Weight Lifting Area

The weight area of the gym is a place that a woman would be brave to enter. The grunts of the burly men doing their daily reps is complimented by sharp breathing of much smaller, "less-experienced" guys who aren't in the best of shape, trying to build their muscle mass so that they may someday too be a "lifting veteran". Simply put, the females of the gym generally use the machines, partially because they are expected to stay away from the "real" weight lifting equipment and stick to the elliptical, and partially because they don't want to be in the sweaty, smelly, and noisy mess that is referred to as the free weights. Similarly, one would be hard pressed to find a man willing to use the machines, as they are seen as a feminine luxury that they are too proud to touch. After all, "No one is as fragile as a woman, but no one is as fragile as a man". The occasional women working out with her weight-lifting fanatic boyfriend will stumble into the weight lifting area, only to leave promising to herself that she won't be caught dead in there again. However, on one particular day, I saw a women walk confidently into the free weights area, accompanied only by a water bottle and a gym bag. Though they tried not to, all the men stared in amazement out the corners of their eyes, as she laid down her stuff next to the bench press and began to load two forty-fives on each side. Surely the men must have thought the woman to be mistaken, but were blow away even more when they saw her easily bench press the weight, and even continue to add more. The men that day, especially the scrawnier ones, were shaken by what had happened that day; they had been outdone on their own turf by a woman!

Consumerism

In the modern, ultra-competitive time we live in today, businesses are willing to use whatever is at their disposal to draw in customers and sell their product or service. Often, these companies exploit the impulsiveness of consumers in order to draw them in. We all know that companies strategically place items in a certain orders to sell more product, or play particular music, but some even go as far as making the store smell a certain way to make the shopper feel happier and therefore willing to spend more money. All these strategies to get the buyer to spend more money than they really should are the business's effort to exploit the impulsiveness of human nature. In "marrying absurd", Didion mentions how the chapels who are advertising weddings are acting on the impulsive nature of their consumers using in-your-face advertising, and trying to persuade people to get married with "Free License Information", as well as offering incentives such as "Free transportation from your motel to courthouse to chapel and return to motel". These chapels do not actually care about the people getting married, but rather, selling their "product" to as many people as they can. Unfortunately, this is one of the consequences of living in the very competitive time that we reside in. Businesses today don't really care about their consumers, as they would like them to believe, but really about making profit, and they will gladly exploit the impulsiveness of their customers if it means they will make more money.

Cultural Tradition

Often, people (especially Americans) tend to think that other cultures who practice different traditions or "rituals" are foolish. One great way to contrast the traditions and cultures of two societies is Europe and America. Because of the close political relations and similar government styles, Europe and the United States are bound very closely together, and the two cultures seem very similar. Even in these incredibly close societies, however, many discrepancies still exist between the two. One example is the system of measurement used, as Europe uses the metric system while America is still stuck with the standard system. Even through the metric system is clearly superior in the modern world, we stay with the same system we've used for centuries because of tradition (probably also because of cost too). Surely, European countries must look down on us, saying, "They'll have to replace it eventually, why don't they switch to metric?". For Americans, the metric system seems so familiar and logical, that we don't even give it a second though. We don't think of ourselves as "dumb", for using a system that is strange and illogical, but yet we consider other cultures that do illogical things in the name of tradition to be just that. We don't think of ourselves as "ritualistic", we just have, as some people might say, "a different way of doing things". In "Body Ritual Among the Nacirema", the person observing American culture notes that, "Man's only hope is... powerful influences of ritual and ceremony", showing how even though we don't see it as ritualistic, which often has a primitive connotation, many of our traditions could be perceived that way, and the same thing is true with the traditions of other cultures.

Family Bond

Often, the bond between parent and child is much deeper than words. When people live around their families for a large part of their lives, they seem to become indifferent to their family, and just treat them like people that they live with. For example, I know in much of my life, I would prefer to be with my friends over my family, and when I was with my family, I was far from enthusiastic. If they weren't my mom and my dad, most people observing our interactions would think we were distant acquaintances, and and my friends at school were the people who really cared about me. Looking back, with just over a year left with them, I regret how distant I always was from my parents, and how I treated them like strangers much of the time. Even though they were never as close to me as my friends were, there is something about a bond between a family that is different than friendship. I know my parents will stick with me and support me, no matter what. Funny enough, even though I felt much closer to my friends than family, it is my family that stuck around when my friends weren't there. In the excerpt, "Arm Wrestling with My Father", Manning talks about how "Love was a rare expression between us", but in his father's time of ominous bad news, Manning and his dad come together and are able to understand each other. This showcases the way that a family's bond isn't always clear, but in their time of need, they come together despite their differences, and they will always be there for each other.