Connect to outside sources (article/book/podcast/ted talk/blog/website/etc)

• This is a Text investigation. Consider your essential question in the context of at least two outside sources you have identified that connect to your essential question. How do these ideas resonate with or challenge your own beliefs, experiences, or practices? Be sure to give concrete and specific examples. You may want to address: ways the sources answered parts of your Essential Question, what additional questions were raised, or how your essential understanding of your project was altered or confirmed by the readings you did.

At the start of my project, I talked to my dad to see what he thought might arise from said interviews. He said that it would be interesting to see who’s answers differed from each other about which moments in people’s lives were the most memorable and why. He thought there would be many similarities in the bigger picture of things (Polio Epidemic, WW11, 9/11, and so on) but the individual experiences of everyone, everyone’s personal background and stories they have, those will for sure cover an array of feelings, thoughts, images, and will provoke many beautiful, occasionally painful memories. I will say I have most certainly found this to be true. While there haven’t been many tears shed out of sheer sadness or nostalgia nor red faces flushed out of pure madness or mania, the memories and the ways in which each person has recalled something have all shown lively emotions.

At first, I was after the stories unheard of for years, especially by each person’s family members. Those that have been kept in the back of one’s mind until the right moment came up for them to bring it back out. Or to be locked away forever only kept to be recalled by its owner. I sometimes became impatient, though tried not to show it, because I wasn’t finding what I thought to be a hidden gem. But as I went on, I supposed it was much much harder to consider a smaller story to be as vibrant and invigorating by me as it would by another family member of theirs. One connected to their history, their family. But I continued to hear these stories being told to me, and every time I went on camera to say hello, I tried my very best to interview them as though they were my own grandparent. As though every story I heard was a story connected to my family history. Everything got much brighter, more vibrant, and sometimes darker than I would have ever imagined. This reminds me of how I wish I could somehow be immersed in Sharon Stone’s story for just a little bit longer. It’s different. Hearing someone’s story versus reading it. There’s a separation, whether that’s from not being able to see this person’s story being told whilst looking them in the eye or hearing their tone over a call, but I don’t think that makes biographies any less moving or powerful.

Referenced: The Beauty of Living Twice – Sharon Stone

Referenced: Interviews