Journal #1

I had a long talk with my mom about how can you measure the worth of someone. My is very religious hence the reason why I’m always looking for religious aspects in most of the work that I do. She claims that you can’t put a price on people. Her whole notion is that we’re not God. We don’t the special talents and capabilities that people have for us to put a price on them. However, I see it a different way. I feel like you can put a price on people by measuring them by their physical and mental capacities. The most important things in this country is if you’re smart enough to do something and if you’re well enough to complete those tasks. Your worth as a person is measured by what you can do for society but not what society can do for you.

What I get from my class discussions is that Agamemnon is very prideful and feels as if everything should go his way. To me Agamemnon does things for himself more than others. On the other hand Achilles to me is the total opposite of him. Achilles seems more selfless and doesn’t want to hurt anyone unless he actually needs to.

Once I read the assignment we had for this week I knew I would have trouble. The idea of love or the thought of love has been tainted for me. From broken relationships with family, friends, and significant others, love has always been a hard topic to speak about. Love has a power to motivate you to do things you would never have though of doing. I visited the National Gallery of Art and it was definitely a different experience. The first work I saw that reminded of the power of love was a painting(?) (I think it was knitted but I don’t remember) of Jesus Christ bearing the cross.

To me this is the ultimate power love. Now honestly, who would die on a cross in front of everyone to save people that they don’t know. Being a Christian this is the most amazing act of love that anyone can do for you. Also, I like how the artist had all these people around him. Now there are some people in the crowd who was happy for his death however there were people that were upset about it. This shows that Jesus Christ exudes so much love its shown through us.

The next piece of art work is a sculpture painting of Madonna and Son. This shows the power of love from a mother to a child. When I first saw the piece I thought it was interesting. After walking through the museum I realized that many artists drew and created pieces relating to Madonna and Son. I was confused as to why all these artists were obsessed with this Madonna person. When I finally spoke to someone that worked there he explained to me that Madonna was the Virgin Mary and the son was Jesus Christ.

Mary loved God so much she didn’t care about the criticism she would receive having a child by someone that wasn’t her husband. That speaks to an unfathomable amount of love. Most people would be scared and afraid to carry the son of God. That leads me to another point about love. Love is all about trusting the other person. If Mary didn’t trust God she would’ve never agreed to carry Jesus. Trust is a big part of love and if love doesn’t have trust then there is no love there.

The last painting was of Adam and Eve. That shows the true test of being able to trust someone. Adam trusted Eve enough even though God told them they should never eat from the tree. However, this shows what love can do to a person. Because Adam loved Eve so much he never questioned her and just followed what she did. This is how the power of love can be hurtful not only to the person but to other people.

I also feel like this painting of Adam and Eve shows that when you trust and love someone so much you end hurt. Love is supposed to be a warm and fuzzy feeling. There is no reason that you should feel hurt or even betrayed by someone you love. This shows that sometimes some people’s love is just not genuine and you have to find out which person is worth it.

My understanding of the word hero is someone that will be there to help anyone that is in distress. A hero is upstanding person in society that will drop whatever they’re doing to help people. A hero to me is someone like my mom. My mom is such a strong individual that will drop whatever she’s doing to help her children and honestly anyone who needs help. A hero is selfless and my mom is so selfless. She doesn’t let certain things get to her and know that eventually her life will get easier.

Diomedes goes against what I believe a hero is. A hero doesn’t get their power and take out their anger on everyone they see. A hero uses their power to only benefit others. If they’re not using that power to benefit other people, then they are not trues heroes.