Affirming Discourse :: Julia Cameron Attention Literature Essays

Affirming Discourse Both the Malcolm X "Coming to Awareness of Writing" reading selection form The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Julia Cameron’s essay "A Few Irresistible Reasons for Paying Attention" are great examples of using different ways to heal mental pain by paying attention to a particular subject. The Julia Cameron’s essay shows the examples of Julia’s and her grandmother Mimi’s life, which reveal reasons for paying attention. First, Julia shows her grandmother’s life and how she by paying close attention to her big interest, observing flora and fauna behaviors, heals her "mental pain": Mimi's husband, my grandfather Daddy Howard, an elegant rascal with a gambler's smile and a loser's luck, had made and lost several fortunes, the last of them permanently. He drank them away, gambled them away, tossed them away the way Mimi threw crumbs to her birds. He squandered life's big chance the same way she savored its small ones. "That man," my mother would say (167). Second, Julia found out the importance of paying attention as a means to heal mental pain after her marriage blew apart. She moved to a different place and lived alone, trying to survive as long as the pain will go away. She learned that her attention to the cat was an act of connection. By accident, she met a new friend, a gray striped cat [Its normal for a lonely human being finding something interesting in his/her environment]. After a while they get used to each other. By spending more time with the cat, Julia's pain began to go away. The in third reason she found out that pain taught her to pay attention: Writing about attention, I see that I have written a good deal about pain. This is no coincidence. It may be different for others, but pain is what it took to teach me to pay attention. In time of pain, when the future is too terrifying to contemplate and the past too painful to remember, I have learned to pay attention to right now. The precise moment I was in was always the only safe place for me (168). She healed the pain or she knew that the pain was always bearable. The Malcolm X article illustrate his life in the prison. This part shows an interesting and strong approaching to life. In this few paragraphs Malcolm X is trying to show a view for reader how he has came to the awareness of English language in time he was cut away form the world.