You're Robbing Yourself

Business Insider:

"Game of Thrones"                                            7.2 Million

"The Walking Dead"                                          4.7 Million

"Pretty Little Liars"                                            3.8 Million

"The Flash"                                                         3.1 Million

"The Big Bang Theory"                                      2.9 Million

"Stranger Things"                                               2.5 Million

"Quantico"                                                          2.1 Million

These incredibly famous tv shows were dubbed most popular in 2016, according to "Business Insider".   This chart shows that the average person (12-17) spends 15.29 hours weekly making those tv shows "most popular".   

                                      

                                                              (recode.net)

The youth of today are completely disregarding nature due to technology; the never ending distraction.  The burning question is "why do so many people no longer consider the physical world worth watching?" (Louv).  Henry David Thoreau wrote an entire piece dedicated to nature, but that was in 1836.  Times have indeed changed.  I remember when I was a kid every Christmas my family and I would drive up to Grand Rapids to visit family.  It's a good 2-hour trip that was always full of   "I-Spy" and "The License Plate Game".  When those games were done I remember looking out of the window and being in utter awe of the winter wonderland surrounding me.  When we arrived we would go out on my father's uncle's Four-Wheeler and ride it out into the brisk air down to the dirt track.  Even now I can just stare out of the window thinking of nothing in particular, just admiring nature for what it truly is; beautiful.  The youth now is being robbed by themselves of this priceless treasure.  Sure, every once in a while they might glance up from their show and see a passing tree for a split second, but then it's gone and the next episode has started.  As humans occupying nature as our home we have an obligation to at least "consider the past and dream of the future, and" through the glass window separating us "watch it all go by un the blink of an eye" (Louv).  

Big Foot Left that Footprint

This isn't about me.  It's about you.  Because everything is always about you.  You are never fully satisfied.  Whatever it is you want is "always over the next ridge or at the end of the trail, never under [your] feet” (Sanders).  You don't even pay attention to what is around you; decaying trees and dying plants.  All you see is more paper for your A.P English essays and a nice place to put the new house your moving into.  Because there's always a need to move.  Forget about the environment, who needs it anyways?  Right?  Wrong.  You can't just decide "not to attend this particular party" (Williams).  Nature needs you.  I watched a video in my eight grade science class titled "The Human Footprint" This is just one of the many, many footprints we leave on the environment:

"As a nation we through away 60 million plastic bottles everyday".  

The amount of trash we through away, products we use is going to kill the environment one English essay at a time.  But don't worry it's not your problem.  Just wait another twenty years and let your kids deal with the problem while they choke on car exhaust.  Don't view life through a camera lens, look at the reality around you.  Focus your eyes so they're not "glazed as you travel life's highway past all the crushed animals".  Do something about it now, not later.  Later is too late.

The link to the human footprint video: http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/human_footprint.

Marked by Life

Too much makeup= you're trying too hard
Not enough makeup= you're straight up lazy

So how can you win?  According to Deborah Tannen, if you are a woman, you can't.  EVERYTHING about a women is marked; "hair, clothing, makeup, and accessories"  (Tannen).  But for men "they ha[ve] the option of being unmarked".  This is not fair.  This is also not true.  Men are not judged by their choices of appearance, but by what they can't control.  In the last piece we read, "Just walk on by" by Brent Staples, he talked about how he and the people who were scared of him were the victims of their own stereotypes.  Due to his "inheritance"  people were naturally scared of him the second they laid eyes on him.  He didn't choose to be marked as a threatening person, yet because of how he looks, he is.




Too buff= Intimidating, threatening
Not enough muscle= Nerdy, scrawny

Men can't win either.  Tannen claims that men can determine if they wish to be marked or unmarked.  Both men and women alike are being judged no matter what they do.  Some may argue that women have it better because they can choose how they want to be marked.  Maybe one day a women decides she wants to be perceived as lazy so she wheres sweat pants and a t-shirt.  Men, on the other hand, can't wake up one day and decide they want to be perceived as nerdy and scrawny when they are built like "The Rock".
Men aren't automatically marked by what appearance they choose.  However, they are marked by the appearance they can't choose.  Women are marked no matter how they dress or act.  Neither fact is fair.  But, unfortunately, I don't see either changing anytime soon.