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Shaping Character with Silence

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Submitted By kathyd123
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Shaping Character with Silence Rules are not always said upfront. No chewing gum or no bouncing balls are usually signs said out loud, but what about unspoken rules? Some of them are obvious like no talking while a mass is in session. Unspoken rules make you belong; they shape the way you live and act. To belong makes you feel special, like you are not alone. In the movie “Twilight” by Stephanie Meyers there is a good example of the relationship between belonging and unspoken rules. The way the Cullen’s act and how they behave in the real world is not said out loud. The Cullen family does not state rules out loud; it is more of a “you just know how to behave by being with them.” When you are with them you feel as you belong, you feel as you have a purpose in the world. “On Being a Cripple,” Mairs is about the author and how she doesn’t hate everything because she has MS. Mairs gets through life day to day. It seems that she uses unspoken rules how to live. An unspoken rule I feel like she lives by is: Live life, because you only live it once. By doing so she belongs in the world. She knows she has a horrible disease, but it is not going to make her feel like an outcast in the world. Rules are rules whether said out loud or unspoken. When you follow them you know your spot, you know where you belong. Some people might say that unspoken rules do not make you belong there are no such thing as unspoken rules. When you become a freshman in high school there is no rule book that says you are a minority, and the upper classmen will get what they want before you do. In basketball, if you are a freshman you just know that you do not get the good balls, you get the torn up used ones that the entire freshman before you used. It is not stated and the beginning of high school or the beginning of practice that upper classmen have seniority and get whatever is left, you

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