Feeling of failing to get everything done in 48 hours and other extra school concerns led to a kind of compression of my brain. I thought about where and how to get into a loophole.
How is it going everybody? I hope that you are having a good deal with your breaktime though most of us have many assignments to get done. The two first day were not that great to me. Feeling of failing to get everything done in 48 hours and other extra school concerns led to a kind of compression of my brain. I thought about where and how to get into a loophole.
I confessed to my sister that I resisted to the idea of resorting to alcohol for help. She cautiously held herself from commenting anything, knowing that I am used to handling such a situation pretty well. I noticed however that she kept a watchful mind on me all the time while trying to anticipatively deal with anything that would contribute to worsen my situation.
I decided to drop everything related to school, except a zoom interview my teammates and I had to do as part of a class assignment. On April 6th, I thought that a walk with my 5-year-old twin nephews in a nearby park would help. For two hours, we wandered through the woods carrying each a basketball, which we randomly threw to threes’ tronc and made sure that we catch it back.
We jumped over a lot of logs and rotten three, lying here and there. I was especially attentive to dried dead leaves creaking to the contact of our feet. Birds flying from glades we passed by, birds singing over our heads and beyond, withered petals falling over our shoulders from dressed-in-white branches, my watchfulness to adjust to the children’s skill for sneaking through the brushes did not come with the relief I expected.
Yet I hoped I would stop for a while, somewhere, and press on my brain’s button to record a cicada stridency. Not even smoke wormed out from any of the neighboring hilltops nor rampage of flock of cattle to the lake. I headed home and once being there, I put on my sport clothing and went to conquer miles; I burnt eight.
At eight o’clock in the night, I tried a google search: best motivational movies. I landed to the YouTube channel of WatchMojo.com and its “Top 20 Motivational Movies You Need To Watch.” Robert Mulligan’s “To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)” drove me into anger; I wish I did not watch it at that precise time, though Atticus Finch’s bond to his believe in justice and human’s equality is worth of sticking at. At 10 o’clock, I went on for the Sidney Lumet’s “12 angry men (1957)”, which told me about dealing with isolation. I watched it last night and got up with it this morning. Unlike to kill the mockingbird, this movie allowed me to laugh loudly to the point I feared to bother the others.
Twelve jurors, all men, enter a New York County courtroom to decide the fate – death if guilty – of a 19-year-old boy accused of fatally stabbing his father in the chest. A preliminary vote has 11 jurors voted guilty, except one, juror number 8, who doubts that the two witnesses are right and wants a certain discussion before a final decision. After arguing over his concerns, Juror 8, proposes a new vote, which he dispenses himself from taking part in, after which the debate would be pursuing if at least one of the 11 other jurors opted for not guilty. Luckily, one more jury side with him for the discussion to go on.
As the title said, the 12 jurors were very angry one towards another, blaming each other’s point of view that sounds different. From the beginning, eleven of them were convinced the teen was guilty, and they were not ready to accept any descension. They were even more right that two witnesses had testified that they saw the boy stab the father. In addition to that, the boy did not have a nice early-year: dark background and abused childhood.
One of the witnesses said she saw the defendant commit the crime from her window and through a passing train’s window. To Juror 8, that woman might have good will, but given the distance – across the street – and the fact that the train was moving through her sight when the murder was taking place, she might see the wrong person.
The other witness, a man with a disability due to a cardiovascular accident, would hear from his bed that the boy threatens to kill his father. He would hearken the father’s body hitting the floor of their home. He would take the time to walk to his door to see the son running down the stairs. The witness did all these within fifteen seconds, he said. Juror 8 leant to the slow-motion ability of the witness to convince his counterparts that the man might not be right as he would need three times of this timeframe to walk from his bed to the door.
From 11-for-guilty and only-one-for-not-guilty, the jurors finally voted unanimously for not guilty after hours of deliberation. Obviously, this passed by several intermediate votes that proved that Juror 8’s arguments was strong enough to progressively grab supports from the camp of for-guilty.
So, from being concerned with school and extra-school stuff, my mind has become busy thinking about juror 8 conviction. He stayed calm despite blame, disapprobation, irony and isolation, but he listened to everybody’s point of view while keeping being strong enough to take a position when necessary. As he argued, his eleven opponents progressively dissociated one-by-one to side with him.
Most of the time, the trustworthy person is alone on his way; they do not necessarily know their destination. The only thing they know is to identify the wrong way to not to engage in it. Once they differ the wrong way from the right one the destination does not matter. Juror 8, sticking to his belief, has been freeing my mind from many of its hindrances and exhorting me to hang on. Certainly, I am along on my journey of unknown final destination, but I more and more convinced that I am in the right one.
I was on a kind of high way for so long, where I was used to see everybody, except my “self”. It is now okay not to see anybody, but my “self”. Juror 8 taught me that we must not worry, but to keep hanging on to what we believe in. He taught me that feeling lonely does not mean we are along, and that, as we are right, the crowd might be looking for where our pathway opens.
Another lesson I got from the movie is that only who is right is calm. In fact, Juror 8 was the only person in the room who did not manifest aggressivity. Between two arguments, he asked questions and was attentive to others’ even choleric behaviors to grasp more interrogations from. He requested to analyze proofs – unnecessary and waste time for others – that were shown during the trial and lied his arguments on their deficiency.
How I feel right now? Better. Way better. I watched the film for a third time today and planned to watch one more, “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013). Too bad for assignments! Tomorrow, I have to work out 16 miles to keep my brain free.
Dear fellow! Make sure you come back mentally and physically safe. Drink a lot of water and make sure you laugh out loud more than when necessary! Avoid touching anything that would stress you out. Even school stuff. Too bad for school assignments!