Persuasive Tactics

In my community blog post to persuade a reader to not blame video games for violent tendencies in people, I believe I used a combination of pathos, logos, and ethos.

I appealed to pathos and ethos in combination. I brought up the issue of good parenting to combat any possible violent tendencies. This brings up the ethical concern of being a good parent, and what being a good parent means. This also appeals to a person's emotions by pointing out that people who carry out violent acts may have not been parented well.

I appealed to ethos by pointing out that females play the same video games as males, but the people that carry out violent crimes are primarily males. I also said that not all video games are violent, so it would be unfair to get rid of all video games, if they're not violent.

I don't think that any approach is more important than others. I feel like it's a little easier to appeal to emotion using pathos and ethos. However, it's more difficult to argue with logos, and logos makes for a more sound argument.

A Persuasive Essay Doesn't Have to be Personal

While reading The Art of the Personal Essay by Phillip Lopate, I found myself intrigued by the importance he stressed on the connection of the author to the reader. I suppose what had me thinking about it so much was my personal experience writing persuasive essays. When I usually write them, I don't focus on my connection to just one reader, I sort of imagine myself as speaking to an audience. I focus more on the facts and evidence that needs to be presented in order to make myself sound convincing and build my credibility. In a way, I guess that acts as my personal connection to my readers.

Social media plays a large role in influencing people, in both good and bad ways. People like to be part of the in-crowd, so they'll jump on the bandwagon of whatever they see is popular and trending on social media. It can influence people to vote, if they're seeing a lot of their friends posting about their voting experience. However, it can also influence people to do bad things like the "challenges" that have surfaced in recent years (tide pod challenge, Birdbox challenge, etc.). While some challenges can be relatively harmless, there are some that can cause great danger to the person participating or those around them.

People can also influence others in their every day life, unintentionally. People look up to other people and use them as role-models, and may try to act like their role model in every small way. In some cases, people don't have any type of contact with their role model, so the role model can influence people in ways that they may not realize.

As for me? I'm not sure if I influence people. Like I said before, people can influence other people without the influencer's knowledge. I would like to think that I act in such a way that people would respect me and be so inspired to act in a similar fashion, and I would be flattered to find out if someone looked up to me. However, I simply be myself every day, I don't do that with the intention to influence people.

Clearing Up The Blurred Fiction Lines

In Truth in Memoir Caroline van de Pol is concerned about  the missing piece in her memoir. According to her, this missing piece was herself. However, what holds her back is her concerns over a lack of authenticity. She believes that the her now could not write about the her in the past. Her main points to counteract this issue is to use narrative strategies, and to sort of blur the line between fact and fiction - do some "life writing" and make real people into characters in your story.

I agree that it an issue that deserves attention when writing a memoir. Though I believe it's one that can be resolved fairly easily. Using narrative strategies is useful, however I think turning real people into characters is a little problematic.

I find that you are able to still tell the truth using narrative strategies. Minor details can be left out, and the past is able to be told a little more factually. Writing about your past self is possible if you use reflection. You can anecdotally say things like "boy was I stupid," or "at the time I thought..."

If you were to turn people in your life into characters for the sake of narrative use, then I think you open up the door to be untruthful. You allow yourself to think "this is what I think this character (person) would do" and write from that instead of what actually happened.

Reminiscing in Detail

Ah, to look back on your life and think "those were the days." Those were the days you think about time and again, and cringe because what you did back then would hardly be socially acceptable now, and ohmygod what were you thinking??? then immediately fill your soul with regret. If genies were real, you'd make all three of your wishes be for a time machine.

You should be thankful though! Because through all those moments - whether they be good or bad - you learned something. And that's the greatest gift time can give us! You should consider writing a memoir. Though you may not think so, someone out there is bound to think that you're life is super interesting, and take something away from it.

I'm actually considering writing a memoir myself. I have a problem with how I'll link some of the interesting stories together and spice up the boring parts. But, well. I'll cross that bridge if I come to it. I think I've learned a lot of valuable lessons in being human. Lessons that I wish others would learn, and ones that I hope to impart on others should I publish a whole memoir.

I think for starters, I would test the waters and release small excerpts into the public via blog posts. I think I would put an interesting story out there first. Maybe not one that has a profound lesson in it, but an entertaining one nonetheless. I would choose one that doesn't have a lot of super personal details that I need to keep in the closet for now. Even if I end up publishing a whole book, as part of the editing process I would slowly add and remove details based on necessity and respect for the people that I mention and their privacy.

Regardless, it will be a fun process. Telling a tale that's as old as time in your eyes to fresh ears makes you feel kind of famous.

Memoirs Are Just Memories, Right?

The concept of writing a memoir is an interesting one. And I think that if you were to write one, you dance on the dangerous line of controversy. But I applaud you all the same.

It would be difficult for me to write a memoir. Probably. I think I've had some pretty interesting stuff happen to me, but I've convinced myself that 0/10 people would think the things that have happened to me are as interesting as I believe them to be. I suppose I could write from memory and just say what happened at a particular time and hope for the best? There's other things I would much rather be writing about.

If I absolutely had to write a memoir, I don't think I would be able to write my current life story cover-to-cover. There would be some pretty dark things in there about abuse, depression, and sexual assault - not to mention the dumb choices in my teenage years - that I am just not ready for the world to know yet. I'm still sorting these things out. And until I have all my poops in a scoop, these memories and events will be locked inside.

So I'll have to write in selective chunks.

I've thought about writing a book about the things that have been spoken to me - which would be a collection of things that have been spoken to me by other people that I find amusing. But that wouldn't be my memoir.

Here's a short list of things I could write about in my memoir

- The time I went urban exploring for the first time: With a small group of my pals, I got into the abandoned Northville Asylum. It was one of the scariest things I've ever done in my life, but I learned a lot about urban exploring that night.

- Starting my relationship with my first girlfriend: The beginning of my journey to discover my sexuality! Woohoo!

- Catching crayfish in the creek and the Weird Woods: I used to hang out a lot with my friends at a creek between my house and the elementary school I attended. I swear those woods were haunted. I miss those days.

- Getting my hair cut short for the very first time: I wanted my hair to look like a rockstar I idolized at the time, but keeping it short turned out to be a nightmare. That was probably the last time I took risks with haircuts.

On Sundays We Eat Chocolate Cake - Just Kidding We Eat Cake All The Time

Today I woke up and took a good shower. Y'know, one of those showers that you shave, exfoliate, deep clean and condition, do a face mask and lather yourself in cream? Yeah, I love those. And I feel better.

Not much happened today, just the shower and then work. I stopped on the way to work to get a small chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting to bring into work because it's National Chocolate Cake Day. I don't know the validity of that statement, I just did it basically because my cute calendar told me that it was.

My friend date is tomorrow and I'm nervous. I'm not sure if they're considering it an actual date or not. They've dropped the "friend" part of "friend date" when we talk about it, and they've said before that they would date me. So I'm not sure? They've been through a lot in the past year though; breaking up with their partner, moving out of their family's home, their dad passed away, and then their new car got totaled on the highway. So I'd understand if they weren't really in a spot to date.

But really I'm more nervous about what to wear. Even though I have a ton of clothes, I feel like I've worn them all out, and whatever look I decide to go with is stale. I've decided to wake up early tomorrow to try to figure it out, and put more time into my beauty routine. I'm also concerned about the possible snowstorm and cold that will make travelling very difficult.

Not looking forward to that part.

You Don't Have To Eat Sushi That Has Raw Fish (But I Do)

In contrast to the past few days, today has been eventful. I woke up and went out to lunch and dinner with my friend. We got Japanese-style crepes and bubble tea for lunch, then sushi for dinner later on. In-between we browsed a mall and went to Michael's. I found some really cute planner accessories there that I'm super excited to use! :3

All of that filled up my time until I had to leave to go to work.

I'm kind of glad my friend and I had some time together today. Aside from, y'know, the fact that I spent time with a friend and not doing anything else. He got into a relationship, and this made me feel better that he wasn't going to just forget about me and prioritize a new relationship over a lasting friendship. That seems to be my luck; my friends get into relationships then just kind of put me on the back burner, or take me off the stove all-together (then somehow the friendship ending is my fault despite my efforts to save it).

We'll see how it goes from here on out.

I wonder if there's an immediate cute for eye fatigue?

Something that made me irritated: My friend showed up for dinner like an hour early so I didn't have as much time as I would've liked to get ready.

Something that made me happy: They gave me a ton of food at the restaurant and it will probably last as leftovers for my lunch at work. I can't wait to eat all this rice.