In this blog space, please compose a brief response to share with your classmates from your journal about ghosts.
Wednesday, December 20, 2017
Due Friday, December 22nd - Ghosts Journal and Blog Response
In your journal, please compose a comprehensive response detailing your personal experiences with ghosts. How do past memories look different now that you understand the concept of ghosts? How are the events you see in the media examples of ghosts? How can we exorcise those ghosts?
In this blog space, please compose a brief response to share with your classmates from your journal about ghosts.
In this blog space, please compose a brief response to share with your classmates from your journal about ghosts.
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I feel like in a general sense, Ghosts are those feelings of deja vu, except it already did happen. Watching history repeat itself. I think in eighth grade maybe, I met someone and they were going through a lot-- depression, suicidal thoughts/attempts, the works.. And I wasn't really even his friend, but he trusted me and told me his whole life and for about three years I was essentially his therapist. It sucked and it was very emotionally abusive but I was okay with it, I just wanted to help him be okay. Anyways, it stopped because he got real life help. We weren't friends for a while because he didn't need me anymore, but this past year we actually have become really close- but yesterday he had a really bad panic attack in school and I suddenly got that flashback-- ghosts-- to me leaving class almost every day freshman and sophomore year to go visit him and make sure he didn't try and off himself. I sound so overdramatic and selfish and inconsiderate, I know, but it was sort of just that same gut feeling of something being wrong and so familiar that it made me almost sick. That being said, most of my experiences with ghosts are negative, but I don't think that always has to be the case. Depending on the scenario originally and now, ghosts can be strong reminders of how far we have come.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that you sound inconsiderate and selfish; it's important for you to have healthy relationships and take care of yourself too. I have a similar friendship. A few years ago, my friend was in a really bad place mental health-wise. I remember coming to school everyday hoping I would see them just to make sure that they were still alive, and if they weren't there, I would be a nervous wreck all day. My friend has since received professional help and is in a much better mental state, but I still get irrationally nervous when they are absent and I know that they have been particularly stressed.
DeleteIn my experience, Ghosts are built upon our represed memories and are built from the thoughts that scare us. The more that we try to push these thoughts away, the harder it is to stop thinking about them. It’s like when someone say “don’t think about this” and all of a sudden it is all you can think about. I also feel like these memories are the ones that effect us the most. An illness, and accident, even something that may seem insignificant to others, but is important to the owner. These memories also may vary with age. An elderly person may be haunted by the death of a husband or wife, or a teenager may be haunted by the rejection from their top choice college. As for exercising these Ghosts, I think that it also varies per case. Maybe “just moving on” isn’t an option, so therapy and distractions follow in the wake of these incidents. But in many cases these don’t work. Many people live with these Ghosts for their whole life and they never receive any help, so those lives are constantly filled with reminders and pushing back memories that continue to rise.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of the concept of Ghosts I think of things that haunt us and follow us around. Sometimes you can just being doing something simple and then something will remind you of something and it can completely change your mood. But Ghosts don't always have to be a bad and negative thing. I am the youngest of my siblings so its the hardest for me to see my brothers leaving for college, I miss the days when we were younger but since I was the youngest, they grew up before me so I miss those times a lot more. I have cousins that are slightly younger then me by a few years, and its kind of like Ghosts when I see them all together because it reminds me of my brothers and I when we were kids and it is bitter sweet but makes me especially miss those times.I think seeing anything from your past, or deja vu like Katie said, can awaken feels of Ghost and its part of growing up to be able to see the Ghosts but still charge forward.
ReplyDeleteI moved away from Pennsylvania when I was 11, so just as I was starting adolescence. I had practically grown up there; most of my memories of childhood are there, playing outside with all the neighborhood kids and walking along the creek and down to the 7/11 at the end of our road. Since then, every few years my family has spent a day or two there with our family friends, but we had never stayed for long. A couple of years ago, however, I stayed for a full week with my best friend Olivia’s family in her house diagonal from my old house. While there, I experienced all kinds of ghosts. I saw the person I might have turned out to be had my family stayed there and not moved away, and it was a life almost completely unrecognizable to my own. From Olivia’s bedroom, I could see the all the yards we used to play in, and there was a whole new generation of kids playing. They were climbing the same trees we used to climb, playing the same version of tag we had created and passed down, drawing the same chalk sidewalks and hop-scotches. It was crazy seeing it all repeated years later, but this time I was the old kid. What was especially strange for me was seeing the family that lived in our old house. We were a family of three girls, them, a family of three boys. Watching them climb my old favorite tree and scooter on my old driveway was bizarre. They were the ghosts of me and my sisters it seemed. Related to this, one time Olivia and I walked to the grocery store at the end of our street to buy milk for her mom, and a man chased us with purple lollipops saying he’d give them to us if we got in his car. I had thought that that memory would no longer bother me, but when we walked there again when I visited, I still got anxious and the ghost of the fear we had felt hit me hard.
ReplyDeleteI feel that ghosts are all around us. A particular example of ghosts I wrote about in my journal was my older sister. Whenever I am sitting in classes, going through the day at school, or doing my homework at home, I tend to think about how my sister has already gone through the whole high school experience and has already entered into a new phase in her life that I am expected to enter into as well next year. She has already gone through the whole process of applying to college having been there for two years now. She is already heading in the direction she want to go in for her future career and I am just getting started. I see ghosts as I am beginning to enter into this new phase of life and I think about how I will never exist in the same way I do now this time next year; I will have a new, different life spending my days and nights with different people just as my sister has. I will go to college and fulfill what myself and almost everyone else is expected to do in this society. I feel like when I think about my older sister, I am also thinking about how who I am right now will be a ghost to me next year.
ReplyDeleteFor me ghosts are the societal and cultural norms that constantly influence our thoughts and behaviors, often subconsciously. I see these ghosts mostly in school where it should not matter what clothes someone is wearing, how someone appears, or how someone identifies themselves, but these things ultimately do matter when it comes to our perception of another person. If I were to go to the beach and see a man wearing a Speedo I would almost instantly jump to conclusions about that man’s personality and identity. Even if I didn't personally agree with these conclusions or know they were not true, the fact that I instantly judged the man is proof of the presence of these ghosts. Ghosts are also heavily influenced by culture. If the man wearing the Speedo were in Europe, then nobody would think twice about what he was wearing. We have a very specific idea of what is socially acceptable whether we like to admit it or not. Everyone must make a decision at some point as to whether they want to conform to these ghosts, or conform to what is socially acceptable.
ReplyDeleteI consider ghosts to be that indescribable, yet inevitably present feeling that looms over us, reminding us of our past mistakes. Humans are interesting creatures, actually, because the majority of us (not all, of course) seem to focus on negatives rather than positives. For instance, I know many of my peers, for whom having been deferred from one college irritates them far stronger than having been accepted into nine colleges makes them happy. It seems to be a common tendency. Likewise, even though we've accomplished many great things in our lives, we seldom credit ourselves where it's due, and instead, dwell on what we haven't done so well on. Recently, I had a college interview, and I met my interviewer casually, and the interview began, although at some point during the interview, I was asked a particular question, and answered it instinctively. Later on, days after the interview ended, I kept thinking to myself: "What a stupid answer to that question. I can't believe I actually said that," when in reality, my answer wasn't that bad at all. My interview actually went okay. A lot better than I had expected.
ReplyDeleteThat's what ghosts are to me. They're some force that try and suppress your optimism by trying to elevate your failures over your successes. It's up to us, though, to make sure we continue to strive forward, despite the negativity our ghosts might exude.
I think there are multiple ways to perceive the idea of ghosts. To me ghosts are the limitations that our society has implemented on us. These ghosts follow us throughout our entire lives and force us to live according to the restrictions. One common ghost that follows us all at this time in our life is regarding colleges. When applying to college, many students apply to certain schools simply for the name of it. It isn’t the campus of school, their academic program, or extracurricular opportunities that urge student to apply but rather it is the name of the school that the student wants to be part of. Going to a well known school seems to be more appealing to students than applying to a less popular institution, even if the popular school doesn’t have the student’s major. Students are willing to give up 4 years of their happiness in return for the title of the institution, something trivial to their future. The purpose and meaning of college becomes unclear as the name of the school become priority.
ReplyDelete- Kaby
Personally, I feel that ghosts are all around us. Our ghosts, other peoples ghosts, and even society’s ghosts. I feel that my biggest ghost is the norms that are placed upon us by society. A specific ghost that looms over me the most is being the oldest in my family with two younger brothers. I feel that I have to be a good role model for my brothers at all time. I feel a certain sense of responsibility over them, even though most times they don't appreciate it. Being my parent’s first teeenageer was a very tough experience for me. I was the guinea pig of the family. I had to wait until exactly 13 to watch PG-13 movies and was not allowed to say things like “hate” or “hell”, even though I was approaching high school. Now, at 18, my parents have become a lot more relaxed. They give me a extreme amount of freedom which is a blessing, but sometimes a curse. It is very important to me that I do not break their trust and always set a good example for my brothers. They look to me for advice and comfort in their teenage years, even though they would never admit it. My sixteen year old brother and I have a pretty good relationship now, but fighting still happens. My youngest brother, 13, is my best friend. We get along so well and I can tell he thinks the world of me. This is the reason why I feel that it is so important to not disappoint them. I paved the way for them, dealing with overprotective parents, so they can have an easier time in their teenage years. However tough that was for me, I am glad that I was able to do that for them.
ReplyDeleteColleen
Ghosts could definitely be the ideas of past generations that, however irrelevant, still have an influence over us. In the larger sense, they are factors we let make our decisions out of fear. They can be as small as watching younger kids make the same mistakes you do, or as big as living with terrible guilt or regret that you cannot erase from your mind. In the first sense, I personally always see my siblings and younger friends have the same mindset I once had, and I just want to make them think the way I do, but I can't. My sister said she wanted to quit skating the other day, which I also wanted to do at her age. Now, I know that I have learned and grown so much from the experiences skating has given me since then. Of course, Evie can't look into the future and see herself going through everything I went through and eventually getting to the same point I am at. It's so difficult not intervening with her decision making but I know that she is very different from me and she knows what she wants, not me. This is not the worst ghost, or anywhere close, though. I know that she will just get older and so will I and this will become insignificant. The worst ghosts stay with you as time passes. In the play, what makes Mrs. Alving and Oswald's situation so horrible is that Captain Alving died as not a very wholesome person. He never broke his bad habits and so he passed all of them down to his son. Oswald is the ghost of his father, and neither he nor Mrs. Alving know how to confront his problems with some act of courage to get rid of them.
ReplyDeleteA ghost that constantly haunts me is the idea of past friendships. Throughout elementary and middle school, my groups of friends have changed over the years, especially now in my senior year. Old best friends have people people that no longer say hi to me in the hallway. Recently, I have seen this ghost approaching my younger siblings. My brother who transferred schools and had to let go of all of his childhood friends, and my sister who, like me, has simply grown away from the people that she used to spend everyday with. When my parents ask them “Why don't you have so and so over?” and they respond with “Oh, I haven't really seen them in awhile, we don't have classes together so we don't talk anymore” it brings up all of the great people that I have grown apart from in the past. Sometimes, I even see similar memories being remade with new friends, which is a bittersweet feeling. I believe that everyone who has been in my life was there for a reason, and left for a reason; those who have stayed were meant to stay. It is natural to grow apart from people, but I think it is a ghost that can follow us forever.
ReplyDeleteCat
My first thought when assigned this journal entry, was that we, as a country, have ghosts when it comes to mass shootings and bombings. I know it's a big topic to tackle but I think it's an important one. When the Sandy Hook shooting occurred, our country was completely shocked and disgusted -- rightfully so. Vigils were held, fundraisers were made, petitions went through many revisions. When the Boston Marathon bombing occured, everyone was angry and terrified. Campaigns were initiated, support was provided. Then, the shooting at Pulse Nightclub happened. Thousands of people rushed to donate blood. Then, the shooting at the concert in Las Vegas. Then, the shooting at the Baptist Church in Texas. A few weeks ago, the attempted terrorist attack in Port Authority. For years, we've witnessed mass shootings, bombings, and terrorist attacks and every time it happens, we always react the same way. Take to social media to verbalize your sympathy, donate money, retweet/share campaigns/petitions/fundraisers, discuss the tragedy within your circles, move on within two-ish weeks. Every time I hear about another tragedy in our country, I see the ghosts of the past ones I've had to witness as I've grown. I see people saying they want change, making petitions, "contacting" our government officials, and not getting very far. My heart breaks every time something else happens and, if it's "small" like the attempted bombing in New York, all anyone does is say "God, that's horrible!" I see the ghosts of all the people who lost their lives, to whom we promised to make change and not let what happened to them happen to someone else, saying, "What the hell are you doing? This is one more. When are you going to fix this?" One could argue that the reason why it's so difficult for our government or society to create change is because that's a long term battle. That argument would be fair, but Sandy Hook happened in 2012. Five years since those 20 elementary schoolers and 6 teachers lost their lives. The longer we take to reach a consensus and resolve whatever issues are causing these tragedies, the more time will pass where more terrible things will happen. These are ghosts of things we've lived to see and have yet to resolve, ghosts of people who did not deserve to die and we haven't avenged yet. By avenge, the I DO NOT mean add more violence to our country, on the contrary, I mean avenge them by changing our government policies, and changing our grief patterns to something more effective and productive, because that way I think many of us will find peace with those ghosts.
ReplyDeleteI apologize if this post turned into a rant or if it makes anyone uncomfortable but I wanted to share my honest take on the idea of ghosts in our present society.
Thank you for bringing up a difficult topic. I was thinking of bringing up something controversial as well but was a little nervous, but after reading your post I am more inspired to :)
DeleteIn Henrik Ibsen’s “Ghosts” the traumatic events of the past, now matter how much they are denied or buried, always come back to plague their victims. In the play, Mrs. Alving, having suffered silently through a long and awful marriage to an unfaithful dog of a man, tries to deny and prevent any lasting influence Mr. Alving could have on their son Oswald, taking full control of his life as if she were his only parent, sending him away from the family at a young age, and hiding the truth of Mr. Alving’s affairs from him, including the fathering of their maid and his love, Regina. Unfortunately, this unwittingly ends up fueling Oswald’s inheritance of several aspects of his father's personality and causing more grief than it is worth. He doesn't know the truth about his father and idealizes him, making it so when the truth is finally revealed to him it is devastating. Through Mrs. Alving’s babying of Oswald, he develops the same needy and insufferable attitude his father had. And by not knowing the truth of about Regina, he unwittingly commits incest. In addition by trying to dispose of all of Mr. Alving’s money by funding the orphanage so that Oswald literally does not inherit anything from him, she ends up providing Engstrand with the funding to build his brothel, a place that sells the propagates the same salacious and unfaithful behavior that made Mrs. Alving’s marriage miserable. By trying to deny the effect terrors of the past had on her Ms. Alving essentially helped reintroduce the Ghost of Mr. Alving back into her family and made the lives of all those in her household worse. Of course, the ghost of Mr. Alving’s influence would have been there anyway; Oswald was going to die of syphilis whether or not Ms. Alving had told him the truth from the start. But her refusal to accept the lasting influence of Mr. Alving certainly made the entire situation much more dismal and depressing. I experienced a similar thing. When I was a child I had a falling out with my best friend the essentially destroyed my entire social life. Afterwards I dwelled on it for the longest time, placing importance and emotion on it, hating him and hating myself for the longest time. It was only when I had accepted it and tried to move on with my life that I finally became a happier and better person. And while that event still affects my behavior and identity, its something I can grow from rather than something I let drag me down. Just as I placed importance on that event and invested myself emotionally in it and therefore prolonged the effect it’s ghost had on me, Mrs. Alving clings to her husbands influence by trying to deny it, placing importance on it and therefore allowing it to continue to destroy her life and the lives of everyone around you. It’s easy to say ‘just get over it’ and people never really do ‘get over it.’ But accepting the effect a ghost has on your life and live and growing from it will end up making you happier and fuller than if you try to deny the ghost and push it down. If that makes any sense.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading Ghosts, I initially thought of all the secrets (ghosts) that have been coming up in today's media and celebrity community. As mentioned in some discussions, this past year has been filled with sexual assault accusations of very powerful individuals. It has dominated our media and caused more skepticism over public figures than arguably ever before, questioning motives. With any sexual assault, violence, or harassment once one person comes forward it encourages others and the flood gates open. I think this translates as well to Ghosts, once one secret was spilled, for example the truth about the nature of Captain Alving, several others followed, Regina’s relationship to Oswald, how Oswald contracted syphilis, the real reason why Mrs. Alving was building an orphanage, and so on. It is scary to think that once one ghost comes out they all start to surface. Obviously as others have mentioned ghosts also come up in personal lives in the form of expectations and pressure from society. As a senior I feel these expectation arise during the college process. For me, especially I will think back to super little things, like homework I didn't complete freshman year and how that ghost is going to prevent me from getting into a good college, and eventually all these little ghosts turn into one big ghost of the fear of failure and not living up to expectations.
ReplyDeleteGhosts are pasts that still haunt us even today. After living 10 years in China, I returned to the U.S. It was a hard transition because I wasn't confident enough in myself regarding the social aspects, and speaking the language English at all times. The life in China was deeply rooted in my heart in 8th Grade. I would message and FaceTime my best friends once a week out of loneliness and boredom. Things did change quickly. As a matter of fact, I do prefer living in the U.S. due to better environments (less pollution) and better education systems. I used to have nightmares about me failing all the tests if i were to go back to China again to attend high school. Their studies are more challenging than here, and I found it limiting and boring. In the U.S., I get to explore so many other subjects, and to express my strengths even more. I have more choices in colleges. Whereas in China, there are few that can prepare me well enough for my future career. Yet, I still complain about the amount of workload and school in general.
ReplyDeleteIn my case, I exorcised the ghosts through time. Time healed me. Occasionally I will imagine what it would be like if I stayed, but thankfully I didn't haha.
Some of my anxiety is fueled by what I think of as ghosts. When I have anxious thoughts, I can sometimes ask myself “why am I getting worked up over this” and it’s usually because of something so tiny and insignificant. I know it’s so useless and inhibiting to worry about such little things, but I can’t help it. The more I think about not being anxious, the more anxious I am. I know this is not as much about society ghosts, but more about the ghosts of my own head. I’m affected by anxious, insignificant thoughts, and any questionsing or dismissal of these wired thoughts is hard to do. Once I’m anxious, I sometimes don’t even know why I’m anxious, I just know that I am. Controlling what I can control helps, but that sometimes leads to more anxiety over deciding what I can and cannot control. My anxiety reminds me of ghosts because it’s something that I do and something that I follow that I don’t have an actual reason to follow. But I also can’t just get rid of it all together either...so I try to control it when I can, but when I can’t, I should know that it’s okay. Sosha
ReplyDeleteI think the idea that your past stays with you is one that we’ve all experienced. While “Ghosts” shows it in a negative way, I think positive experiences and past events also come back to us, and are with us forever. People who have good memories from high school or college think of them and talk about them frequently. This is also true about any pivotal period of life. I’ve observed this in my life with my dad. He has a lot of hilarious memories and stories from his elementary school years. He moved a lot when he was young, until his family finally settled down when he was 8. His experiences before, during, and after this period, both positive and negative, helped turn him into the person he is today. Because of this, he is reminded of his experiences frequently. They don’t necessarily haunt him, like ghosts, because they aren’t damning or disturbing memories, but they will always be a part of him.
ReplyDeleteAnna Vrountas
In my life, there are definitely things that have stayed with me. However I never really considered these things “ghosts” until now, because I just started to understand the the concept. My ghosts are definitely not as serious and detrimental as those in the play, however they definitely affect me from time to time. One thing that has especially stayed with me in the form of “ghosts” is the expectations that I carry. My entire family has always had expectations that I will do will in school and in sports. When I am at school or playing on a team these things follow me around like ghosts. If I get a bad grade or don’t win, I always think back to what my family will say and what they will want me to do to fix it. I am constantly thinking of these ghosts, but another thing I have learned is they are not always as big as people make them out to be. I am always concerned thinking back on the things my parents have said to me, but if I actually go to them with a problem they are nothing but supportive. I have learned that when I have a memory, or a ghost, I think about it so much that it becomes something different entirely. I think that this happens with many people, not just me.
ReplyDeleteThroughout his play “Ghosts”, Ibsen includes various symbols from the orphanage to Orwald’s illness to, finally, the ghosts. The significance of the title “Ghosts” is not meant to be taken literally as a spirit. In fact, it represents the gloomy, hopeless ghosts of society and its outdated principles. The struggle of dealing with these ghosts is not particular to the characters of the play, but it is still prevalent in our society today despite the progress that was registered. Even though people today have abandoned some of the “ghosts”, we have accumulated new ones of our own. I have experienced myself ghosts of all types, but one that follows me consistency is the ghost of my family. My parents and siblings being the only members of my family in America, I feel isolated from the rest of my larger family in Lebanon. I was raised only being able to see my aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents in the summer which makes me feel that I am missing out when I am vacant. Every year, when I go to Lebanon, I see my loved ones get older, and it makes me feel guilty not to be able to see them more often. I see them getting older and older, but I do not get to see them age. It is a strange feeling, as I know it is not my fault and there is nothing I can do, but I cannot help but feel guilty. This is a ghost that will haunt my future, as I am always worried about something happening to them and without having been able to share significant time with them. I feel the ghosts of their absence in my daily life and long for their presence or the familiarity of having family around. Sometimes, I feel the ghosts of the emptiness of not being able to share the nice family relations my friends share with their families. I miss out on having the annoying cousins, the crazy aunt, the funny uncle, or just be able to spend time with my grandparents.
ReplyDeleteThroughout his play “Ghosts”, Ibsen includes various symbols from the orphanage to Orwald’s illness to, finally, the ghosts. The significance of the title “Ghosts” is not meant to be taken literally as a spirit. In fact, it represents the gloomy, hopeless ghosts of society and its outdated principles. The struggle of dealing with these ghosts is not particular to the characters of the play, but it is still prevalent in our society today despite the progress that was registered. Even though people today have abandoned some of the “ghosts”, we have accumulated new ones of our own. I have experienced myself ghosts of all types, but one that follows me consistency is the ghost of my family. My parents and siblings being the only members of my family in America, I feel isolated from the rest of my larger family in Lebanon. I was raised only being able to see my aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents in the summer which makes me feel that I am missing out when I am vacant. Every year, when I go to Lebanon, I see my loved ones get older, and it makes me feel guilty not to be able to see them more often. I see them getting older and older, but I do not get to see them age. It is a strange feeling, as I know it is not my fault and there is nothing I can do, but I cannot help but feel guilty. This is a ghost that will haunt my future, as I am always worried about something happening to them and without having been able to share significant time with them. I feel the ghosts of their absence in my daily life and long for their presence or the familiarity of having family around. Sometimes, I feel the ghosts of the emptiness of not being able to share the nice family relations my friends share with their families. I miss out on having the annoying cousins, the crazy aunt, the funny uncle, or just be able to spend time with my grandparents.
ReplyDeleteBack in middle school, an old joke that one of my friends used to say was that my book smarts were in the top one percent but my street smarts were stuck at bottom one percent, which evened out to just about average. Unfortunately, I have since discovered that the book smarts part is not true. I’d certainly also like to believe that the street smarts part is not true either but it has definitely been a ghost that has stuck with me. Simply put, I’m terrible at understanding human emotion. I feel like I’m always the kid who accidentally takes the cue to laugh when a friend is lamenting about how his family has to move away. Whenever a movie pokes fun at someone for responding to a social situation in an entirely wrong way, I always wince and can’t help but imagine myself in their shoes. It’s a habit that has tortured me for years. So junior year, I decided to try to raise my emotional quotient through trial by fire- I signed up to volunteer at the Boston suicide hotline. During my first few training sessions, there was no doubt that I struggled. But as I learned more and engaged in my first few conversations, I felt something else happening: I began to emotionally relate to callers and could hear them actually reacting positively to what I said during sensitive topics. That was my first few steps in exorcising that ghost. I approach everyday as an opportunity to take the next.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteGhosts, as I’ve come to understand the way Henrik Ibsen portrays them, are spectres of our past that haunt us in unsettling ways. To varying extents, they dictate the regular course of a person’s life. They are persistent and usually reside in the deepest chasms of a conscious mind, far away from the front where the painful emotions they cause may be felt. But some distressing situations may sometimes reintroduce the afflicted person back to their ghosts, when the scenario in which they face is similar to the one that created the ghosts. That is not to say these immaterial beings are impossible to destroy; only that to do so requires a fortitude rarely seen in people. For me, a particularly strong ghost that follows me around are my memories and roots in the city of Peabody. I moved away from there to Andover near the end of sixth grade, but I could never forget the friends I spent so much time with or fun times I had hanging around downtown. I've recently gotten into contact with a handful of people from those days. To see what they're up to know, for better or worse, fills me with many complex emotions varying from melancholy to relief. One is drugged out, one is a basketball star, and most others are living normal lives. But I still can't help but wonder: how would my life have been different had I never moved? And how would I have affected those around me? For better, or worse? These and other questions could only be ascertained in another universe where I stayed in Peabody, a universe which may or may not exist and of which I have no knowledge. What ghosts would be in those universes?
ReplyDeleteI believe that ghosts pervade the very fabric of our social interactions, from our expressions and our cliche’d catchphrases to our motivations and our goals. I tend to see people’s faces as an amalgam of my previous experiences. I’ve always been terrible with names; perhaps until my acquaintances develop their own individual identity in my eyes, I simply see them as a collection of the features of others I know. I see ghosts in people’s eyes when they tell me about loved ones they’ve lost, the same shiny glint of repressed despair that I first saw when I saw to my mother on the phone hearing that her aunt had passed away and later when my friend lost his father. I’ve never had a word to encapsulate this phenomenon until now, but I believe that “ghosts” fits this bill to a tee. I notice also, when meeting my friends’ parents, that I can almost always individuate the features and tics they have passed down: nothing as overt as Oswald’s womanizing and alcoholism with Regina, but more of the banal. Whether hooded eyes that crinkle the exact same way with laughter or a unique rhythm tapped out by two sets of fingers on a countertop, I see the ghosts that parents leave their children every day.
ReplyDeleteHenrik Ibsen’s “Ghosts” encompasses Mrs. Alving’s characterization of past memories and their connection to present experiences as ghosts. After reading this play, I now realize my perception of the present is the manifestation of my past experiences and memories. Never had I come to the realization of the profound connection between these two things: the past and present, albeit prior to reading “Ghosts.” I have conceptualized the term ghosts as something on the lines of experiencing a moment of deja vu: a recurrence of something from the past in the present. A medium in which this is an often occurrence is in the contemporary media, for, just like ghosts, the daily occurrences of terrorism, political/ economic news, and other serious topics and events seem to happen over and over again to the point of euphemization and desensitization. In order to exorcise ghosts, which are inherently negative, from the mass media and modern society in general, we must learn to actualize the extent to which events regarding terrorism, news, and other events that are worth noting are the figurative ghosts of our time. I am glad that I read Ibsen’s “Ghosts” because my perspective of the world, which now takes into account the fact that my perception of the present is the manifestation of the past, is significantly more comprehensive and in-depth.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I've come to know Ghosts are things/events from the past that still haunt us to this day. One of those Ghosts that still resonates with me and American society today is racism. Racism has long been intertwined with American history and has often haunted the people of today. Ghosts seem to be points in history that as human we have seemed to overcome but yet seem to repeat over and over again. They seem to be the very things that as humans we promise never to do because what we define as Ghosts are painful or evil events/memories that we’ve once experienced in the past. In my journal, I wrote about the time when a white man told my father to go back to his country simply because my father asked him to put his dog on a leash in the park. It may be something my dad forgets but it is something that I get reminded of when learning about segregation or seeing racist acts in our country through the news. That story seems to remain in my mind and reappear like a Ghost whenever I see or read about something racist. To me, Ghosts act as a reminder to keep one humble and not to forget that our world is not simply one of good but evil as well. Ghosts are the lingering thoughts that we try to forget but somehow are reminded of even when we try our hardest to forget.
ReplyDeleteGhosts lurk around every corner and can be found in every crevice of our lives. Whenever we put forward the effort to make a change in our lives, or change someone else's, we leave that impression of who we are into the consciousness of those around us. As we continue through our lives, there is a narrative of who you are and what kind of person you are that is dynamically created by everybody you meet. What I think is interesting about these ghosts is just how much these impressions can vary and in turn how differently your actions can be interpreted by everyone around you. One must always be cautious of these ghosts, for though they are invisible, they dictate just about every step you make in your life. Whether or not one bends to these narratives is up to the individual and perhaps is more situational than anything else. For example, if your character is seen in an exceptionally positive light you would be more likely to continue your prosocial behavior and in turn further reinforce your character's dynamic by playing that archetype. If you're seen in a primarily negative light than you may be more inclined to try to prove yourself in everything you do, more willing to break the mold and exceptionally more inclined towards radical personal development.
ReplyDeleteFor me, ghosts, as cliché as it may seem, are found through my experience with parents. I’m not sure how frequent other people’s mothers say this to them, but my mom makes the comment that, “You’re reminding me of your father.” Sometimes the connotation is used as a jest and at other times, she seems to truly mean it which mortifies her. Strangely enough, the gestures I perform at home never translate over to my school life or when I am with my friends. When it does, I find it weird when I do end up using my father’s lines in public as it provokes an uneasy stir as if I’m stealing an identity which isn’t mine. But at home, in front of both my parents, it is as if I am simply an extension of my father’s verbal cues. I don’t feel as though I am stripping away his verbality when in his presence because it may not truly be him either. These verbality are simply a pool of phrases that my family, as a collective, use to express our thoughts, but it’s just he who is known most for using them.
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