A reflection on life's changes

"It's now 1990. I'm forty-three years old, which would've seemed impossible to a fourth grader, and yet when I look at photographs of myself as I was in 1956, I realize that in the important ways I haven't changed at all. I was Timmy then; now I'm Tim. But the essence remains the same. I'm not fooled by the baggy pants or the crew cut or the happy smile—I know my own eyes—and there is no doubt that the Timmy smiling at the camera is the Tim I am now. Inside the body, or beyond the body, there is something absolute and unchanging. The human life is all one thing, like a blade tracing loops on ice: a little kid, a twenty-three-year-old infantry sergeant, a middle-aged writer knowing guilt and sorrow" (236).

To a great extent, throughout our lives, we retain many of the qualities and characteristics we were born with. Though experience serves as the greatest teacher and, through experience, people are inevitably shaped as they grow, there are values and traits that will never change. Albert Einstein stated that, "Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death." This quote supports the fact that each and every one of us will change with time as we continually expand and broaden our scopes. This, however, does not mean that we become new people as we age.

There are traits that will be influenced with new knowledge and personal experience and there are traits that will remain from birth until death. Intellect, political persuasion, and the ability to be understanding and empathetic are all examples of things that could change with time and experience. Generally speaking traits involving morals and values do not change too dramatically with time. The basis of our conscience is rooted in the value system instilled in us from a young age by our parents and guardians. Each and every one of us is taught the difference between right and wrong, in varying degrees from family to family and with various interpretations, and this knowledge stays with us throughout life. Essentially, it is the experiences that one goes through that change the person one was and shape the person one becomes but some element of that person's prior self will always remain.

O'Brien writes, "The human life is all one thing, like a blade tracing loops on ice". I agree with this statement because our current viewpoints and feelings are an accumulation of our past. As we grow, we take each and every new experience and add it to our databank of memory and we expand as a person, we do not completely change. We do not forget the way we were before, it stays with us forever and that is what O'Brien means when he says that though he has changed from Timmy to Tim the essence remains the same. The components of our personalities are built on the things we have learned; the "essence" of ourselves remains the same because when push comes to shove we revert back to what we have always known, back to the values our parents taught us. Though critical aspects of ourselves do indeed change as we age and mature, an element of that inner self will stay with us forever.

I know that I am not the same person I was in middle school, for instance, but there are certainly things about me that have not changed and will not change. My personal principles and values have not changed and I recognize that though I am much more talkative than I was then, I will always be the quiet, refined girl I was in kindergarten. By that I mean that, though I may force myself to be more outspoken now, I still have that nagging self-conscience aspect that will most likely never cease. That element of my original self, though I may try to channel it in different ways, will always be there. Some things just do not and will not change. I don't believe that anyone can honestly reflect back on their younger years and say that they are not the same person, in any way, they were then. Some piece of each person travels with them for life, whether they were the little boy who was made fun of for wearing cowboy boots to school or the popular girl who was admired by all. Memories last a lifetime and though things may change, some trace of those memories live on inside of us.

Frank McCourt--> Why I Write

There was no single motivation behind my choosing to write, no one force that demanded my attention; more a collaboration of emotions. I knew since I was a kid that I wanted to tell my story one day for others to grow and learn from, but Ireland in those times didn't give a poor kid much leeway in breaking the ranks of societal prejudices. America was different, much different, and I was able to move much more freely toward my goals. I wanted the world to understand that out of poverty and hunger do not automatically arise misery and sadness. We can learn from that which challenges us and I hope that my presentation of my story has conveyed some sense of perspective to those who read it. My writing parallels my growth from a niave child to a mature adult.


As a young child I didn't comprehend the full extent of my family's dire situation. When you are born into a life filled with hunger and poverty, you know nothing else and you make due with what you're given. You have no reason to think that things are better elsewhere when most of those around you are living in similar conditions. Overall, I was a happy kid. People tend not to understand that, they think for some reason that I must have been in constant misery, but again I was more grateful for the little I did have than most.


Having experienced the confusion of growing up, made all the more wonderful by Catholic Ireland, I understand the difficulties of finding balance. As a kid I was plagued by the smallest of incidences that I believed may be considered a sin. The old Irish "guilt-trick" is one that I am beyond familiar with. Guilt and worry were key players in my childhood and, when taken from a more grounded perspective, the things I concerned myself with were quite ridiculous. Of course as I entered my adolescent years things changed dramatically for by that point I was tired of the worry and wary of the Catholic hypocrasy.


Life becomes more clear only as we grow. By writing very factually and portraying my growth as an individual through my early years, I hope that most can take a greater appreciation of life. Don't sweat the small stuff; in any situation there can be found some light, regardless of how small. Take advantage of the things you have, look more to that than to what you wish you had. Through incorporating some humor, at least I hope most readers found some humor, I meant to lighten the mood of the story; to lessen the depression and bring forth the fact that things are never as bad as they seem if we can only allow ourselves to look at the positive. In everything I try to find humor because nothing is as out-of-control as we sometimes find ourselves viewing it. Just take a step back.


It's easy to make mistakes in life but it is what we do with those mistakes that makes the difference. Mam, bless her soul, failed to see the light in her life. One mistake will only dictate your future if you let it and Mam, as hard as she tried not to, let her mistakes cloud her view of the light. We live in a country where socioeconomic class does not have to hinder your ability to persevere and find success. In Ireland, I probably never would have conquered the perceived notion of "nothing but another poor kid" which usually raised prejudiced questions of my integrity. I was rejected by even the church, the oh so pious church, in two of my early attempts to push forward. To break class status, and thus to break poverty, were, to say the least, not encouraged.


Overall, I write to prove a point: where you came from doesn't determine where you're going, and from everything we experience in life, we can learn. Not everything is the end of the world, in fact nothing is, and if we would all lessen our burdens of worry and anguish, we could move forward.