Final Thoughts and Reflection

            With our world constantly changing, we must find a way to help stay connected to everyone around the world. Yet at the same expense, we can not forget our roots and our connection to our local community. These experiences globally and locally allow us to make choices every day that no longer just affect us, but the entire world we live in.

            At Chico State, I am studying Manufacturing Technology. I will most likely have a carrier where I will have to make the decision to out source, outside the US, a process or keep that process domestic for my company. How will I be able to make this decision? Like Ono in Kazuo Ishiguro’s An Artist of the Floating World, I will have to live with the choices I have made. Hopefully I will be able to reflect, analyze and learn from my past experiences unlike Ono is able to do. These experiences will help me build my life story, or narrative.

            In An Artist of the Floating World, Ono was a supporter of the Japanese government in World War II. Ono lacks the ability to understand that a few years ago he was cheered and praised for his propaganda posters, now he is looked down upon. This is realized when he is talking to a student, Shintaro, about his past involvement with the China Crisis Campain. Ono does not understand why Shintaro “simply face up to the past” of working on the propaganda poster campaign. Ono, unlike Shintaro, does not want to face up to the present situation.

            Through out the book, Ono slowly realizes that the culture that he once understood has changed in the post-war Japan. He finally comes to this realization going through marriage negotiations with his eldest daughter. Ono begins to understand that even though he “acted in good faith” to help unite the nation, that he did make many mistakes that were “ultimately harmful to our nation” (Japan). Ono shows us that it is important to always reflect upon our decisions we have made and learn from them to allow us to make better decisions in the future.

            This poses a new question. How can we correctly comprehend how our decisions in the past, effected today? First we must build our frames. What are frames? George Lakoff describes frames as being “mental structures that shape the way we see the world.”  We gain these views from such aspects as our nation, religion, family, friends, and gender. Many of these we are born into, but we determine how much these aspects will affect our views.

            With the lack of frames we spiral into insanity. In Bessie Head’s A Question of Power, we experience, first hand through the eyes of Elizabeth, what life would be like without frames. Elizabeth is born into a nation of civil war, no family, and no true home. With no understanding of the world around her, she blurs reality and imagination together with no since of time or space. With the help of friends, Elizabeth is able to construct frames to allow her to see the world for it is. Through the epic battles in her mind between Gods, Elizabeth concludes that “there is only one God and his name is Man. And Elizabeth is his prophet.”

            At the same expense if our frames are too defined, we limit our abilities to correctly view the entire world. A perfect example of this would be JR. A closed minded man that frames has decreased his ability to reason and view different options. In our every changing world we must allow ourselves to be fluid, constantly moving, and innovative. The best way I believe is to keep an open mind, use our past experiences to learn and improve upon our future decisions, and find humor in everything we possibly can!