lord of the rings one

1. The Struggle <br />Cassy Johnston<br />Humanities 30<br />March 22, 2010 <br />Honor and Certainty, two things worth fighting for, correct? But how much will an individual struggle to restore them. How much are you willing to give up in order to restore honor and certainty? <br />My own struggle comes for a time when I was unsure of myself and didn’t have the confidence I believe I have now. Like all insecure teens in junior high, I wanted to be accepted and cool. I wanted to be part of the in group and not part of the “brains” as I had been named in grade nine. Unsure of who I was or what I wanted in life I let uncertainty slowly creep in and with it honor slipped out. Uncertain and insecure, I walked the narrow line between being myself and being what people thought cool was. At first it felt easy because I had my two best friends with me but it wasn’t. Secretly unhappy, we hid under our masks which disguised the three very unique and different people who were underneath. The uncertainty only snowballed as we continued to be people we weren’t, and this uncertainly hit hard on our friendships. We were so uncertain that not only did we not trust our peers we began to not trust each other. Someone was always left out, or someone was talking behind someone’s back, or someone was not being nice to the other, and through this uncertainty came dishonor. After that year we all parted and went our separate ways, we started over in high school and although it was hard to restart first year of high school we knew it was the only way so we struggled through it. This was especially hard for me because I never went anywhere without a friend and now I would have to face my insecurities because there was no one there to cover them up. We are still friends but we each have our own groups and became our own individuals. As individuals we are much happier, we know who we are because we are no longer pretending and therefore our honor and certainty has been restored. <br />I can compare my experience to Jan Saudeks photo, 120km/hr, 1975. We are balanced trying to keep our honesty and certainty and all other aspects of our being balanced while life goes racing by, but when you lose your balance and slip how far are you willing to go to pick them up? Will the gate that keeps you within safe distance stop you? This picture suggests to me that the gate will not stop you and people will go to great lengths to restore honor and certainty. In this photo the man is balanced but his legs are on the inside telling me that he would jump completely from safety and past the gate to restore his honor or certainty. When you’re watching life go rushing by, there is no time to wait for things to slow down but instead you need to be ready at all times. You must be willing to fight and struggle to restore your honor and certainty. I compare to this because I jumped outside of my comfort boundaries and went to grade ten with no friends and started fresh, as much as I had to struggle to do it, I did it and it was worth it because I restored my honor and certainty and I was myself again. <br />