Identity and Existence

As Maria T said in her entry, the human being has been always worried about its existence in the world. The human beings are always searching for something that builds their identity and give sense to their existence. Everyday of our lives, we are struggling with ourselves, facing with the most terrible fears, emotions, and feelings inside, and dreams trying to find ourselves in a world that sometimes seems to be opposed to us and most of the times we should learn to live in if we want to survive. We need something to base our existence on, an idea or a belief. That worry about existence is portrayed in the three poems discussed in class on Monday 14. The caribbean authors expose the main human being conflict between what I want, my will and what the world around allow me to do like in "Bein g Always". They show how our human existence is limited by the circumstances, normally, external factors that escape from our hands, as in the case of the "Patriot" in which the speaker lives in Canada, and his/her wish is to be part of that foreign culture, but at the same time keeping their own identity, values, customs and beliefs from his/her country of origin making designs in the snow. The same thing happens in "Give T'anks"; The speaker has his lover in another country and the love he feels for this lady is affected by the distance because he is far away from her. The only thing he has is to pray God and thanking for the love that none of us possess. Time and distance in this case, are the enemies for that love.
In other situations, culture conditiones the human existence as in the case of the essay "The Media's image of Arabs" where the author explains how the stereotypes, especifically the negative ones, divulged through the media-mass, has affected the vission and our perception towards Arabs and others in our society. The author claims respect towards individual differences. Everyone is different, unique. No matter the skin, race, religion, social condition, and nationality. The most important thing is TO BE.