My fireside chat discussed optimism.
I was initially inspired by a TED talk I watched that redefined optimism. It’s
called “The Optimism bias” by Tali Sharot. This piece of media dove into a belief
I had that I didn’t know how to put into words. So I used this talk as a
springboard for my speech. It talked about how you can be prepared and not
naïve and still optimistic. I wanted to structure my speech in the style of a
motivational speech, similar to a TED talk. So I decided to make a video that I
could interact with in the background.
I created a montage of motivational
scenes and wrote my talk to fit in with those scenes. I wanted it to be a
conversation. My objective was to teach my beliefs about optimism and how you
don’t have to be pessimistic to be realistic. Optimism and pessimism are self-fulfilling
prophecies.
The structure and form of the video
and speech was centered around my objective. I started out with a couple
questions and then synced up my speech to correlate with the videos. For
example; the clips of Forest Gump and Rocky running, visualizes progression.
And during those segments I talked about believing in yourself, progressing in
life, and having a positive attitude that can help you do great things. Rocky
and Forest Gump were optimistic and thus did great things.
Then the TED talk said, “optimism
leads to success.” I immediately cut to clips from the Olympics to show people
who were optimistic and how their faith led to success. Then I counteracted
those clips with my speech saying that “optimism doesn’t say we’re invincible,
it doesn’t promote carelessness, it embraces choice.” I led out with a penguin diagram
that displays the main point I was trying to make about being grounded but
still optimistic. I ended with a montage of inspirational quotes. I wanted the
end to be louder and more intense from the beginning in order to make an
impact, like a movie trailer.
I thought the presentation went
well. I liked how it was about something I really believed in. It made it a lot
easier to give the speech because I had intention beyond just getting a grade.
I wanted to persuade people to think about what I believed. I enjoyed the whole
night. I loved listening to everyone else’s performance. There was so much
variety and character. I felt that my perspective on different subjects
expanded. My wife and I even talked for a good hour afterwards about subjects
that were brought up in the performances, whether they be political, emotional
or social. I learned a lot from my peers in this assignment and I learned more
about myself and my beliefs.
In the reading, “I Stand here
Ironing” there is a lot of randomness in the storytelling. The mother compares
her daughter as ‘better then the helpless dress underneath the iron’. In a
sense we all feel ironed at times. My story contrasted this because it wasn’t a
sad story about my past, mine was about a simple belief. Others though in the
class had stories similar to the one from this reading.
Josh’s chat about his dislike of
the way he looked growing up, stood out the most and reminded me of the reading
“What Color is Jesus?” The man in that story had trouble determining his
identity. The kid kept asking his
parents, “Am I black or white?” He couldn’t understand being both or being just
a human being because of the cultural segregation at the time because of race.
We all like him need some way of identifying ourselves. And in the fireside
chat I identified myself not through my physical appearance or genetics but
through my belief in optimism. It is a huge part of who I am and influences my
actions and decisions.
