Author: SamuelM

We all have faced the question to obey someone or not. Many people just want to do something fun, but are then told to stop. They have a choice: to obey or defy someone’s order. As we all have experienced, the defying is the easy path. But we face consequences, like being in timeout or the worst . . .. . . . no video games. Well that is not really the worst.

In the short story, A Sound of Thunder, a man travels back to the time where there are dinosaurs with an agency that has a time machine. When there, however, they meet a HUGE dinosaur. When they run back, he is soo scared he leaps off the path, which is prohibited and kills an exotic butterfly.

Little does he know, that will cause the course of history to be changed. This little action and disobedience caused even the president to be different. We, as a society need to realize that unless we obey our superiors we will cause the ultimate and tragic destruction of humanity. If we continue to disobey our superiors, just one reason to obey them is in this short story

Many people want to be like Mozart, or successful, or rich, or whatever. But we need to realize that nobody has a perfect life, even Mozart.

When he was a wee boy, his father found out that he was a child prodigy, a mastermind composer, a genius of the century, took him on a tour of Europe. Many people would like to be in his shoes. As we take a look further, his life was not that perfect. His first job caused him to be a composer, or actually a slave to an Archbishop. Later on, he moved to Paris and was barely even noticed as a composer. He then went to Vienna and there he finally was truly appreciated. The rich paid him expensively for his music and he could enjoy the luxury of a rich house. Then war struck and he faced difficulty, the rich no longer had money to spend. He had debts and many financial difficulties. Finally, he died of a disease at the young age of 35.

Many people complain: My life sucks because I am not rich or famous. They believe if they are famous or rich, they will have a good life forever. In the story of Mozart, we see how this is not the case. Mozart was a genius at music, his skills elsewhere lacked. We see that in how he never really matured and never learned how to handle money properly. For example, once he got his salary, he spent it instantly on luxurious items without any life savings which led him to have many financial difficulties towards the end of his life. Mozart, a prodigy, a genius of his century, lacked the skills which we take for granted. We need to be more grateful and appreciative for what we have.

Many times, we as a society tend to be like chickens. Now you may say, we as humans are more intelligent or more caring or whatever. But too many times we, humans on this earth, act ignorant and aren’t willing to collaborate. We will see the outcome of this in two different groups of chickens.

Chickens often want to be the hen which lays the most eggs. How they do this is they peck other hens who are minding their own business and trying to lay eggs. Their unwillingness to collaborate eventually led to them having a group of them get killed or almost got pecked to death. Many times, we too, simply refuse to collaborate, just like those chickens, we will peck each other and cause the ultimate and tragic destruction of humanity. We need to collaborate and work together.

If we do this, just like the other group of chickens who worked together and made 265% more eggs than the previous year. We will make our community 265% better than the previous year! Perhaps best explained by MJ’s quotation: “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.”. We have to realize that the only way to truly succeed is to work together!

Many times in life you feel, ” Wow, what if that happened, would the world be like this right now?” Today, when I read the short story: A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift; we are once again faced with questions like: would we be facing this pandemic, would Donald J Trump be president, Would the US be a world power?.

In this story, we wonder, if his proposal was actually taken into force, what would happen? First of all, the following suggestions are only my insights. We might not even be alive if force was taken to eat all those babies when they came to the age of one. Even if most of us are still here, many people such as Abraham Lincoln, the son of a poor mother who would have would give her son to a rich noble, would not pass the age of one. He would be butchered, eaten, and would not become the US president. If he was not the president, who would save the Union, who would free the slaves. The US would not be like now, it most likely would have been a North and South. His proposal, if taken into force everywhere, it could result in the world population reduced to less than half. If the people were reduced, Japan would not have wanted more land and try to conquer China and help start WW2, people would not have been greedy to get more land when settling in America for there would be land enough for the reduced population. The rich people would have eaten soo many babies, that soon they would not be enough people to be their servants because the babies that were to become servants had been eaten! Many things could have happened just because of one proposal!

Things could have gone better or worse for the humanity. But I do know one thing, the fate of the world would have been pretty interesting if people decided to listen to the proposal!

Samuel M.

Many people want to succeed in life. People believe success leads to happiness. But how do you succeed? Let us look in the example in Elon Musk, a multibillionaire who is the CEO of Space-X, Tesla, etc. . . Now many people want to be like him. But we need to realize the pain and hard work it takes. We need to realize that not everyone can succeed like Elon Musk.

Here is a guide that Elon Musk says is the path he himself has gone and did to be the place he is now. Elon Musk states that in order to succeed you need to have a high pain threshold and be able to take criticism. Having a high pain threshold means expecting and taking in pain. We need to be able to take criticism. We can see this in Elon Musk. His hero Neil Armstrong, the man who influenced to make the company Space-X, testified that it was not a good idea.

Here is a story that shows how much he was willing to work and go through to succeed. He and his brother, when they started their first company, they rented an office only. They slept and worked there. To the point even sleeping on the couch. This shows Elon Musks determination to succeed. In the end, as we see now, He truly has reached that level. From a successful company in Tesla to launch 60 satellites on the mission to make the Internet available to everyone! Now that is success!

Life sure is hard! Time and time again, I feel like I can’t go on. We feel lonely and confused. Nothing works outright and you feel like a failure. That is exactly what Waverly, a girl in the short story Rules Of the Game felt. To crown it all, her mother did not even understand her troubles and she was alone. In a bubble, alone, with no help and joy! But one day she heard a very important proverb:

“Wise guy, he not go against wind. In Chinese we say, Come from
South, blow with wind-poom!-North will follow. Strongest wind cannot be seen.”

From this, she learned an invisible force. She had a weapon, an invisible strategy that provided her with power. We see that life is hard without help. But when you receive help, you are relieved of a burden. Waverly, with the superweapon, the proverb, pulled through many troubles. As we call it, ” went all the way” Waverly did just that. She attended chess tournaments and won many. Finally, she reached the status: the Great American Hope, a child prodigy, and a girl to boot. Although she struggled with the clash of cultures, American and Chinese, and distress at home, and a mom not having the ability to understand or help, she pulled through and became a national chess champ!

Waverly’s story shows us that life is hard without help. But we can do it, no matter what comes our way, we will Veni, vidi, vici: which means in Latin I come, I see, I conquer. Like Waverly, despite all the obstacles on the way, we must persist. Then, we will be rewarded with the title of ” a person who succeeded!”.

Samuel M. (⌐■_■)

Life is confusing. I have experienced that many times. So when I saw the story today: Henry Red Chief, I saw how a masterplan to get big money turned in a huge catastrophe.

In this story, two men, Bill and Sam, needing money, decide to kidnap a boy of the rich banker of Summit. But they soon found out how naughty this boy Jimmy, or Red Chief. We see how he made Bill be his horse and so on. When the two men sent a letter to the kidnapped boy’s Father asking for $1,500, they are pleased. But when the Father sent a messenger to the two men for the response to the letter, he counters it, saying. You give me my boy and pay me 150$. How surprising this is. He gets the boy and money, instead of paying money himself. By now, Bill is driven crazy because of the boy’s ” games ” and begged Sam to agree. Sam agreed and they paid the father and gave the child.

From this story, we see how people found a great blueprint to success, and immediately sent it into action, without a second thought. From the result we saw from this story, when we do this, we instead of striking gold, lose some of what we have already. When these two men, put their plan into action without a second thought. We see that they received a negative effect, which was giving back the boy and paying $150. We see how these two men, Sam and Bill, were now confused. Of how a masterplan turned into a disaster. Of how they were uncertain of how life was run. Instead, they should have thought twice of what could have happened or be less greedy. Now these men saw what I call ” Life, Oh Life”.

Samuel Ma