HW 36: Triangle Partner Help

Maggie:

1. Thesis (rewritten): Emptiness has driven us to find value through masking, adorning, and aggrandizing ourselves, a process repeated and updated regularly to ensure constant approval.

2. I liked how you focused mainly on roles and the fact that they are inescapable. A lot of us are born with lives that are already mapped out for us. And for those who don't have a parent dictating their every move, they're still limited and controlled by their environment. Therefore, we don't have as much freedom in picking our roles as one might like to think.
When we do choose to follow a role, we try to live up to it as much as possible because we believe that the more we fill up an archetype, the more we fill up our own holes and the empty feeling that comes with it. This is directly linked to the way we feel about ourselves. We want to feel important. And the only way to feel important is from the approval and attention of others. So we spice up our acts hoping for applause from the audience and the louder the applause, the higher our "value" becomes.

3. Stuff you should consider including:
- Now that we know roles are inevitable, how should we make the best of these roles?
- What are our options and which are the best ones?
- Make better transitions btwn. your paragraphs.
- Include more evidence like the stuff we read in class, Andy's lectures, student's blogs, your emptiness research, street and friend interviews, or talk about how you yourself fit into all this

Andy:

1. Thesis (rewritten): (Probably won't be as good as what yours already is) Coolness disconnects our mental beings from our physical, and encourages us down a strict path while eliminating the possibility of a life outside of the paths.

2. Your arguments are very clear cut and intriguing. It's hard to imagine life outside of the boxes though. You say by submitting to roles, we are forfeiting consideration for any alternative, but isn't the attempt to not play a role a role in itself? Even trying not to be cool has its own label. Is it possible to not strive to not strive for a role (did that make sense?), and to be completely oblivious of your own role and place in society?
Rather, I think that instead of separating it as roles and no roles, it'd make more sense to separate it into good roles and bad. The good would obviously be the ones that maximizes our awareness and connections with the world around us as you said. Cited from Anatomy of an Attitude, the current mainstream cool is "narcissism, ironic detachment, and hedonism." These are the roles with the most stubborn set of paths, and contain the most negligence towards the outside world. They are set deep within their boxes and are anything but past the perimeter.

3. Stuff you can include:
- Evidence and examples from readings, Andy, or other blogs
- how you fit into all this, personal examples
- an idea of what an alternative would be like? if not, what is your preferred pick out of the limited options/boxes presented to us?