summer essays

8/13/2019 Summer Essays

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Why?

By Andrew Ostrow

Blodgett p6

At the end of my junior year, I began applying for jobs around Falmouth. I didn’t really

want a job, what kid in Falmouth actually has a desire to work out of a love of working? I

wanted a job not because I was excited about the places I was applying to, but because I wanted

to have money to spend. At that time, I didn’t have anything I particularly wanted other than to

go to movies and lunch with friends, so I wasn’t exactly broken up when I didn’t hear back from

the places I applied to. About a month, I did hear back from two employers, Hannaford and the

Oceanview retirement home, and I had to make a very difficult decision. Which job did I want to

take? Both were equally appealing, that is to say that I didn’t want to work at either place. I

ended up taking both jobs.

In the month that I didn’t hear back from anyone, several things changed that drove me to

take both jobs. Interestingly enough, the first incentive that drove me to double jobs was the act

of driving. I got my license while waiting and I suddenly found myself in a dilemma: I needed

gas money for my car. It’s always interesting to gain freedom as well as responsibility. I had my

own car, but I needed to pay for my gas if I wanted to use my car, and my car is what most

people would call a gas guzzler. I knew that if I took either job, I would likely be spending all of

my money on gas and thus wouldn’t get to do anything else because all of my funds would be

spent. This resulted in me taking both jobs, not out of a desire to work, but a desire to drive.



Alone, these incentives wouldn’t have caused me to take both jobs, but added together, it

was impossible to refuse. I found myself in the position of a stubborn mule that will move

toward a carrot in front of it and away from a stick behind it so as to gain the reward of food and

avoid the pain of punishment. I was moving toward the reward of possessing enough money to

pay for gas and my CD’s in the fall and away from the punishment of being left alone with

nothing but my loneliness. The ultimate incentive, I believe, is to offer a reward and an escape

from punishment, as I offered myself, for when the double incentive is offered, it is almost

impossible to deny.



WARNING: Read at your own risk

By Andrew Ostrow

Blodgett p6

Freakenomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner examines, among other

subjects, the difference between correlation and causation. Correlation is defined as a concept

that measures a relationship between two things, such as when one number goes up, the second

corresponding number will also rise, and vice versa. Causation, on the other hand, is when one

action causes another to occur.

I have a cat named Sammy. I’ve had him since he came to my back door when I was very

young. Lately, he has gotten very old and has taken to urinating on the carpets in the middle of

the night. It is very strange, since he has had no problem with this in the past and has always

been able to find the litter box. At first, I had no explanation for this sudden burst of senility

other than he is getting old, which could have a correlation. As Sammy’s age goes up, so does

the likelihood of him urinating on things he shouldn’t. My parents believe this theory

wholeheartedly and have taken to locking him in our basement. Our basement may be finished,

but it is still a sad statement that he is alone most of the day because few people in the family

venture down into the basement very often, and if they do, they don’t stay for very long. I

believe, however, that his age is not the cause of his new urinary habits and that there is another

explanation, one that has to do with causation.

My grandmother has a dog named Oberon. He is a wild black lab that is still very young

and, due to my grandmother’s limited mobility, untrained. Also due to my grandmother, he is



By Andrew Ostrow

Blodgett p6

In his opt piece, Small Change, Malcom Gladwell examines the idea of high risk activism

and the role social media has to play in the future of activism. Gladwell’s thesis is that social

media is inherently devoid of true activism due to the nature of social media itself. Websites like

Twitter and Facebook are networks, Gladwell says, and the people you are connected with on

those sites are not truly your friends. They are merely your acquaintances and, according to

Gladwell, no one you are connected with on these sites will do anything to actually help you or

support you if they put themselves in danger. He also theorizes that because a network has no set

leader, any activism that occurs over the internet is pointless, for a true revolution always has a

leader. Throughout his article, Gladwell refers back to the civil rights movement and how the

activists of that time were all interconnected and willing to risk themselves personally if they

were supported by their friends, performing a similar act. Gladwell’s reasoning is that it takes a

close personal connection and a defined leader to spark a true revolution, and that these things

cannot be found on your news feed.

There is a major flaw with Gladwell’s reasoning: he provides no evidence to support his

claim that such a rebellion cannot occur over social media. The only true example he provides to

provide some sort of support for his claim is a story in which a man finds a bone marrow donor

when his close friends send out emails and Facebook messages asking their acquaintances and

friends to sign up to become a donor. This example is hardly social activism. Just because

something is happening where people are striving towards a common goal, such as saving a

man’s life, does not mean that it is comparable to a sit in at an establishment that refuses to serve



people of color. Gladwell’s argument that these two situations are comparable and evidence of

social media having no influence on social change is quite frankly laughable. Gladwell spends a

good amount of his article arguing that the lunch counter sit ins occurred because a group of

young people were all sitting in a room together and connected enough to take a stand. He never

makes the argument of why this type of discussion couldn’t happen in a group chat or mass text.

Gladwell seems to be operating under the assumption that everyone a person is connected to over

social media is merely an acquaintance, as if a person is not allowed to be connected to their true

friends over the internet. This is simply not the case. While it is true that many people the

average person is connected to over social media is not a close friend, it is not true of every

person you are connected to. Gladwell’s argument quickly falls apart when anyone with social

media experience reads it and asks the question, “couldn’t the sit in movement have spread faster

if there was a way to be connected other than by word of mouth or smoke signals?” To be quite

frank, in his article, Gladwell comes off as a fossil of a generation long gone desperately clinging

to the ways of the past, muttering to himself that, “in my day we did things right.”

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