Random Acts of Kindness Go a Long Way on a Small Island

What would you do if someone gave you $100 to do good with? To pay forward any way youd like?This past holiday season, this happened to me and it was one of the most rewarding things I did all year (in addition to providing students with $1,700 in scholarships throughThe Scholarship Systems 2nd annual scholarship).A few weeks ago, I received an email froman awesome blogger, J.Money, atRockstar Finance. They were giving out $100 to bloggers to share however theyd like. Thanks to their $2,000Community Fund, 20 of us were able to make a difference all over the world.And the reason I say world is because our contribution went to a group of young boys in Curacao, an island down in the Caribbean that we recently moved to.Not sure where that is? Dont worry. I didnt know either.Its the C in the ABC Islands and is a 40-mile long island down near Venezuela and Aruba.This island is beautiful. Has tons of culture. And a lot of opportunity, especially for acts of kindness.While tourists come and go every single day, enjoying the beautiful beaches, they rarely see the low-income side of the island (which isnt really a side.. but a large portion of it). Locals dont make a lot of money I think the minimum hourly wage is around $5 or so here and believe me when I say the island isnt cheap to live on.So when I received the email from J.Money asking who would like $100 to donate, I immediately replied and was luckily chosen! I wasnt sure yet how to use it but I knew I wanted to help kids.Thats when I reached out to a local friend on the island who works with teens in weightlifting.The local weightlifting organization is changing their lives. These kids that normally wouldnt have a chance to play a sport or compete because of their familys low income now have an outlet for their energy. They work extremely hard on the sport, dedicating tons of time to practice and competitions. My husband and I had the honor of lifting with them in a competition a few months back when we first me t them.They are happy, hardworking and humble. You would never know that most of them come from one of the worst neighborhoods on the island.As soon as my friend mentioned this group of guys, I couldnt wait to help them.We decided to buy them t-shirts. With the holiday craziness, they actually received them December 30th, just in time for the new year. Sure enough, the boys wore their new shirts for New Years Eve celebration (which is a huge event down here on the island).Here are just a few of the guys in their shirts:While I know this was meant to make a difference on someone else, and I know it did, this also impacted me. Ive wanted to get involved in philanthropic opportunities on the island and this was the perfect jumpstart to that. I cant wait to see how else we can help.Thanks again to Ivan, Ilse from the Curacao Weightlifting Federation, andRockstar Financefor making this possible!And if this inspired you to make an act of kindness of your own, please do so. While the holid ay season sparks so much gratitude and giving, it doesnt have to be December to make a difference in others lives. It feels incredible and you never know what kind of difference even the smallest effort can make.Happy 2018 everyone!

The Reversal of Power A Marxist Reading of Frankenstein - Literature Essay Samples

As Victor Frankenstein of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein delves deeper into his search for the causes of life, he becomes consumed by his quest for the answer to his question as he toils over his creation – a decrepit but mortal form compiled of various body parts. He pushes himself to the edge of his capacity for labor, and in the process isolates himself from his family, his human needs, as well as the rest of mankind. When his project is complete, however, Frankenstein finds himself to be immediately repulsed by his finalized work and distances himself, leaving the creature to go off into the world and fend for itself without any knowledge of human society. Faced with this new set of circumstances the creature soon becomes completely separate from Frankenstein, a massive power entirely independent of its creator. This shift in control from the laborer to the product of the labor reflects many of Karl Marx’s ideas expressed in his â€Å"Economic and Philosophic M anuscripts† as well as in â€Å"The Communist Manifesto.† It is useful to approach Frankenstein through a lens crafted by Marx’s ideas as such an approach reveals the alienation that Victor Frankenstein feels both from others while in the midst of his work, the hostility he feels towards the product of his labor, the Creature, once he is past his fit of obsessive construction and is able to view it in a new light, as well as the control that the creature is able to exercise over him as soon as it has grown to be its own autonomous being. To begin, at the very start of Victor Frankenstein’s fixation on his work he severs his ties with the world outside his laboratory almost completely, focusing only on his attempts to animate his lifeless creature. He loses all sense of time and connection with the natural world as he states, â€Å"The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in one pursuit. It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields bestow a more plentiful harvest, or the vines yield a more luxuriant vintage: but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature† (Shelley, 81). Reading this passage through a Marxist lens, however, it becomes apparent that this is an excellent example of Marx’s first form of alienation from labor: alienation of man from nature. Marx finds this to be meaningful as he believes that â€Å"As plants, animals, minerals, air, light, etc., in theory form a part of human consciousness, partly as objects of natural science, partly as objects of art – his spiritual inorganic nature or spiritual means of life which he must prepare for enjoyment and assimilation – so they also form in practice a part of human life and human activity† (Marx, 63). In this statement Marx is raising the idea of nature as an essential part of human existence, particularly in that many of the things that bring happiness are things that are considered to be acts of human nature. Therefore, through isolating himself from the outside world and from the deeds of Mother Nature, Frankenstein is denying himself the simplest pleasures in life and is furthering his separation from society. Building further on this point, Frankenstein’s obsession begins to prevent him from taking the necessary steps to care for his own mind and body. He is unable to separate himself from his work, and as a result is unable to stop creating it despite his own needs as he states, â€Å"My cheek had grown pale with study, and my person had become emaciated with confinement [†¦] My limbs now tremble, and my eyes swim with the remembrance; but then a resistless, and almost frantic impulse, urged me forward; I seemed to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit† (Shelley, 81). In losing his ability to tend to himself, Frankenstein exhibits the second form of alienation from labor: the alienation of man from himself. This is significant in that it begins to explain the way in which one can lose touch not only with the world around him but with his own mind as well. Marx claims that what separates man from other species is his ability to build as a means of cre ating beauty as opposed to only creating out of necessity, a theme that reoccurs throughout Frankenstein as Victor attempts to create what he defines as a beautiful being out of the collected remnants of human body parts. He states that due to this way of thinking â€Å"This production is his active species-life. Through it nature appears as his work and his actuality [†¦] he produces himself not only intellectually, as in consciousness, but also actively in a real sense and sees himself in a world he made† (Marx, 64). With alienation of man from himself, however, Marx states that â€Å"It changes his superiority to the animal inferiority, since he is deprived of nature, his inorganic body† (Marx, 64). Viewing Frankenstein’s alienation process through this lens, it becomes clear the ways in which he is being robbed of his natural ability to create for himself. In losing this, he is losing part of what makes him characteristically human. Furthermore, Frankenstein breaks off from his family almost completely, refusing to reply in his own handwriting even to the letters of his beloved cousin Elizabeth. When his companion Clerval comes to check up on him he picks up an unopened letter delivered several days before his visit that reads: â€Å"My dear cousin, I cannot describe to you the uneasiness we have all felt concerning your health. We cannot help imagining that your friend Clerval conceals the extent of your disorder: for it is now several months since we have seen your hand-writing; and all this time you have been obliged to dictate your letters to Henry [†¦] Dear Victor, if you are not very ill, write yourself, and you’re your father and all of us happy† (Shelley, 88-91). By examining Frankenstein’s actions through Marx’s fourth form of alienation, the alienation of man from man, it becomes clear the full effect that locking himself away with his work has had on Frankenstein. In l osing his ability to face himself he also loses the ability to face others, producing a system in which man is unable to comprehend what his labor is for, even in the case of producing for others. Finally, as the creature is jilted by Frankenstein and becomes completely independent from him and as Frankenstein attempts to return to his life before his project, the creature confronts him as an aggressive and foreign object. The hostility that is felt between the laborer and the product of the labor as well as the threats that the creature places upon Frankenstein’s conscience is an example of how rather than the object becoming an extension of himself, he has become a slave to its power.Marx states in his works, â€Å"If man is related to the product of his labor, to his objectified labor, as to an alien, hostile, powerful object independent of him, he is so related that another alien, hostile, powerful man independent of him is the lord of his object. If he is unfree in relation to his own activity, he is related to it as a bonded activity, activity under the domination, coercion, and yoke of another man† (Marx, 65). This passage relates directly to control that the creature exerts over Frankenstein, similar to the control that not only the product holds over the worker but also the power the employer carries. It is useful to read Frankenstein through a lens crafted by Marx’s works â€Å"Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts† and â€Å"The Communist Manifesto† in that it adds new depth to the relationship between Frankenstein and his monstrous creation. By examining Victor Frankenstein’s interactions with the natural world, his ability to cater to his own human needs, and the way he maintains his relationship to others during his fit of obsession using Marx’s various steps of alienation of labor it becomes clear the ways in which creating for beauty or excess results in fixation and estrangement from the rest of humanity. In addition to this, Frankenstein’s monster can easily be viewed as a symbol for the control and power that the laborer’s creation holds over both the laborer and society in the way in which he attempts to frighten Frankenstein into submission to his will. Using Marx, these aspects of Frankenstein are made apparent and the i deas are made more complex than they would be if the text were to be read alone. Shelley, Mary W. Frankenstein. D.L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf, eds. 3rd ed. Canada: Broadview, 2012. Print Marx, Karl. Selected Writings. Lawrence H. Simon ed. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1994. Print.