Kofi Osei-Aning
Marlen Harrison
ENGL 121-003
Monday October 19, 2009
Paper
This class has opened up a whole new world to me that I honestly had not heard about starting with Archetypes. I am now able to look back at specific times throughout my life where different archetypes were the dominant one. I will relate archetypes to my life from the age of four to twenty-one years old by telling different stories that stick out in my mind.
The first archetype I will speak about is how innocent was present in my life. At around age of four I had been growing up in a children filled community where parents did not have to worry about their child going outside alone. I was familiar with my surroundings, which caused me to take risks, that I did not think were risks. A new neighbor had just moved in to a house one house away from mine and I ran into the female home owner. I spoke politely and at the end of our encounter she offered me candy. I was taught never to take candy from a stranger but at the same time I realized this woman had two daughters of her own so I figured it was safe to eat. Oh boy when I told my mom what I had done she was furious with me. The gift of innocent is “Trust, optimism, loyalty”[1] and I definitely trusted this person enough to eat food they gave me without a thought in the world that it could have been harmful to me. At this stage in life I would say this innocent was level one “Unquestioning acceptance of environment, authorities; belief that the world as it is being experienced is all there is; dependence.”[2] It really feels good to remember that neighborhood because of how many kids were on the block and the amount of safety we felt being outside together.
At age five I had my first memory of my warrior side rearing its head. While humans grow up often times as children we are given vitamins to help our growth. Also a lot of the time the vitamins are in a form that is attractive to children meaning they look like candy. Well in my case I was given Flintstone vitamins on a daily basis and one day I wanted double the dose. My brother was watching over myself and my sister while my mom had gone to the bank. My brother was not going to give me the extra vitamin but I wanted it so bad. I decided the only way to get it was to ride my bike to the bank because I knew where my mom was. At the age of five I got on my two wheeler and with my sister screaming behind me, I managed to out ride her and ride 10 minutes to the bank where my mom was. I had broken my parent’s rules by crossing major streets and by disobeying my brother. That did not matter to me because I knew what I wanted, I knew how to get it and so I went to my mom to complain. The warrior has goals that require us to; “win, get own way, make a difference through struggle.”[3] As a young boy this experience gave me the base for warrior outbreaks any time when necessary. However I would rate this type of warrior as level one as it was for self gain.
The lover has goals of; “Bliss, oneness, unity”[4] and the first time I remember feeling a love for someone other than a family member was when I was twelve years old. My first love stole my heart and I was willing to do anything for her. Everyone knew that I was committed, passionate about her and they knew she brought me a joy that no other girl did at the time. Even though this girl was my first love I also ran into my first temptress. A new girl had switched schools and come to my school. She had a different way of dressing and seemed a little more mature then the girls I already knew. She took me off of my path and was able to interrupt my relationship with my girl friend, my first love. My temptress could be compared to Calypso because like Calypso she had taken over my weekends and I began hanging out with her almost as much as my girl friend. Odysseus was snatched off of his coarse and held stranded on Calypso Island. I remained faithful to my girl friend but she could not deal with the fact that I was always at the temptress’s house so she broke up with me. It is funny now because till this day I am still a close friend of my first love and I still talk to the temptress.
At the age of fifteen I began to seek something. I joined the highest level of baseball in my area for high school players. Being introduced to a program that would give me the base and knowledge to make it into college baseball opened my eyes. I strived “to achieve the formerly unachievable…”[5] and for me that was making it to college but beyond that it is making it to the professional level. I believe this is when my obsession with success in baseball began, the realization that these dreams are in reach. The want to become a professional baseball player is out of love for the game but with that love would also bring a better life.
The next big event in my life was my first year in college. At the age of eighteen I moved down to Texas to go to a junior college for two years. I was adjusting to the whole southern life, the weather, and class. I was not performing as well as I could and after first semester was over I was thinking about transferring out of that school because my coaches told me I would not get playing time if I did not perform. This was the belly of the whale at the time for me. It seemed that everything was dark. I was coming home from practice exhausted due to the heat. I was struggling to stay hydrated and could not focus in class either. I thought there was no way I was going to make it through the year while playing baseball. I did not know what to do. For the three previous years I had been playing in Canada with great success and that is why I was given a scholarship. Then all of a sudden I was thrown into a new setting and my performance began to lag. I had a choice to make should I give up and transfer to another school or should I continue to work, with the hope that my performance on and off the field would improve? I decided to continue working hard and it just so happened that I began playing well enough to take the starting spot away from a sophomore and open the eyes of scouts. Since that struggle with baseball I have been playing with a new found confidence. I know what I am capable of no matter if I have a bad game. I rose out of that experience as a changed man.
I am currently twenty-one years old and right now my dominant archetype is a creator. As a creator I am in search of a way to create a more adequate sense of self. I take this as meaning it is about time to create a new sense of self. I have been following my baseball dream for a total of twelve years and I am at the end of the line. This is going to be the year I either succeed or fail in my baseball dream but if it is I am going to be thrust onto a new path. Thinking about this is scary for me because baseball has been my familiar for as long as I can remember and I am not sure what life is going to be like without playing at a competitive level. One of my blogs I wrote earlier in the year talks about this exact same issue but now that I have looked at archetypes throughout my whole life the issue is clear. I felt I knew what I was writing the first time made sense but I see my time is about to be up.
Besides being a creator I can compare my life to Watership Down because I am too currently looking for a place to live. For the past four years now I have been roaming around the United States looking for clues and hints about where I should live, clues to tell me what career I would enjoy for a life time. Fiver and the rest of the rabbits were running from something bad that they wanted to avoid. Well I figure I am doing the same thing. I am running away from idle time. I do not want to sit around at my parents’ house my whole life for many reasons. One because they are already in their sixties and two I want to make a name for myself. The rabbits in the book made a name for themselves by getting out of the warren and wondering around until they found a spot that was suitable. I am willing to do the same thing and face whatever is thrown at me. In chapter 8 Fiver and Hazel have to cross a stream with the rest of the rabbits even though they do not want to. Hazel asks Fiver if it is necessary to cross a particular point to which Fiver answers, “we need to cross the river, Hazel, so that we can get into those fields.”[6] That is the type of attitude I have when it comes to accomplishing a task that is put towards me. I will do what I have to do.
Bibliography
Adams, Richard, Watership Down.
New York: Scribner, 1972
Pearson, Carle s., Awakening The Hero Within.
New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991
[1] (Carle s. Pearson, Awakening The Hero Within) p.71
[2] (Carle s. Pearson, Awakening The Hero Within) p.79
[3] (Carle s. Pearson, Awakening The Hero Within) p.94
[4] (Carle s. Pearson, Awakening The Hero Within) p. 149
[5] (Carle s. Pearson, Awakening The Hero Within) p. 123
[6] (Richard Adams, Watership Down) p. 34
