Public speaking? No thanks.

In the past, prior to this class, my public speaking experience were reading bullets from powerpoints. I had trouble getting up in front of the class. And once I did, I would not look at my audience, stutter, sweat, and get very twitchy. And although this is still the case, I have graduated from reading directly off of powerpoints to notecards and next week, my first presentation by memory. I don't have many experiences to reflect on objectively. I do, however, have objective results for my civic artifact speech, the scores I received for each category in the rubric.

For the civic artifact speech, I earned a majority of points in the categories of content and organization. I lost a majority of points for my lackluster delivery. I lost points because I had a quiet voice and made little-to-no eye contact. This is a general theme based on the way I felt during my previous presentations. To correct for my quiet voice I can wear a lapel mic (my disability prevents me from having a particularly loud voice). The eye-contact deficiency needs some serious attention, though.

I have always had issues making eye-contact with people. Something about looking into someone's eyes is uncomfortable for me. The easiest way I can think of to improve this is to have staring contests with anybody I remotely know or don't know. Hey stranger on the bus, let's gaze into eachother's eyes. Hey you over there, I want to peer into your soul....until it gets uncomfortable. But, in all seriousness, I could have staring contests with my family. I would make the goal of these contests to keep eye contact for increasing lengths of time. If I can go from 30 seconds to 1 minute with my family I can probably do 5-10 seconds per audience member. Another, more practical way to improve my eye-contact is to practice my speech in front of an audience of roughly sketched faces. I would spend time scanning the "crowd" picking a person for 5-10 seconds and then scan and pick another person.

My content and organization for this presentation were relative strengths of mine. Research and synthesis are much easier for me than standing up in front of people and talking. I have a strong admiration to those who are masters at the presentation. I am not one, but I am fairly certain I can improve.

Neediness

We all need to feel important and valued, its human nature, just look at Maslow's Hierachy of Needs. Social media has changed this need for esteem into a need for likes. We expect all of our posts to be liked by our "friends" on social media. Not only that, if they don't like the posts we're personally hurt. Similar to Mae who felt damaged after the Demoxie demonstration, when 368 people voted that Mae wasn't awesome. Each one of these votes Mae felt, were from people who "preferred her dead" (Eggers 414).

With social media, there is a more personal dimension to this need to feel important. With social media, I'll talk about Facebook, we can see exactly who liked and didn't like our posts. Before social media, we knew only by directly interacting with others, if we had their esteem and vice-versa. And those who didn't have esteem for us didn't talk to us and we never had to know. On Facebook you become "friends" with many people not based on friendship, but on who they're friends with. Without even knowing these people, but knowing they exist, makes us need their likes. And we feel unwanted when they don't like our posts. This again is similar to the Demoxie demonstration, where after the vote Mae had the power to see exactly who thought "these things" of her.

Social media has also increased our impatience and decreased our self control. When we receive notifications on our phones, we look at them without hesitation. This has become a Pavlovian-like stimulus where we must look at the notification because we expect to see something we like. We can't look away even if we know its going to be painful. Like Mae reading the letter from Mercer, "... she knew she shouldn't read the rest. But she couldn't stop" (435).

Social media has finally made us more sensitive. Social media has perpetuated the idea that there are "haters" everywhere. And with this idea comes people being more aware of and looking for these "haters." For the slightest criticism we quickly label the criticizers as haters. This has made us more sensitive and unwilling to accept a little bit of criticism. Similar to Mae reading Mercer's  letter, "She didn't want to read it, because she knew it would be ornery, and accusatory and judgmental" (434).

Social media has made our whole society needier. We need likes. We need things faster. We need only love, no "hate." Social media has made us needier offline as well. We spend more time online, being needy, which means we spend less time offline. This in turn makes us needier for human interaction in the real world. The Circle has made this neediness more obvious.

Creatures of the Marianas Trench

The Circle as we've learned so far is a hugely powerful and influential company. Much more powerful than any company around in the present. The Circle likes to prove its power by doing things and going places people haven't done or gone before. They've counted the grains of sand in the Sahara, and now they've gone to Earth's last frontier to find the strangest creatures imaginable. And although the Circle used this stunt to show their power, Eggers uses these creatures to represent different aspects of the Circle. More specifically, the predatory and mysterious yet transparent natures of the Circle.

The shark that Stenton found in the Marianas Trench would instantly devour any creature that was put in the tank with it and deposit a fine layer of sediment. This is very similar to the Circle. The Circle takes in recruits and gives them a career. They become so indebted to the Circle that they turn into pawns for the circle. The pawns work all hours of the day and night and leave their families, their homes, their life. All that's left of them is a fine layer of sediment, boring sediment. This is what's happenining to Annie. Annie is constantly "wiped out" because she is having her life consumed with all things the Circle (Eggers 355). The Circle is also predatory to smaller companies, who pitch their ideas to the Circle. The Circle can either buy them or fry them. The Circle is so powerful that it buys up many "herring" companies, reducing them to dust (Eggers 310). Further increasing its growing monopoly on all things data and technology. 

All the specimens Stenton collected from his journey were "near translucent ... [and] ethereal in their movements" (309). This brings about one of the Circle's inconsistencies, the advocating of transparency and the mysterious nature of the Circle. Towards the beginning of the novel, the public had no access to the Circle and its inner workings. The Circle was a special club with access given only to staff. However, as we moved to the end of Book 1, we learned that: 

"SECRETS ARE LIES"

"SHARING IS CARING"

"PRIVACY IS THEFT"

(305). As a result of these mantras the Circle makes itself more visible in the public eye. Eamon Bailey encourages more SeeChange cameras to be raised on the campus. And Mae becomes transparent, and gives tours of the Circle to the public, as a result of her "revelations." These tours take away the Circle's "lies." However, there is still a mysterious aspect to the Circle, similar to the octopus in its shape shifting, "stretching and reaching" "[at] one moment" and "shrinking [and] spinning" "the next" (309). The Circle is still hiding things, some things that Annie "shouldn't talk about much" (351). The biggest lie at the Circle is about Completion. The Circle says that Completion is near but no one really knows what it is.

The shark represents the Circle's predatory behavior, while the octopus represents the Circle's transparency but mystery. In the future, hopefully, we will never have a company like the Circle. But if we do, we'll know what imaginary animals to compare them to. More importantly we'll all have a dystopian novel to compare and criticize them with. 

Boring Old Mae

Is this real life? In the novel the Circle, Mercer, the antagonist, is starting to think that Mae, the protagonist, can't distinguish between real and simulated life. Mercer's criticism for Mae was that all she does is "sit at a desk [for] twelve hours a day and ... [has] nothing to show for it except for some numbers that won't ... be remembered in a week" (Eggers 262). In using this quote, I will define real life as creating a physical change through personal interactions. And I will define simulated life as non-personal, over-the-screen interactions that do not result in any direct physical change. Mercer is not correct. The boundary between real and simulated life has become foggier for Mae and Mae is just becoming less adept at discerning this difference.

Mae is beginning to lose track of real life and simulated life. She was unsure about whether she was dreaming or if she was remembering reality. "It was the kind of random assemblage of details that dreams fumbled with" (225). Mae is zinging about what others have zinged about. Taking pictures of things others have experienced. She isn't engaged in what she is doing. Mae is being unoriginal and only artificially present.

Mae is only interested in improving her numbers. She wants to increase her PartiRank by "commenting on hundreds of ... photos and posts" (236). These posts are not constructive or meaningful as can be seen in their sheer volume. Mae is beginning to feel satisfied with her unproductive simulated life as can be seen with CircleSurveys. She feels accomplished in giving her "valuable" opinion without doing anything. "It was not difficult, and the validation felt good" (235). To click smile to support Ana Maria Herera and frown to denounce the Central Guatemalan Security Forces made Mae feel strong. "It gave her ... a distinct sense of the power [that] she could wield in her position" (245).

There has been an ongoing conversation in the media about living in the moment. That by capturing the moment with photos and videos we lose the novel-ness of it. This conversation has not changed anyone's actions though. Every day I see about one-fifth of people on the sidewalk looking at their phones and walking at the same time. This is not living in the moment, not enjoying what real life gives you. Its being absorbed in social media and living more of a simulated life. Having this conversation shows us we are at least aware of our decreased present-ness, unlike Mae. And just like Mae, we have all become more boring.

Circle Post 2 (Privacy vs Intimacy)

As Mae began working at the Circle she thought that only a minimal level of intimacy was encouraged between professionals. When Dan asked if Mae could talk, she responded by telling him she needed to go the bathroom. She thought this was possibly "...an unwanted level of hygienic intimacy (Eggers, 91)[.]" Another instance where Mae shows a proclivity toward privacy and away from intimacy was after the LuvLuv presentation. Mae feels something is not right about all of her information being avaliable to the public. She was unsure if it was the "accuracy of the algorithms" or the "matrix of preferences presented as [her] essence" that bothered her (126). 

Mae is chided for her private tendencies in her lack of involvement at the Circle. First she is criticized for not being active at the Circle and on her Circle accounts. The Circle believed that Mae wasn't attending enough events or zinging enough. This was an affront to the Circle community. At the Circle "ALL THAT HAPPENS MUST BE KNOWN (68)." Then she is admonished for not leaving an electronic trace of herself when she kayaked or when she visited her parents after her father had a stroke.

When Mae starts getting used to the Circle, she starts to agree with their ideologies about privacy or the lack thereof. She begins to think that she was wrong in not signing up for an MS support group. Wrong in not zinging that her father was doing okay, a completely private matter. Wrong in not zinging about the WNBA. Wrong in not zinging about kayaking. Mae is not even the least bit concerned when the Dr. Villalobos has all of Mae's entire health history right at her fingertips. Mae is not bothered by the engraved message "TO HEAL WE MUST KNOW. TO KNOW WE MUST SHARE (150)." She is starting to live the circle mantra that privacy is selfish.

A decrease in privacy leads to an increase in communal intimacy while decreasing personal intimacy. As Mercer said to Mae: "You're always looking at me through a hundred other people's eyes (132)." Mercer wants to talk directly to Mae about his business, instead of reading Mae's zings about other people's zings about his products. Communal intimacy increases when transparency increases. Knowing where everyone is with CircleSearch, everything everyone likes and dislikes or is allergic to with LuvLuv, everyone's entire electronic history on the searchable cloud, creates the artificial, non-personal, sense of connection each Circler feels toward other Circlers.

The Circle Post 1

During my first week of classes at Penn State I felt lost within the mass of experienced, veteran students. I felt like Mae as she was "... making her way through all of this, ... trying to look as if she belonged" (Eggers, 1).

Although Penn State is not trying to take over the world of information, there are several similarities between the Circle and PSU. Both value community, innovation, and excellence.

The most obvious salute to community at Penn State is our famous cheer. "We Are...Penn State," although second nature to many, it has some value. It identifies students and faculty with their school. Which in turn identifies each member in the cheer with each other, creating a sense of school comaraderie. Penn State also has many opportunities to get people involved in the college community like clubs, lectures, and debates. All of these opportunities add to our community experience.

While at the Circle there is no famous cheer, there are many parties and events. These events help to bring about the "inexplicabl[e] warmth" (31), felt by Mae on the Circle's California campus. The Circle engenders a sense of community by expecting Circlers to attend these sponsored events. The Circle also expects its followers to be very active and detailed with zinging. This increases each Circler's transparency, which makes Circlers' feel more connected to each other.

An insistence on innovation is another way that Penn State and the Circle are similar. The Circle was built on the innovation of TruYou. And Circlers are always working on big things like creating a submarine to explore the Marianas Trench, designing low-cost housing, and stopping the abductions of children. Penn Staters are working on predicting and treating human disease, advancing national defense systems, and increasing sustainability. Even undergraduates are encouraged to get involved in this research, uncommon at many universities, that will make echoes of innovations throughout the world.

At both the Circle and Penn State excellence is encouraged. However at the Circle perfection is somewhat expected, "At the Circle [each] missing point nags us (Eggers, 56)." After her first day Mae realizes that all that is not the Circle "... was noise and struggle, failure and filth" and that "... [At the Circle] all had been perfected (Eggers, 31)." At Penn State there is no expectation of perfection. One can be the most flawed individual and can still be a Penn Stater.

A major difference at Penn State and the Circle is privacy and independence. The Circle holds that "[a]ll that happens must be known (Eggers, 68)." This is taken into practice when Circlers zing about everything they do. Although this brings about community it decreases the privacy and the independence of the individual. Without privacy, one is not free do anything without censoring themselves for their audience. At Penn State no one is encouraged to sacrifice their privacy and independence for Penn State. Everyone is annonymized, if they please, just like in our cheer:

"We Are ... Penn State"

Existentialist Peeves

I snuggle with the absurd.

At least I like to think of it that way. That's where the two ideas I'm pitching today evolved from. And without further ado, let's get readin'.

Option #1: Peeve of the Week - Something that irks me. Once a week. Every week.

So class lets out and you're walking (or #rolling in my case) down East Pollock Road. And what do you see? Well, maybe you don't even notice it anymore. As they're walking, students, necks strained, heads down, staring at their back-lit smart boxes.

walkx*ting
verb
     to walk while texting.
     "He was walkxting when he fell down a man-hole."

Why would such a thing bother me? How can we combat this growing epidemic as a community?

You'll find out if I choose this topic.                                                                           SNEAK PEAK


Option #2: Rick and Morty and Philosophy

If you've ever watched Rick and Morty you know how philosophical it can get. For those of you who haven't, I'll give you all a brief synopsis of the cartoon's conflict. Morty is a meek, angst-filled 14 year-old. Rick is Morty's grandpa, a mad-scientist, time-travelling, alcoholic grandpa. Against Morty's own will, Rick takes Morty on his wild errands. These errands take the unlikely pair galumphing across the galaxy to bizarre and sometimes "squanchy" places.

So my idea is that every week I would discuss an episode I find thought provoking in the series. And each completed piece should hopefully synthesize philosophical ideas into an accessible and fun-to-read format.

An example episode I could analyze for its philosophical implications is Season 2, Episode 2 - "Mortynight Run" A quote from that episode:

"Nobody exists on purpose. Nobody belongs anywhere. Everyone's gonna die."

Existentialism. Existentialism from a cartoon no less. If I were to analyze this, I would ask the question: Do people exist on purpose or for a purpose? I would first look at this question from the standpoint of religion and then from a more secular point of view. Keeping the mood light-hearted with creative color commentary.

And there you have it folks. May the jury decide.

Any thoughts? Was one idea better or than the other? Criticism strongly encouraged. Harsh criticism strongly encouraged, just don't make me cry.