The overall meaning to Adrienne Rich’s article is that students should not receive an education, but claim one by being active learners and not passive learners. In every individual acquires knowledge of the basic functions they need to get through life at a young age. In most cases, people learn and gain more knowledge as they get older from different sources such as teachers, their parents, books, newspapers, …show more content…
Sometimes it knocks you down regularly but even then you have the power to choose how you want to experience life. You don’t have to be helpless. You can choose to fight for change, to improve and grow, choose to look on the bright side and find something you’re grateful for, proud of, something that makes you happy and strong even at your lowest. Wallace’s speech talked about changing a person’s perspective and attitude on others around them. The way a person thinks can have the biggest difference in their life. When we choose to pay attention, we can make choices that will improve the quality of our own day and the days of others around us. He explains that a person can change not only their self, but their surroundings by simply choosing not to go into an autopilot type of mindset. As humans, we tend to think our own ideas are superior to that of others, so we choose not to listen, and instead keep talking. This makes us a prisoner of the brain, the simple fact that we cannot even escape our mind. Wallace explains this by saying, “blind certainty, and a close mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn’t even know he’s locked …show more content…
There are also bigger choices to be made in situations such as: who to be friends with, to go to college, or if one is making the right career choice. Everyone is free to make a decision, however they feel is appropriate. With this decision they can choose good over bad, understanding and love over anger and hatred. Life is full of choices and every choice has its consequences. The choices one makes can either make on a stronger individual and a better person or it can tear them down and ruin them. This will cause them to feel as if they have to fight for themselves because there is no one they can trust. This is very prominent in The Killing Joke. In the Killing joke the reader will see at the beginning, Batman goes to visit The Joker in Arkham Asylum. Batman confronts The Joker on the futility of their relationship, and explains that it will only result in either his or The Joker's death in the future. Throughout The Killing Joke there are flashbacks showing the different obstacles in life The Joker has faced and his decisions and how they affected who has become. The Joker is shown making the choice to leave his job and follow his dream to be a comedian. This puts him and his now pregnant wife in poverty because no one thinks he is funny. He is later shown making the decision to assist in a robbery so he will have more money to support his family.