoring the things they’re doing on the internet won’t be possible and algorithms created for this won’t be perfect either.

If it’s using technology, trusting the government, or monitoring social media, whether news is true or false isn’t something that can be distinct from each other easily. In the absence of a solution, it’s up to you to decide what news you want to believe in. Was the latest piece of news you read real…..or fake?

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty conveys such a relatable topic that many teenagers to mid aged people go through. In life, we often feel was if we are not enough, but our imaginations and mind takes us to another place. This story has so much to teach, and the biggest factor that plays in this story is the fear of doing something better.
To dig deeper in this message of fear that is symbolized in story, we are often hidden away from the beauty of life. Some have great confidence which I wish I had, but some like me lack confidence from the way we view live and the ways we strive to do things in life. For me personally, I tend to be the type to stay on the safe side instead of being bold and brave. Maybe instead of achieving my dream job, I strive to get a safe job that makes fair amount of money instead of doing something I am passionate about all because I am scared of failing. I often imagine myself doing great things which I would not have the confidence to do in reality. The fear I have that is related to the fear of Walter is the fear of doing something new compared to the life we have now. Fear is by far the biggest motivation out there right now, and this story does this message justice. Instead of dreaming of what we would be or do if we were different, try to make that difference. The fear I have now could possibly help me achieve my goal.
We should not be afraid to do things, because fear not only hides the beauty of life, but also prevents us from doing amazing things that we would regret not doing in the late future. Instead of dreaming, we should start preparing at doing better at something or gaining confidence because as we practice and bloom into someone better, we see the beauty of life we did not see before.

In “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber, the main character Walter Mitty is a shy submissive man who frequently daydreams. His daydreams consist of dangerous situations of which he is the daring protagonist respected by everyone, the opposite of his real life. Then shortly after starts his fantasy, he wakes up to the real world and gets flamed by his wife. Nobody respects him, because he is just an old man yearning for a life that he never will have.

Mr. Mitty’s daydreams are adventurous. He plays a hydroplane pilot, a bomber, and a criminal about to be executed. As stated earlier, his dreams are polar opposites of his real life. Through Mr. Mitty’s ambitions, Thurber is trying to convey that humans always strive to acquire what they do not have. In his dreams he is always a capable man who is cool and is in control of every situation. In real life, he is a man who gets bossed around by his wife. In his time period, this would be considered very shameful.

In conclusion, Thurber expresses the idea that the grass is always greener on the other side by showing Walter Mitty’s dreams. He is a shy man with big fantasies which are opposites of his life. Thurber is trying to say that humans always want what they do not have.

As everyone knows that not everyone can be a hero, but I think everyone still wants to be a great person. We always are not satisfied with our life that we have now, we want to be better, be richer, and so on. So then we have our dreams. The dream can be a huge dream, like to be a president. How big is the dream is not the most important thing but how much time did you spend on your dream is.

Most people have a huge dream, but they just daydream because they gave up without even trying. They said they don’t have time and money, and we are normal people, we can not be that successful like Abraham Lincoln. Well, what’s wrong with a normal person? Can’t a normal person have a big dream? That’s not true. Every successful person was a normal person before he succeeds. Even some of them are not “normal” people. For example, Beethoven, one of the most famous pianists. He was a little kid from a poor family. He had an ear infection when he was 26 years old. Everyone knows how important ears are to a pianist. But he didn’t give up. He still keeps practicing hard every day and communicates with others by writing on papers. He “listens” to the music by hands and heart. Finally, he becomes a household name in the nineteenth century.

Learn from that, we can know, if you truly spend time on your dream, you will get a chance to achieve it. But if you don’t try, it can never be achieved. We are all normal people, but since we have our dreams and work hard for it, we become different. Dreams themselves do not shine, but we do. So give yourself a chance, also give a chance to your dream. Just do it!

Mr.Walter Mitty attempting to drive along with various other chores,

Gets distracted and imagines fighting in wars. 

His wife brings him back to focus, 

But Mr.Mitty continues to dream instead of his wife’s hocus pocus. 

As he passes the hospital, 

He imagines he saves someone’s life little by little. 

His real life is drab and dreary, 

He would rather have fictional events to keep him cheery. 

When he thinks of what to buy, 

His mind drifts to a courthouse full of outcry. 

His stories don’t have an end, 

He would rather only have the journey to comprehend. 

At the hairdresser awaiting his wife, 

Mr.Mitty imagines sacrificing his life. 

Constantly frustrated he can’t control reality, 

He turns to his fantasies that he can always oversee.   

At last Mr.Mitty gets to the parking lot, 

Welcoming his dreams of getting shot. 

The short story, “The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty,” is about a man named Walter Mitty. He has a pretty ordinary life, but wises he doesn’t. His wife makes him do things and things get really boring. Since he wants a better and different life, he daydreams a lot.

In the story he has a couple daydreams. The first one was about him as a captain on a boat. Another one was about him being a doctor and is doing surgery on a person. The last two were him in court, accused of murder and the other as a pilot of a bombing plane.

I think the theme of this short story is if you want a better life you have to make it for your self. In the story all the daydreams he was in, he had a very high role. This make me think that he wants a life like that. But his role In the real world are pretty low and ordinary. If he tried he could take one of the roles he dreamed of.

Their are a lot of people that have mental illness but now inside our houses our minds are tense and running overtime the mental illness stakes are becoming higher and the chance of getting it are higher. and with the metal illness depression is also higher because the stress of the pandemic is mounting higher and higher with every day hundreds people die.

Mental illness is also caused by a lot of different thing.

Social media is untrustworthy. It is, at times, deceiving and misleading. Humans are the cause as well as the victims. People are very gullible. However, it is their job to see through deception.

There once was a group of Asian people who wanted to find jobs in England because the pay was high. However, they did not have the money to afford a plane. Instead, they decided to unlawfully ride the back of a grocery truck that is delivering to England. The trunk was very warm, and the people overheated to death. News broke out in the British news organization: “Chinese People Overheated in Grocery Truck” (I don’t know, something like this). Now the whole world knows that the people in the truck who died were “Chinese.” As it turns out, the police officers later identified the people as Vietnamese. However, the Chinese were seen as being crafty and dishonest.

Why is this? Why do people falsely accuse and just get away with it? How can this story even be believed? How do I even know if it is true?

Hear this other one. There once was a person who was driving, and he saw another person in front of him, pointing a rifle in front of him. The driver quickly backed up. At a safe distance, the driver picked up his phone, dialed 911, and the police came. The gun owner was arrested. Just like the other incident, news reporters came and reported this incident: “Gunner Threatens to Assault Driver.” But that is not the truth. The driver had tried to ram the gun owner before with his car. The gun carrier only pulled out his gun for self-defense.

What is the theme? Do not trust social media. As for the news reporters, they should not directly jump to conclusions before fully knowing and understanding the event. People must see through deception, and separate between truth or falsity. We have no information on if a certain piece of information is true or not. We need someone to check the facts. And as Sinan Aral says, “Who is checking the fact-checkers?” We can never be sure if something is true unless the results are successful. That is only obtained from your own experience. Once you’ve gained experience, you will be able to know the truth.

When it was reported that COVID-19 was in the U.S., everything was put on hold. Schools closed and businesses were shut down. Everyone had to stay home and wait for the storm to pass. The news was filled with increasing numbers of cases and deaths. Experts predicted and every day people knew that it would damage our mental health. But because we did not measure peoples’ mental health, we did not know how much damage it would do, or understand why some groups of people are suffering more.

After surveying people about their mental health, the results were even worse than expected. Compared to 2018, participants were eight times as likely to have tested positive for mental illnesses. But some people are suffering more than others. Young adults, ages 18-44, were the most affected. This might be because younger adults were more likely to lose their jobs and because they were already struggling with mental health issues. Parents were also affected a lot especially because their kids are cooped in with them. It is hard to find time to manage your kids as well as get your work done.

There are also other examples that our mental health is suffering like how there are more mental health hotlines. Because this pandemic is damaging our mental health, we should be prepared for when people need mental help. This also shows how big of an impact COVID-19 has on us, and how many people of suffering from it.