Defining the American Dream Essay

Defining the American Dream Essay Defining the American Dream Essay Many Americans regardless of their color, race, or gender hold many dreams and goals. Some of these dreams can be reached; others unfortunately, might not be reached. Some Americans dream of becoming rich while others dream of getting rid of a disease. All of these dreams come from the heart and the ability to hope for great possibilities. The American Dream to me means being kind, decent, and respectful of others no matter what the cost. I am not talking about being a doormat either. It’s about supporting your neighbors and helping someone in need if you can. Helping someone can be as simple as having a conversation with a complete stranger and just asking them how they are today. This is only one of many ways to show you care about others. I do my best to live up to it, but invariably I fall short at times in the midst of parenting my three children to act appropriately in public. But life isn't about how many times you fail, it is about the successes! Thomas Edison exemplifies the behavior I am describing. He struggled many times and failed while trying to make the light bulb work over many years. When he finally had success with it, well the rest is history. He is not remembered as the guy who wasted years of his life failing at something; he is remembered as the man who invented the incandescent bulb. We s hould all hope to leave such a mark on humanity. I feel that the "American Dream" of yesterday is no longer the "American Dream" of today. According to my Grandmother, living the "American Dream" meant that if you worked hard you could and would live a successful life. This meant you could support yourself and your family and you also felt fulfilled on an individual level. Today, I feel that definition no longer applies. There are many people who work hard and still barely get by. They also may be so busy struggling to support their loved ones that they have no real time to focus on their own wants and needs. It seems to me that now the "American Dream" has become a rather materialistic one in which individuals seek to barely work, but possess many things. I blame it on consumerism and our new obsession with having things complete us. I do believe the American Dream is possible, just that people forgot that America was not built overnight. That same frame of thinking applies to the American Dream. For some it may take decades, for others, it may easily become true in a year, and yet we are all responsible for making it come true for every American citizen. For me it seems to be taking a decade! However, over that decade my personal American Dream has changed form. I remember being in High School and dreaming of meeting the man that I would marry and traveling the world with him. I would dream of visiting places where you’re afraid to eat the food but you do anyway and love it. As I grew older, my dreams began to mature. I did meet the man I would travel the world with. Today however, that dream has changed from traveling the world to owning a beautiful house, land, peaceful life, and to see my children grow into fine successful human beings whom make the best lives for themselves and their future children. Hard work actually means a lot of things like working smarter, better, safer and working much more productive each day. I do not feel that it’s all about hard work either, I believe it is about the effort and

Lemuria the Ancient Roman Day of the Dead

Lemuria the Ancient Roman Day of the Dead The upcoming holiday of Halloween may  derive, in part, from the Celtic holiday of Samhain. However, the Celts weren’t the only ones to appease their dead. The Romans did so at numerous festivals, including the Lemuria, a rite that Ovid traced back to the very founding of Rome. Lemuria and Ancestor Worship The Lemuria took place on three different days in May. On the ninth, eleventh, and thirteenth of that month, Roman householders gave offerings to their deceased ancestors to make sure their ancestors didn’t haunt them. The great poet Ovid chronicled Roman festivals in his Fasti. In his section on the month of May, he discussed the Lemuria. Ovid alleged that the festival got its name from â€Å"Remuria,† a festival named for Remus, Romulus’s twin brother whom he killed after founding Rome. Remus appeared as a ghost after his death and asked his brother’s friends to make future generations honor him. Said Ovid, â€Å"Romulus complied, and gave the name Remuria to the day on which due worship is paid to buried ancestors.† Eventually, â€Å"Remuria† became â€Å"Lemuria.† Scholars doubt that etymology, however, instead of supporting the likely theory that Lemura was named for the â€Å"lemures,† one of the several types of Roman spirits. The Ceremony for Celebrating the Dead The Romans believed that there could be no knots present during the ceremony. Some scholars theorize that knots were forbidden to allow natural forces to flow properly. The Romans are known to take off their sandals, and walk in their bare feet while making a sign to ward off evil. This gesture is called mano fica  (literally fig hand).   They would then clean themselves with fresh water and throw black beans (or spit black beans from their mouth). Looking away, they would say, â€Å"These I cast; with these beans, I redeem me and mine. By throwing away beans and what they  symbolize or contain, ancient Romans believed they were removing potentially dangerous spirits from their home. According to Ovid, the spirits would follow the beans and leave the living be. Next, they would wash and bang together pieces of bronze from Temesa in Calabria, Italy. They would ask the shades to leave their home nine times, saying, Ghost of my fathers, go forth! And youre done. Its not black magic as we think of it today, which Charles W. King explains in his essay â€Å"The Roman Manes: the Dead as Gods. If the Romans even had such a concept, it would have applied to â€Å"invoking supernatural powers to harm others,† which doesnt happen here. As King observes, the Roman spirits in the Lemuria arent the same as our modern ghosts. These are ancestral spirits to be propitiated. They might harm you if you don’t observe certain rites, but they’re not necessarily inherently evil. Types of Spirits The spirits Ovid mentions aren’t all one and the same. One particular category of spirits is  the manes, which King defines as the â€Å"deified dead†;  in his Roman Gods: a Conceptual Approach,  Michael Lipka terms them â€Å"the venerable souls of the past.† In fact, Ovid calls the ghosts by this name (among others) in his Fasti. These manes, then, aren’t just spirits, but a kind of god. Such rituals as the Lemuria aren’t only apotropaic- representative of  a type of magic to ward off negative influences- but also  negotiate with the dead in different ways. In other texts, the interaction between the human and the manes is encouraged. Thus, the Lemuria provides an insight into the complexities of the ways the Romans regarded their dead.  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   But these manes  arent the only sprits involved in this festival.  In Jack J. Lennon’s Pollution and Religion in Ancient Rome, he author mentions another kind of spirit invoked in the Lemuria. These are the  taciti inferi, the silent dead. Unlike the manes, Lennon says, â€Å"these spirits were labeled as harmful and malicious.† Perhaps, then, the Lemuria was an occasion to propitiate different kinds of gods and spirits all at once. Indeed, other sources say the gods worshippers placated at the Lemuria werent the manes, but the lemures or the larvae, which were often conflated in antiquity. Even Michael Lipka terms these different types of spirits â€Å"confusingly similar.† The Romans likely took this holiday as a time to appease all the ghost-gods. Although Lemuria isnt celebrated today, it might have left its legacy in Western Europe. Some scholars theorize that modern All Saints’ Day derives  from this festival (along with another ghostly Roman holiday,  Parentalia). Though that assertion is a mere possibility, Lemuria still reigns supreme as one of the deadliest of all Roman holidays.