While Addario exhibits extreme courage throughout her book in taking the initiative to follow her passion for photojournalism to the unstable environment of the Middle East, she leaves little room for “what ifs?” in her life. This is undoubtedly her intention, seeing as she recounts a story of her Nana’s missed opportunity at love on page 62 of her memoir. Including this anecdote serves as a way to aid in the reader’s understanding of how Addario feels about her own passion and the necessary risks that must be taken in pursuit of it. With the previous knowledge of her Nana missing her chance at love as a result of avoiding the risk, Addario keeps herself fully aware that if she does not take the opportunities presented in her line of work, regret will surely follow.
As Addario makes it a point to capture the important events and differing cultures of the Middle East in an effort to broaden the world’s knowledge about the region, she gains the power to influence the way the world sees and thinks about different components of Middle Eastern people and their practices. This is the type of influence I hope to achieve with my passion blog regarding national parks. Through sharing an examination of the biodiversity and valuable resources found in these feats of nature, I gain the power to potentially change the way some people view these parks, which could lead to an increase in conservative efforts being directed towards them.
The scene created by a federal government that does not believe in climate change and that does not allocate sufficient resources to keeping the environment healthy is a grim one indeed. Take the most beautiful forest in Yellowstone and degrade it to a barren wasteland. Take the most essential river in any ecosystem and watch its once bountiful waters become a depressing graveyard of wildlife. If a motivation to keep not only these national parks but the rest of the world’s environment clean and healthy is established, these horrid scenarios can be avoided.
Conner,
I think the way that you interpreted Nana’s story in Addario’s book was spot on, and elaborate. Also, I appreciate how you are taking a different approach to your passion by trying to convince others how important national parks are. One suggestion I would have would be just to write more about your passion, and possibly what occurred when you realized this was your passion. But other than that, this is a very interesting topic which makes me curious on how you are going to separate this topic into smaller topics for each RCL.
-Alexis R