Issa Blog

There's More to Life than Being Happy      The basic argument of this talk was that the meaning of life is not the pursuit of happiness (or 42).  It is a combination of Belonging, Purpose, Transcendence, and Story-Telling.  The speaker began by discussing how the 'pursuit of happiness' has done a mediocre job giving people's lives meaning, with depression and suicide rates rising.  She said that after intensive research and talking to her peers she has discovered that there are four pillars to create meaning in one's life.  The first pillar was belonging, she discussed how belonging is a sense of belonging somewhere and having a friends and companion's who like you for you, not for some alternative meaning.  The second pillar was purpose, which was finding a cause or ideal that you spend your life working to improve.  The third pillar was transcendence, which was finding a higher purpose to what you are doing.  This could be relig...

Step 1) Exerpt 1:  Mr. Utterson stepped out and touched him on the shoulder…, ending with ...he had unlocked the door and disappeared into the house. Exerpt 2:   To this rule..., ending with This is a matter I thought we had agreed to drop.        In The Strange Case of  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson uses language as a way to differentiate between two characters who seemingly have nothing alike, although ironically are revealed to be the same person.  He uses this language in a variety of ways, firstly through the description of appearance.  When Utterson interacts with Hyde for the first time he approaches him, and when he taps Hyde on the shoulder he "shrank back with a hissing intake of the breath".  This description of Hyde describes his actions in a reptilian way, like a snake backing away from a large animal, to show Hyde as less than human in comparison to Utterson.  However when describing Jekyll, he is reffe...