The Building Blocks
During my 17 (almost 18) years living on earth, I would say I have had over 500 mentors. That might seem like an exaggeration, but I basically treated everyone that allowed me to learn or experience something new as a mentor. They could be an actual teacher in school, my peers that helps me with homework, athletic teammates that gave me words of encouragement so I could experience being a winner, or my parents who has taught me so much. Everyone who I treated as a mentor did what they were supposed to do: educate and open up new possibilities for me. However, in last class book discussion, we talked about whether mentorship in our book, Middlesex, held the characters like Desdemona back or gave them new opportunities and a better future. Honestly, I felt like that option of mentorship holding the characters back shouldn't even be an option. Only from my experience, every mentor has taught me something. Now sometimes what they teach is wrong or useless, but I still get a lesson from that experience. From the old, incorrect teachings comes new realizations about that topic or the world. I learned that even though we live in a society where facts are crucial, lies and myths still find a way to creep into teachings. I learned that useless lessons might eventually become useful.
Transition to Middlesex, this exact logic applies there too. Desdemona's mother's teachings were regarded as somethings that keep Desdemona back from experiencing the real world. She taught her that all her impurities will be reflected in the silk that her silkworms produce. Those teachings prevented her from moving on from the old school ways and held back her love for her brother (and I am not talking about the sibling love). However, after her brother proposed to her and the Turks burning down her entire silk room, she knew that it is time to go outside those strict laws of her mother and finally experience the new and modern world. She learned to adapt to the real world while keeping some of the teachings from her mother. She is still religious and knows the best way to produce silk, but now she has an actual social circle full of interesting people with different characteristics. She even used that knowledge of the silk to teach others in a temple to produce silk so she could make some money during the great depression. Those teachings did not hold her back; they served as a stepping stone for her future advancements. She learned that she can build upon this foundation and create a new lifestyle that is a blend of old and new. It is this exact process that allowed mankind to progress this far and without it we would still believe that the earth is the center of the universe and that everything revolves around us.
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