Your Weekly Dose of Sawyer

When we talk to people, we always seem to start our conversations with phrases such as, "how are you?" or "what's been going on with you lately?". But what is the purpose to asking these questions if the responses that we get back essentially don't mean anything to us? What are we getting from one-word answers like "good", "I'm fine", or just "yeah"? By nature, we ask these questions without actually caring about what the person answers back to us. However, I actually believe that these questions are of crucial use to us. For example, when your parents force you to meet someone like their "high school friend" and all you have to do is be polite, these questions are quite handy. You're able to fill awkward time and be polite at the same time. While it might seem cold-hearted to think this way, in reality, everyone does it. On the other hand, I'm sure there are some people who are asking these questions to ...

America is essentially naive. We take what we want and we take what we have for granted. If something is going to propel our status up, whether it's for wealth, our social lives, or just out of selfishness, we don't seem to even hesitate to act. As we observe in Raymo's piece, the act of selfishness and naiveté is what drives their decisions, and eventually, will lead to their own death. The piece takes place in 1987, which is only around 25 years from when we learned how harmful cigarettes actually were. Just like in Raymo's piece when the six-year-old girl "rubbed the glowing dust on her body" not knowing that the "beautiful dust" would "damage her living cells" (Raymo 212) and kill her, our society did something quite similar and acted out of same naiveté. We did the same thing with tobacco and cigarettes and blindly rushed into using them because "they were cool" and "the new thing". Then once it was already too late...

American society is extremely commercialized as we focus our values and morals around superficial expectations. Americans find themselves picturing their lives like this: a nice house, a neat family, a dog or a cat, and of course, the perfect spouse. Due to society’s stereotypes, we want an attractive, respectful, and loving husband or wife. These unrealistic expectations and desires lead Americans to joining superficial-love shows such as love island, The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, and etc. On these shows the contestants are always needed to be one thing, attractive. The participants spend their time getting recorded doing activities such as hot air balloons, horse-back riding, and others in order to fall madly in love with their meant-to-be, everlasting soulmate. The couples that find each other and pair up most likely end up spending, a forever loving, 3 month relationship together. These shows expose the egocentric and unrealistic mindset that tends to float in the brains of Amer...