Rhetoric paper on a single word that we found in the letter.

Angela Fields

English 1010

09/09/2015                                                      Time

 

            “Time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively.” (Martin Luther King Jr. “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”)

Dr. King uses the logos of time in order to explain to people that though time is neutral “the time is always ripe to do right.” I agree with this reasoning and will demonstrate why and with many references to show their similar thoughts on Time. Time could be thought more as a balance to man’s interactions to it, swaying one way or the other, with which ever force weighs heaviest.  Instead of the common thought of it as, the sand, going continuously down an hourglass with no choice other than that of gravity, it’s only real truth is that it goes on. Think of time as a simple blanket it has no heat of its own, only the heat of the one it contains. So time can only emphasize those inside it that express and engage, that are not those part of "social stagnation."

 We are all part of Time and all have our moments to dance with it. As the well-known song goes in the movie based on the book Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White.

“How very special are we
 For just a moment to be
 Part of life's eternal rhyme
 How very special are we
 To have on our family tree
 Mother Earth and Father Time
 He turns the seasons around
 And so she changes her gown
 But they always look in their prime
 They go on dancing their dance
 Of everlasting romance
 Mother Earth and Father Time”

 

            In this movie a girl named Fern takes in a pig that would otherwise be killed, because it was born a runt. She pleads with her father “It’s unfair! If I had been born small would you have killed me?!” The father replies he would not, saying “A little girl is one thing, a runty pig is another.” Fern says she doesn’t see the difference and claims it to be the “most terrible case of injustice she had ever heard of!” Later in the book the spider named Charlotte also works long and hard to prevent the injustice of the pig named ‘Wilbur’  from being killed for food. Dr. King says that for time to be classified as “good” that “it will come through the tireless efforts of men willing to be coworkers with God.” As it was also the work of the girl Fern and spider Charlotte that saved Wilbur’s life.

 I once wrote “My shadow casts without seams or reflections, for its parallel lies deeper than its projection.” Applied here, assigning time as neutral, it is ‘the one’ that will and can impact it. Though they may not know the results of their trials and tribulations or labor and rewards they or you are the cause of the result. This is also described by William Shakespeare in a line from one of his famous speeches in Hamlet. Although here it reflects an internal personal battle when Hamlet questions to commit his efforts in his remaining time and endure it or to end it “whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them…” The one or many whom makes this decision to push forward, could be the ones that shapes times course.

            Even though we name time by date, era, year or transformation, it is not by the titles that gives the characteristics to time, but the events that occur during. You wouldn’t say ‘November is a bad time’ just because of the title given that time of the year, but because of events or experiences that caused the mindset you assign to November. Though some joke that Monday is certainly a bad day, it in fact is not the day itself that causes it to be, but the assumption that it will be and the mentality that it could be. Prediction may play a role in time but actions taken in time, not time itself, folds its histories. 

All things that must abide by the laws of time so to shape and change with it, much like a piece by Phillip Glass entitled “Metamorphosis.” The music shows transition altering slightly, but like time, the base of the themes remain constant. Like time beating away note after note in its unyielding flow and melodies. Even the word melody defined; “from Greek ‘singing, chanting’ also tune, voice or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity.” Yet the transitions can be great in time, like humans to evolve in leaps and bounds towards creation of new ideals and my hope, the betterment for all mankind. Though as history shows also throughout time, black periods, great suffering and human designed tragedy that could disrupt the beauty of time, and flow towards good. As said by Merlin, “For it is the doom of men that they forget!”, so can the course of time slowly wane and diminish the lessons learned in time.

Dr. King also reads in this paragraph “Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity” this is the ethos of the verse appealing to clergymen and all to do what is right for the sake of right.  As in the movie “Independence Day” the presidential speech given reminds us of this, though their fight was for survival. The truth underlining it should be a beacon for people to think globally, work locally for the good of all in their actions “Mankind—that word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can’t be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps its fate that today is the 4th of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom, not for tyranny, oppression, persecution, but survival.” It is with this type of passion that we should see ourselves giving, to rectify injustice everywhere, then, now and forever.

            Time-Some feel there isn’t enough of it and it’s not possible to do enough in it to make a difference. Yet if we step back and think of the billions of years the earth has been evolving and that humans, as they are today, have only existed for a tiny fraction of that time. Then think of all the wonders and ways we have impacted the earth. For example let’s say you could time-lapse a video of planet Earth from the very beginning. Continents would shift, ecosystems would rise and fall and in a flash literally from a space view the planet would suddenly light up in the night. CLICK! There we are. It’s up to us and how we use time that hopefully it won’t go click there we go.                    

                                  “As I watch my candle burn,

                                    to the candlesticks shadow my gaze is turn,

                                    A wave of shock for its without,

                                    the shadows flame has been blown out!”

 

Others may say, slow down ‘Take time to smell the roses.’ It’s this pause to notice the little things that people could reflect on the importance of time. If we all did this maybe everyone wouldn’t be so focused on what’s wrong, but see what’s right and work more on the garden of humanity, using the fruit of it to feed the future.

Time may be effected over its course like it is portrayed in one of the stories by my favorite author Ray Bradbury in “A Sound of Thunder” where the deeds done could have a deep impact on the future time of ours and others for good or for ill. “A little error here would multiply in sixty million years, all out of proportion…” and then again “We’re guessing, but until we do know for certain whether our messing around in time can make a big roar or a little rustle in history, we’re being careful” but when one member of the hunting party that went back in time steps on a Golden butterfly and asks “We can’t take it back, can’t we make it alive again, Can’t we start over?” This is the reality to time that though neutral it must be used wisely because the wide spread impact we have on it. That it is through our actions and deeds that shape time and mold our histories and not vice versa. It is not the concept of time being one extreme, but the extremes of the present and the ripples that brought us here. Either by good or bad the waters know not why or from whom the pebble was tossed to make them. Also that by this truth one can always make an impact to time and “that time is always ripe to do right.” Anyone can and everyone should, try for a better tomorrow.       

“95”

            Rewind, delete, freeze frame.

            Make this illusion sing.

            An old lady conjure the image

            and cast aside the bones.

            Their secrets, she cannot read.

            Beyond comprehension, past prediction.       

            Unable to except.

            Why?

            The cottage will one day crumple.

            How?

            Age and the sting of raging wind.

            Don't mourn for falling stars.

            Don't weep for fading suns.

            They paint colorful tapestries, and briefly light the sky,

            but descend, not surrender.

            Disappear, not forgotten,

            and kneel with gracious wishes,        

            for the dawn.