Assignments

Assignment #1 Person Place Thing

Person: Me

Place(s): School, Grocery Store, Home

Thing: Bad Faith 

Fluorescent lights bright red behind my eyelids, my cheek resting in my palm. Around me drowsy students scribble in their notebooks, doing their best to record the information before a hasty instructor changes the slide. I’m kind of not feeling it today, but I have to— it’s really not up to me, or how I’m feeling. For the next six hours, I am to be a student and only a student. After that, from 3-8, I am to be a grocery worker. And finally, upon arriving home, I am to be someone’s son. My friend whispers something: he’s been counting the amount of times the instructor has said “ultimately,” currently, he’s at eight tallies not even thirty minutes into the block. The instructor herself is doing her best to fulfill her role as an educator, making sure the class can hear her and answering questions with earnest. After it ends, I’m complaining to my friend about a club I'm in, something about me not having enough time for it, which is a lie. He asks me “well then why are you doing it (the club)?” I shrug and reply: “Because I did it last year.” The remainder of the day is spent on autopilot, taking notes, doing homework in lunch, responding to social cues, embodying the essence of “student.”  

 The second act of my day begins very much like the first, surrounded by lifeless, dreary-eyed peers, except this time they must remain vigilant for customers in order to retain their positions. When a customer checks out in their line, we jolt awake like animatronics, ready to spit out lines about coupon vouchers and rewards cards, flashing big bright smiles which fight against the bags under our eyes, the slight slump in our backs, the aloofness with which we carry ourselves, the subtle hesitation we give before quasi-genuine questions about the customer’s day. All of those which point towards the miseries of the min-wage worker are negated by a smile, which manages to perhaps convince the customer that, hey this guy is pretty friendly, I should come here more often! But no matter how mundane, how tedious, we still play at satisfying the customer. Despite the very real option to just forego most formalities, perhaps retain a muttered hello and how are you, I still go through with the whole package. For these five hours, I have just been a grocery worker and nothing more, the defining trait of me is “grocery worker.” 

 I arrive home fatigued. It must’ve been like this for everybody today, a constant shifting of role to role, vagrants of different characters and concepts. I am presented with options. I can work on an art project, read a book, or browse my phone for the ensuing hours. Here, there is little need to conform to a role. A student, a grocery worker; when demanded of me, I convince myself that I am these things, that I am the traits and characteristics which compose the roles of “student” and “grocery worker” forcing myself to act a certain way in order to bring these roles into fruition. I am acting in bad faith, positioning myself as an object-in-the-world rather than an autonomous being— I am consciously using my freedom to deny my freedom. By trying to fulfill a role thrust upon me by others, I reduce myself to an object, a machine. In order to escape bad faith, I must maintain my freedom to determine my own essence. I cannot confine myself within externally-given roles; I can satisfy the demands of my job and school, but I cannot tell myself that I am a student or a grocery worker, these roles must not define my essence. Bad faith only occurs when one uses an external source to impose meaning on their lives, by way of denying their own free will. 

I am deliberating on this next decision. Whatever I do next, it is entirely my decision, and it will play a role in the ongoing creation of my essence. An art piece however, a creative act, would be the most worthwhile exertion of my freedom. I choose to work on my painting. 

Assignment #2 Reflection

Storytelling ability// My story definitely has a pretty coherent structure, with four parts: School, Grocery job, a kind of reflection paragraph, and a resolution. I also made sure that most elements of the story was purposeful and had something to do with the concept of "bad faith." 

​

Creative Lens/Authenticity// Most of the story is true, (with the exception of me working in a grocery store; I did work in a similar environment this summer but the job was a bit unorthodox so I opted to replace it with something more relatable) but there isn't a strong hook. I do think that I managed to frame the idea of "bad faith" in a way that is "new and valuable" however, 

​

Connection with audience// Pretty solid here, most people my age go to school and work min-wage jobs. 

​

Timeliness// was handed on time.

​

Collaboration// only collaborated with one other emc-er and did not do so with anybody outside of emc.