Sae Park

Mrs. Thomas
UWRT 1103
6 February 2015
Knowledge is Power
What distinguishes a human being from another human being besides just their physical
appearance? Is it ones thoughts, memories, or maybe ones possessions? But we all see the same
things. What we see with our eyes every day is just a series of moving images, as if our eyes
were the lens to a video camera. The important part is the interpretation of these moving, visible
images when we retrieve them from our memory banks, and our perspective affects the way in
which we view them. In that sense, one can say that everyone sees different things. Our
perspective has been shaped and molded constantly since birth to this point in our lives by the
people, literature, entertainment, film, art, and other theatrical sources we have interacted with.
In Liesels case, her view on the world she was born into is heavily influenced by the people she
met and the books she has read.
In the eighth grade, I attended Community House Middle School and I experienced a
paradigm shift that I didnt know I was going through at the time, but realized in hindsight. My
experience with literature is very little beyond what was assigned in the K-12 Charlotte
Mecklenburg Schools curriculum which usually assigns students to read texts that are related to
slavery, religion, and genocide. And also during this time, I have been a little lackluster or for the
lack of a better word, I had no passion. On the weekends, I would play basketball every once in a
while, but I didnt play because I was serious about it. The YMCA was just next to my house and
I would have nothing else to do. However, there was a book that really made me question
whether or not I have been thinking about things in the right light. The book is titled Justice by
Michael Sandel who is an American political philosopher and a professor at Harvard University.
The book itself is named after the course he teaches called Justice and it gives a sample of what

Sae Park
Mrs. Thomas
UWRT 1103
6 February 2015
kinds of lessons he teaches. In a more direct sense, the book questions where society or an
individual should draw the line between what is moral and what is immoral or what is justice and
what is injustice.
As a brief example, he goes into detail explaining a hypothetical situation in which there
is a trolley racing down the tracks with a broken brake pedal and as an observer, you can see that
further down the trail that there are a group of fourteen construction workers working on tracks.
However, you have the ability to change the tracks with an emergency lever near your location,
but you see on the alternate route, one construction worker who is working alone on the alternate
track. At this point, Michael Sanders questions the readers by saying is it okay to save fourteen
construction workers lives for the price of one construction workers life, or is it morally
acceptable to just let the fourteen construction workers die in a tragic accident. This is just one of
the many big questions on morality that he asks the reader, and sure enough I was captivated by
the way he could look at a situation in multiple different perspectives and find a logical argument
for each one, making all the choices seem like the right answer. Just like how his book affected
my moral compass, Liesel had a similar experience in which the books she read determined what
she felt was true justice.
Although the contents of the books have not been shown in detail to the reader, one can
assume that those books carried significant values and morals that Liesel accepted to be true
based on the connections she could make with her own life. Even if there are no direct
similarities with the books and Liesel, each book that fell into Liesels possession was difficult to
obtain without first overcoming a certain obstacle, thus giving even more value to the text. The
perspective that human beings develop over time is comprised of what they have seen as

Sae Park
Mrs. Thomas
UWRT 1103
6 February 2015
significant or important in their literary experiences. In other words, our values and interests
come from the books we have read and the movies we watched. For that reason, I speculated that
Liesels actions became bolder after each book she had read. The books gave her the motivation
to continue acting upon what she thought was the correct choice. At a very early time in her life,
she lost her family and had no one else to rely on. You can say that she didnt have an identity at
the time along with a non-existent education as if she were a blank slate. From that, I inferred
that the books contained a common theme of empathy or resilience, and Liesel assimilated those
ideas into her identity turning her into a figure of hope. I respected the character development
that Markus Zusak gave her because that part of her life in which she continued to learn to
become stronger is parallel to the life that I wanted to endeavor.
I always had a strong affinity for sci-fi, psychological movies, such as Inception and
Interstellar, making me a Christopher Nolan fan. But it was specifically because of the main
characters vast knowledge and experience that I was engrossed in both movies. In each movie,
the characters went through a series of trials testing their wits and decision making that would
end up saving everyone and themselves. The outcomes were only possible due to the main
characters abilities to logically deduce the best decision and execute them with precision.
Earlier I mentioned that during my eight grade year, I went through a paradigm shift that
gave birth to an idea that made me realize what I wanted to do in the future, or more specifically,
who I wanted to be. Until my senior year of high school, I couldnt put this feeling into words. I
could only describe it as a superiority complex, but that didnt sit well with me considering it
sounds like I am trying to aspire to be an arrogant person who looks down on others. The person
who summed up what I have been trying to understand for four years was my forensics teacher,

Sae Park
Mrs. Thomas
UWRT 1103
6 February 2015
Mr. Rosse, who studied various subjects at many different universities including Stanford. His
prestigious educational career made me believe that his words were heavier and more sense than
anyone elses. He was giving a lecture on how forensic specialists like the ones you see in NCIS
or Bones can determine who the culprit and the method of murder was from a small sample of
clues and evidence. The answer was simple. Knowledge. Knowledge is power, he used to say
repetitively during the course of the semester.
Repeating it was needless because just after hearing it once, it resonated inside my head. I
understood at that moment that my goal in life was to become an individual who has the power
to overcome anything and everything with sheer knowledge. All the books, movies, and plays
that peaked my interest all derived from a common unifying objective of mine to pursue a deeper
understanding of something I didnt know about. It is because of that goal that I am open to
many different ideas and topics.
It was also around this time that I had an interest in my own cultural background in terms
of the entertainment industry. This interest struck me when I was assigned an essay was assigned
by my English teacher prompting the question where is your favorite place that you have visited
or the place that you want to visit the most? The question was easy to answer. The place I have
always wanted to visit was the birthplace of my parents, and then it hit me. The more I pondered
about the examples I needed for my paper regarding why I wanted to go to Korea, the more I
realized that I knew close to nothing about the contemporary culture of Korea.
To satisfy my curiosity, I looked into the kinds of visual entertainment people watch in
South Korea. I was surprised to find out that the majority of people would rather watch
suspenseful and dramatic movies unlike the action and thriller movies people enjoy in America.

Sae Park
Mrs. Thomas
UWRT 1103
6 February 2015
My first few attempts at watching full 23 episode shows, each an hour long, went better than I
expected. There were a lot of new experiences while watching the series; for example, the actors
are a lot more sincere and dedicated to their roles. Most of the main characters had a sad back
story making the audience feel empathetic towards the main character. The plots were driven by
long chains of plot twists to ensure that the viewers could never predict the outcome of a certain
situation which I found amusing. It was also difficult to read the captions while trying to watch
the show simultaneously; however, my basic vocabulary of Korean helped me read a little bit
quicker from time to time. My interaction with an unfamiliar culture of entertainment helped me
understand the society in South Korea as well as my own identity.
I feel that it is necessary to stockpile facts and opinions regarding any subject especially
ones from other cultures. I plan to live by the phrase knowledge is power in order to give me
the motivation to continue learning. In order to do so, I have to read a diverse selection of books
to improve my reading ability and to make myself a stronger person.