Candide Optimism Essay - 1904 Words

Candide, by Voltaire, is a satire written based on the people, events, and thoughts of the 1750s and was published in France, Italy, and the Netherlands. These included Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, most religious groups, the earthquake of Lisbon in 1755, and the idea of Optimism presented by many philosophers. The idea of Optimism is based on the idea presented by most religious figures, that God is here and perfect, therefore anything that happens in life is there for a reason and not just a mistake made by God. The journey of Candide starts with what seems to be an innocent kiss shared between the beautiful Cunegonde, this is what truly starts Candide’s belief in Optimism as presented by his teacher Pangloss. Only moments later they are†¦show more content†¦He also wanted to bring attention to the many problems of the time. This has been observed by many that know the history behind the book and who have read the book. In Candide, Voltaire is also making fun of philos ophers, and philosophical ideas, mainly that of Optimism which Voltaire seems to find idiotic. In Candide, the philosopher Pangloss is supposed to be making fun of one of the main philosophers at the time with the name Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Voltaire also wrote Candide to show the idiocy behind optimism and to show the true reality. All throughout Candide, Voltaire is pointing out how no matter what the characters had done they ended up living miserable lives. Even the tender Candide, that affectionate lover, upon seeing his fair Cunegonde all sun-burnt, with bloodshot eyes, a withered neck, her face wrinkled, and her arms red and scaly, started back with horror; but recovering himself, he advanced towards her out of good manners.1 This shows that through all of the hardship that Candide went through just to marry his beautiful Cunegonde, he ended up having to marry her just to stick to his promise. Yet somehow, this also shows him to be a liar because instead of telling her his feelings have changed, he goes along with a lie to make her happy, no matter how miserable it may make him. Even though he had helped many people, sacrificing his own time, effort, and money, up until now, he would still feel guilty because he may feel selfish.Show MoreRelated Voltaires Candide as an Attack on Optimism Essays1265 Words   |  6 PagesVoltaires Attack on Optimism in Candide      Ã‚   Leibnitz emphasized, in his Discours de Metaphysique (Discourse on Metaphysics) (1686) the role of a benevolent creator. He called the constituent components of the universe monads, and while the philosophy of monads is of little concern to readers of Candide, the conclusion which Leibnitz drew from these monads is crucial to an understanding of optimism.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Leibnitz argued that all of these monads were linked in a complex chainRead More Voltaire Exposes the Fallacy of Optimism in Candide Essay1168 Words   |  5 PagesVoltaire was the French author of the novella Candide, also known as Optimism (Durant and Durant 724). Famous as a playwright and essayist, Voltaire’s Candide is the book where he tries to point out the fallacy of Gottfried William von Leibnizs theory of Optimism. He uses satire, and techniques of exaggeration to contrast highlight the evil and brutality of war and the world in general when men are meekly accepting of their fate. Leibniz, a German philosopher and mathematician of Voltaires timeRead MoreOptimism as a Theme for Candide Essay1121 Words   |  5 PagesOptimism as a Theme for Candide Just as on the title, Candide, or Optimism, Optimism is also used as a major theme. Voltaires satire of philosophical optimism is one of the major issues of Candide. Throughout the story, satirical references to the best of all possible worlds contrast with natural catastrophes and human wrongdoing. According to Wikipedia, optimism, the opposite of pessimism, is a lifeview where the world is looked upon the as a positive place. Optimists generally believe thatRead MoreOptimism and Pessimism in Voltaire’s Candide Essay1187 Words   |  5 PagesVoltaire’s Candide, we are taken by the hand through an adventure which spanned two continents, several countries, and to a multitude of adverse characters. The protagonist, Candide, became the recipient of the horrors which would be faced by any person in the 18th century. But Candide was always accompanied with fellows sufferers, two of which our focus will lay, Pangloss and Martin. In equal respects, both are embodiments of di fferent philosophies of the time: Pangloss the proponent of Optimism and MartinRead MoreEssay on Use of Satire to Attack Optimism in Voltaires Candide1358 Words   |  6 PagesUse of Satire to Attack Optimism in Voltaires Candide       In its time, satire was a powerful tool for political assault on Europes corrupt and deteriorating society. Voltaires Candide uses satire to vibrantly and sarcastically portray optimism, a philosophical view from the Enlightenment used to bury the horrors of 18th century life: superstition, sexually transmitted diseases, aristocracy, the church, tyrannical rulers, civil and religious wars, and the cruel punishment of the innocentRead MoreJonathan Swift’s Essay A Modest Proposal, and Voltaire’s Novella, Candide999 Words   |  4 Pagesworks of literature that employ similar elements of satire, whether the story is long or short, essay or novella. In these two works, the authors bring light to ongoing social, political, and philosophical issues of their time and age. The two works I am referring to are Jonathan Swift’s satirical essay, A Modest Proposal, and Voltaire’s novella, Candide, or Optimism. In both A Modest Proposal and Candide, there is a portrayal of irony, cold logic and reasoning rather than emotion, and misguided philosophyRead More Essay on Voltaire’s Candide: A Typical Enlightenment Work671 Words   |  3 PagesCandide as a Typical Enlightenment Work      Ã‚  Ã‚   Candide on the surface is a witty story. However when inspected deeper it is a philippic writing against people of an uneducated status. Candide is an archetype of these idiocracies, for he lacks reason and has optimism that is truly irking, believing that this is the best of all possible worlds. Thus Voltaire uses a witty, bantering tale on the surface, but in depth a cruel bombast against the ignoramuses of his times.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   CandideRead MoreAnalysis Of Voltaire s Candide 964 Words   |  4 PagesCandide is a French satire that was first published in 1759 by Voltaire, who was a philosopher during the Enlightenment Age. It is a story about a young man, Candide, who is a follower of Leibnizian optimism. Candide witnesses and experiences many hardships in the world that puts his life at risk and tests the strength of his beliefs. During Candide’s many adventures, he faces many historical events that Voltaire uses to simplify subtle philosophies and cultural traditions, by highlighting theirRead More Candide by Voltaire Essay example1218 Words   |  5 Pagesthe author of the novella Candide, also known as Optimism. The the novella, Voltaire portrays the idea of Optimism as being illogical and absurd. In Candide, Voltaire satirizes the doctrine of Optimism, an idea that was greatly used during the Enlightenment time period by philosophers. In this narrati ve, Candide is a young man who goes through a series of undertakings and ventures around the the globe where he experiences evil and adversity. Throughout his journeys, Candide maintained the ideas ofRead MoreCompare and Contrast Happines in Candide, Rasselas, Essay on Man1496 Words   |  6 Pagesviews on the matter of happiness. Alexander Pope talks about the relationship and purpose man has to the universe in An Essay on Man, Voltaire wrote about living in blind optimism with a false notion of happiness in Candide, and Samuel Johnson wrote The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, in which the main characters are on a quest to find happiness. Alexander Pope’s, An Essay on Man, tries to answer the question many have had about happiness and how to obtain it. In a time where religion was

The Profile Of Laura Ashley Plc - 1166 Words

Financial Report: Laura Ashley Plc ID NUMBER: FNN 5200 Corporate Finance Dr. Jessica Wang Word Count: 2427 Richmond the American International University in London 1: The Profile of Laura Ashley Plc Laura is a Welsh textile company which held by the MUI Group in Malaysia. The company was founded by an engineer, Bernard Ashley and his wife, Laura Ashley in 1953. Past 20 years times, the company was growing on an international level. The sales in 2000 went up to  £276 million. The products is considered as essentially British. The main shareholders of the company are Malayan United Industries Bhd with 255,938,185 shares, Kay Peng Khoo PhD with 187,845,822 shares, AEON Co. Ltd with 35,220,606 shares and Ruffer LLP with†¦show more content†¦The debt to equity ratio is 2, the beta is 0.2 according to the FT (2015) which means its shares are 80% less risky in comparison to the entire market and the dividend payout ratio (DPS/EPS) for the company is 1.15 2: Laura Ashley Tied with the Trade-Off Theory and Risk Dimension It is important to explain the trade-off theory before applying the theory. This theory relates to the idea that a company selects how much debt and equity it should take on and this is by comparing the costs as well and the benefits. For example there are dead weight costs of being bankrupt by taking debt and there are tax saving benefits of taking debt. Thus, this trade off theory involves analysing the outcomes of taking equity or debt being a negative or a positive. The company is mainly aligned with trade off theory and not pecking order theory because Laura Ashley prefers using equity over debt. This is because the advantages of using equity over debt relates to being less risky than a loan as it does not have to be paid back, more cash at hand to expand business operations and the investors have a long term view of receiving

Labor Union Disputes Nba Lockout free essay sample

I do know about basketball but this labor dispute had really nothing to do with basketball the game but everything to do with basketball the business. I had never thought of the NBA as a business before. Picking this dispute gave me a chance to dive into information and research on how the business side of things went. I also knew I would learn many new things as this term went on. The NBA lockout began on July 1st, 2011 between the NBPA and NBA regarding the CBA. The NBPA union represents the players in the NBA. It was founded in 1954 making it the oldest of the four major United States sports leagues to have a union. Unfortunately, they were not recognized by NBA team owners until 1964. The NBA was found in New York City on June 6th, 1946 and was called the Basketball Association of America. They changed the name to Nation Basketball Association on August 3rd, 1949 after merging with their rival National Basketball League. The BAA was founded by the owners of the major ice hockey arenas in the NE and Midwestern United States and Canada. The NBA recognizes the first official game to have been played on November 1st, 1946 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The NBA started with 11 teams and now currently has 30 teams all together. 29 of those teams are within the United States and 1 team is in Canada. Bob Cousy was the player who started the NBPA by writing a letter to each of the leagues teams. All but one responded positively. After receiving the letters back Cousy went to the NBA president in the beginning of 1955 with the players’ concerns. The players wanted payment of back salaries to the members of the defunct Baltimore Bullets club, a twenty game limit on exhibition games and players should get share of the profits, eliminate the â€Å"whispering† fee, payment for promoting NBA, a board to settle player and owner disputes, moving expenses paid for traded players, as well as their payments being ten instead of twelve installments to provide more to the players who get cut. NBA president agreed to pay six Baltimore players a two week back salary but then put Cousy and the players off for another two years. In 1957 Cousy went to AFL-CIO to file for a union. The NBA then agreed to â€Å"bargain in good faith† with the players union fallowing the season. The NBPA received the basic terms of their initial offer. NBPA has many important purposes. They negotiate the terms of a CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement) with the NBA who control the players’ employment and to make sure the NBA and teams meet their rules and regulations under the CBA. Also to monitor, discuss and insure the players have insurance benefits and retirement options as well as educating and certifying the players’ agents. It is said that at one point a player will call the NBPA for help at least once in his career whether it be about the above points or to get legal advice, negotiation on the contract, to resolve a dispute protect medical benefits and other rights or to file a grievance. As you can see there is a need for the NBPA and they do everything they can to help out the NBA players be seen as people instead of property. The collective bargaining agreement (CBA) is the contract between the NBA, made up of the commissioner and 30 team owners, and the NBPA. The contract covers the rules for player’s contracts, trades, revenue distribution, NBA draft as well as the salary cap. The NBA and NBPA have had trouble in the past. In 1995 there was a labor dispute when the NBA owners imposed a lockout but no games were lost. The first actual lockout that caused the players to lose games happened in 1998-1999 season and lasted 200 days and each of the teams playing only 50 regular season games instead of the normal 82. The CBA expired in the 2010-2011 season, which then lead to the 2011 lockout. When unionizing a workplace both sides, management and employees, each have their own views on the employment relationship to have equal efficiency, equity and voice. Business strategies for management stated in the book is broken down into two general types, one being cost leadership and the other differentiation. Cost leadership emphasizes on low cost which means to have the lowest possible labor costs. Differentiation strategy is an emphasis on features without losing quality. David Stern started as an outside counsel to the NBA in 1966. After 12 years in 1978 he joined the NBA as the general counsel and soon became the executive vice president in 1980. In 1984 he became the commissioner of the NBA and is credited with spiking the popularity of the NBA in the 1990’s and 2000’s. During a regular season each team will play 82 games. 41 of those games will be home and the other 41 away games. Over 5 seasons each team will have played 80 games against their own division, 180 games against the rest of their conference, and 150 games against other conference. On the 16th Thursday of the season is the deadline for being allowed to exchange players with other teams for the remainder of the season however they may still sign and release players still. The regular season ends around the middle of April and they begin voting for individual awards. Then shortly after the NBA playoff start. So far there have been two other lockouts in the NBA. The first one started July 1st 1995 and ended September 12th 1995. This lockout happened in the off season so luckily no games were lost. The second one was during the 1998-1999 season. The season didn’t start until February 5th 1999 which resulted in 464 games being lost for the season. This lockout lasted 200 days and ended up having the 29 NBA teams playing a 50 game schedule for the season. The inability to bargain was a major reason for the 2011 NBA lockout. NBPA accused the league of negotiating in â€Å"bad faith†. Their reasoning for accusing them was because they believed the league was failing to provide critical financial data to the union and continued to threaten to lock out the players. The term â€Å"in bad faith† is a grey area. It’s hard to draw the line between good faith and bad faith, as every perception is different. Four major examples of bad faith bargaining would be, making unilateral changes, direct dealing, refusing to provide information and surface bargaining. Unilateral changes is when an employer changes things such as wages, benefits or other terms and conditions of employment without bargaining first with the union. Direct dealing is when the employer tries to undermine a union by interacting directly with the employees with respect to bargaining issues. Refusing to provide information explains itself, but the information would pertain to something such as job evaluation data, standards for merit raises, and health and safety statistics. The last major example is surface bargaining, which is when an employer or union goes through the motions of bargaining but does not sincerely try to reach an agreement. Since the NBA and NBPA had such a difficult time bargaining with each other there were many â€Å"work days† lost. These work days or game days affected more than just the owners and the players. It affected the people working inside the arena’s where the games would take place, ticket sellers, merchandizing, as well as fans. An estimated 400 NBA jobs were lost due to the layoffs from the lockout. 200 of the jobs lost were within the league office and another 200 among the 30 teams. Because the lockout dragged on toward holiday season, the workers felt the impact. The people who lost their jobs had to go find part-time work in order to make up for their loss of income. For canceling just the NBA preseason the league lost over $200 million. They lost a total of 100 games from the lockout. The league lost between $6 and $10 million for every game. Each month of the lockout the players lost $350 million. The average player lost $220,000 after the first missed paycheck on November 15th, 2011. The NBA did compensate the players $100,000 for their salaries falling below the 57% BRI level in 2010-2011. Bargaining is a key term in any company setting. However, in a union it is the biggest component. It can help or hurt a union and or company extremely. In the NBA lockout the biggest reason for bargaining was the wages. The NBA wanted to cut the salary so much that the union was not okay with it and would not agree. The consequence for not being able to agree on a new CBA cost them even more money. The players were willing to cut their salary but not as much as the NBA was wanting to. Before the NBA lockout happened on July 1st, 2011 there were negotiations being made on a new CBA. The league claimed it was losing $300 million dollars a year and wanted to cut players salary by 40% and institute a hard salary cap. A hard salary cap is a limit on total amount of money that the NBA teams are allowed to pay their players. It is subject to a confusing system of rules and what would be exceptions. Obviously the union challenged those numbers and protested the changes. In May of 2011 the NBPA filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board stating that the league was negotiating in bad faith but failing to provide the union with important financial data and threatening to lock out players. After that the NBA quickly came back saying that they fully comply with the federal labor laws. The union also considered to file an antitrust lawsuit against the NBA. An antitrust lawsuit is when employees represented by a union can petition to decertify the union. They must provide evidence that at least 30% of the union supports the decertification and are bound by the same contract rules as an outside union would be. Decertification elections are subject to the same rules concerning improper campaign conduct as elections initiated by a union. August 1st, 2011 the first bargaining session began but quickly ended three hours later since neither side could negotiate effectively. On August 2, 2011 the NBA filed two unfair labor practice claims against the NBPA accusing the players of not being cooperative in negotiations and making threats to dissolve the union and file antitrust lawsuits. It was said on August 4th by the players union director, Billy Hunter thought that the entire 2011-2012 season would most likely be canceled. The NBPA and the NBA owners sat down again on August 31st, 2011 to negotiate a second time around. Nothing specific were disclosed however both sides were hoping to meet again soon. On September 13th the union and owners met for more negotiating but the meeting ended very soon. The NBA canceled training camp on September 23rd when the camp was supposed to start October 3rd. Another meeting was then planned for September 30th. This meeting too failed. Shortly after on October 4th the NBA canceled the remainder of the preseason which in turn would make them lose $200 million. Following the cancelation the NBA and NBPA met again 6 more times, all of which ended with no agreement the last of those six meetings was on October 20th. After all of these attempts to come up with a new CBA the players said the NBA was negotiating in â€Å"bad faith† and on November 14th they dissolved the union and turned into a trade association. This allowed the players to be represented by lawyers in a class action lawsuit against the NBA. On November 15th a group of NBA players who included Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups, Kawhi Leonard and Leon Powe filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NBA in a California federal court. In a Minnesota federal court some more players of the NBA such as Anthony Tolliver, Ben Gordon, Caron Butler and Derrick Williams filed their own suit against the NBA. November 15 would have been the day the players were to receive their first paychecks if the season was played like originally planned. The California lawsuit was dropped on November 21st 2011 in order to merge with the Minnesota lawsuit. David Boies was hopping that this would help speed up the process since the courts would most likely merge the suits anyway since they are similar complaints seeking the same outcome. After this the league had until December 5th to respond in court. However it never got to that point because the NBPA was re-formed as a union on December 1st and the new CBA was wrote up on December 8th 2011. If the NBA did not consist of a union I don’t believe the outlook would change much for the 2011 lockout. Since our society is so wrapped up in media this event would always make headlines whether the players were in a union or not. Obviously the lockout probably wouldn’t have happened since there would be no CBA to agree upon again. However I do think that the players would fight back against the NBA regardless. The reason why I do think that they would fight back is because when the NBPA dissolved the union they did so in order to file an antitrust lawsuit. This means that even though they were no longer a union they were still willing to take a stand in their rights as human beings. Union or nonunion this dispute would still appear in headlines, it would just be under different circumstances. The lockout is currently an employee/employer relationship. If you take this dispute as a whole you can generalize that the reason for the lockout was because management and employees did not agree with each other. This does happen quite often in many companies, unions or not. If the company is not a union the employees do have less of a say what is happening, however, they can and should still stand up for what they think is fair and right in an given situation. Disagreeing is common among everyday life. Not every person agrees completely with one another on every subject. You are bound to have disputes in the workplace about a number of things. These disputes can be as small as if a coffee pot or refrigerator being put in a break room and can be as big as how much employees are getting paid or how much their pay may be getting cut. As you do see these conflicts do happen and often and it is normal for companies to have frequent disputes. It’s hard to say what would happen if this dispute happened in the future and if the labor relations and practices were changed. There are a lot of ifs in that and those rely on a number of things to be changed or that could change. If somehow a law was passed that unions would no longer be able to exist that would change this dispute a lot legally. If that were the case there would be no CBA contract to renew and no compromises to be made. The players still could take a stand if they wanted but they would not be protected or have the right to be heard by the owners of the NBA. Even if a drastic change such as outlawing unions happened I do think that the players would fight back. They would somehow find a way to fight against the NBA for completing to trying to complete such huge changes that would affect their careers. The final conclusion between the NBA and the NBPA was not just as simple as how much the players were getting paid; it went far deeper than that. It’s hard for me to draw up my own resolution when what they agreed upon was fair in my mind, considering where both sides stood. Each side did have people who vocally said to the media that they did not agree with or want the changes that were made in the new CBA. The length of the agreement was changed as well as 17 other topics. These other 17 topics included, revenue split, escrow, amnesty provision, revenue sharing, minimum team salary, luxury tax, distribution of luxury-tax funds, additional limits for taxpaying teams, stretch provision, free agents and restricted free agency, new contracts, contract extensions, midlevel exception, disabled player exception, trade rules, base year compensation, as well as re-signing a traded player were changed. This CBA was a tentative agreement or a â€Å"trial† agreement between both sides. In my perspective they wrote this rough draft up on the basics on what they could agree upon so they could in turn start the season. The lockout was more than just a simple union dispute. It was a complete change in the entire scheme of how each side worked with each other to compromise enough to sustain one another. In other words this CBA that was wrote was in comparison like writing and entire new employee/employer handbook as well as changing key factors in almost every aspect of their professional relationship. The spectrum of changes was so broad that the compromises made to start the season were only the surface issues. There were many under lying issues that needed to be addressed in the CBA over a certain amount of time but the 18 things that I mentioned are the framework for this. With the amount of things that were changed it is be incredibly difficult to come up with my own overall resolution. To me the one topic that stood out the most due to the drastic change was how they changed the disabled player exception. In the last CBA (2005) it stated that if a player was injured and could not play the team was allowed to find a replacement, offering them a 5 year contract with their salary being the lower half of the player they were replacing with an 8% increase every year for the 5 years. Now on the 2011 CBA this was dramatically changed to a single year contract for the replacement of the injured player but keeping the same salary basis as the 2005 CBA with no increase due to the 1 year contract. The previous CBA benefited the team and the new CBA benefits the injured player based on the fact that if a player was injured during the length of the 2005 CBA they were in fear of being benched because if their replacement did well during their recovery time the injured player could have their spot taken from them and not play. I would change this for the replacement player’s benefit by changing the agreement to a two year contract allowing the replacement player the oppurtunity to prove himself beneficial to the team rather than being just a replacement for the injured player. This would help unsigned or free agent players the ability to earn a permanent contract with a given team. I believe a single season performance is not a fair amount of time for a player to adapt to a new environment and shine though enough to acquire a full contract with that given team. Two years is a fair amount of time for the players of the team, the coaches and the replacement player to find team coordination. It is also enough time for the replacement player to prove himself as an asset to the team. As a whole the lockout to me was much more than a single disagreement. It was about the entire scheme of how the business was run on both the NBA and NBPA sides. This issue was a very public and complex dispute. Also what makes this event hard to analyze is with the time frame in which they had to come up with an agreement with so many issues in order to not loose even more money, not to mention the effect on the fans, towns, stadium and concessions employees and the possible damage to the entire nation’s economy. Such an intricate dispute as this one where almost every aspect of the CBA was changed should not have been expected to be resolved easily. Bibliography: Budd, John W. Labor Relations: Striking a Balance. 3rd Edition. New York: Ducham, 2010. Print. Beck, Howard. â€Å"N. B. A. Season in Peril as Players Reject Offer. † The New York Times. The New York Times. 14 November 2011. Web. 21 March 2012 Aschburner, Steve. â€Å"NBA lockout timeline. † NBA. NBA. 9 December 2011. Web. 21 March 2012. Aschburner, Steve. â€Å"NBA heads into lockout after sides can’t get deal done. † NBA. NBA. 1 July 2011. Web. 21 March 2012. Beck, Howard. â€Å"N. B. A. Reaches a Tentative Deal to Save the Season. † The New York Times. The New York Times. 6 November 2011. Web. 21 March 2012. â€Å"National Basketball Players Association. † Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. â€Å"2011 NBA lockout. † Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Bradley, Robert. â€Å"Labor Pains Nothing New to the NBA. † APBR. The Association for Professional Basketball Research. Web. 21 March 2012. Coon, Larry. â€Å"Break ing down changes in the new CBA. † ESPN. ESPN. 28 November 2011. Web. 21 March 2012. FoxNews. com. â€Å"NBA Owners, Players Reach a Tentative Deal to End Lockout. † Fox News. Fox News. 26 November 2011. Web. 21 March 2012 Nbpa. org. Web. 21 March 2012

Tweak by Nic Sheff free essay sample

Addict Tweak is a tale of addiction describing the experiences of Nic Sheff, who was for many years addicted to various drugs. Meth and heroin to begin with, later coke and mixing different drugs (Tweak). This book was actually written in response to a book by David Sheff called Beautiful Boy. It was about the experience of dealing with his sons addictions and their consequences for his family. Nic Sheff was 18 and collage bound when he discovered crystal meth. At first his father had no idea. Then came a call from his school, the late nights, the lying, the ghoulish pallor and the wasting away. David’s life became an eternity of waiting, for the phone to ring, the door to open, or for any sign that his Nic was safe. His fears were less dreadful than his son’s reality; begging, dealing, and promiscuous sex whatever it took to dim the pain. We will write a custom essay sample on Tweak by Nic Sheff or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The feeling of emptiness that had terrorized him at least since his parents’ divorce when he was a child. The first third of Tweak is a demonstration of the kind of depraved lifestyle Nics addiction leads to, a study of how quickly an addict can move down the downward spiral to the point where he or she will do absolutely anything for drugs, or money for drugs, for instances stealing even from his loved ones. Nothing was out of the question. In this book, Nic repeatedly addresses the question of how far a person can fall apart before they realize they need to pull themselves together. Sheff enters rehab multiple times, but for various reasons he relapses into heavy drug use, despite a few near-death occurrences and an absolutely, unlivable lifestyle. Each time he tries to come back to reality, so Sheff reaches out to his family and close friends, but not surprisingly, after several times of hearing the same song the relationships become more and more shaky, and even family members stop believing that he will remain sober. It was the classic story of the boy who cried wolf in their eyes. I have to say at the beginning of the book, I was expecting to get more insight into Nic Sheffs behavior and to gain an understanding of , or sympathy for his choices and lifestyle. This didnt happen. I was truly shocked at just how depraved and desperate his lifestyle became each time he descended into heavy usage. Relationships with friends and family meant nothing, except as a means of gaining money to keep up with his drug habits. Second, I became increasingly upset at how many chances he had to pull himself out of the mess, or at least try to pull himself out, or had even gotten out and chose so easily to return. I really do think that he behaved in an entirely self-centered, and destructive way, completely refusing to open his eyes to the truths around him. I guess thats the point, drugs were a side effect of depressing truths in his life that he was too afraid to realize. I completely understand how after the first few times of listening to him go on about how his life had changed, They would stop believing that he would stay sober. Im not sure I even believed it now. I am glad I read Tweak, if only to open my eyes a bit to just how bad an addiction can really be, how strongly deep-seated insecurities and unfinished business can affect the addiction, and how truly difficult it is to bring yourself out of the cycle of hardcore addiction. Tweak by Nic Sheff free essay sample Addict Tweak is a tale of addiction describing the experiences of Nic Sheff, who was for many years addicted to various drugs. Meth and heroin to begin with, later coke and mixing different drugs (Tweak). This book was actually written in response to a book by David Sheff called Beautiful Boy. It was about the experience of dealing with his sons addictions and their consequences for his family. Nic Sheff was 18 and collage bound when he discovered crystal meth. At first his father had no idea. Then came a call from his school, the late nights, the lying, the ghoulish pallor and the wasting away. David’s life became an eternity of waiting, for the phone to ring, the door to open, or for any sign that his Nic was safe. His fears were less dreadful than his son’s reality; begging, dealing, and promiscuous sex whatever it took to dim the pain. We will write a custom essay sample on Tweak by Nic Sheff or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The feeling of emptiness that had terrorized him at least since his parents’ divorce when he was a child. The first third of Tweak is a demonstration of the kind of depraved lifestyle Nics addiction leads to, a study of how quickly an addict can move down the downward spiral to the point where he or she will do absolutely anything for drugs, or money for drugs, for instances stealing even from his loved ones. Nothing was out of the question. In this book, Nic repeatedly addresses the question of how far a person can fall apart before they realize they need to pull themselves together. Sheff enters rehab multiple times, but for various reasons he relapses into heavy drug use, despite a few near-death occurrences and an absolutely, unlivable lifestyle. Each time he tries to come back to reality, so Sheff reaches out to his family and close friends, but not surprisingly, after several times of hearing the same song the relationships become more and more shaky, and even family members stop believing that he will remain sober. It was the classic story of the boy who cried wolf in their eyes. I have to say at the beginning of the book, I was expecting to get more insight into Nic Sheffs behavior and to gain an understanding of , or sympathy for his choices and lifestyle. This didnt happen. I was truly shocked at just how depraved and desperate his lifestyle became each time he descended into heavy usage. Relationships with friends and family meant nothing, except as a means of gaining money to keep up with his drug habits. Second, I became increasingly upset at how many chances he had to pull himself out of the mess, or at least try to pull himself out, or had even gotten out and chose so easily to return. I really do think that he behaved in an entirely self-centered, and destructive way, completely refusing to open his eyes to the truths around him. I guess thats the point, drugs were a side effect of depressing truths in his life that he was too afraid to realize. I completely understand how after the first few times of listening to him go on about how his life had changed, They would stop believing that he would stay sober. Im not sure I even believed it now. I am glad I read Tweak, if only to open my eyes a bit to just how bad an addiction can really be, how strongly deep-seated insecurities and unfinished business can affect the addiction, and how truly difficult it is to bring yourself out of the cycle of hardcore addiction.