Author Archives: mk127779

Dear Professor Tariq

I am emailing you in regards to the assignment that was due today. Unfortunately, I could not attend your class and hand in the paper due to a family emergency (which I will prove the next time I have you). Attached is my completed assignment.

Sincerely,

Mordakhay Kholdarov

Monologue: Mordakhay Kholdarov

I wanna talk about giving today and what it truly means to give. Say there is a poor person begging for money. Do you give money to him? Is it truly giving? Pretend someone wants your attention. Do you give it to them? Is that truly giving? By definition, giving means to provide for someone else, right? But what if the only real person you’re providing for is yourself?

Now pretend you’re a parent to a child, or an older brother or sister to a younger sibling. That younger child brings to you a not so pretty drawing they made in school. What do you say? “Oh it’s magnificent! Did you make that yourself?” Why do you say that? Because it’s the thought that matters, right? Meaning, that the end result of any action is in the initial thought. Therefore we have to look at a person’s intentions (their motives) before determining whether or not a certain action is indeed an act of giving.

Now we have to look at what motivates people to move, or to work, or to do something in general. The answer is reward, be it money, power, honor. Why do people go on strike? It’s because they don’t feel they’re being rewarded enough based on their work, hence they stop working; the motivating force (money) is not great enough to compensate their work. Is it plausible then to say that people won’t give without a reward either? Molecular psychiatry states that during an act of giving there is a release of the chemical dopamine (pleasure chemical) in the brain. Now let’s go back to the notion of the end result of any action is in the initial thought. If I initially want to be rewarded (motive) by giving (act) then aren’t I really receiving? Does the notion of giving even exist?

Now look at “non-profit” organizations and “charities”. Why hasn’t there been a decrease in poverty or famine stricken areas? Why is there so much suffering in the world despite this entire “giving” taking place? It’s because we’re exploiting each other by “giving” or “helping” because taking from someone is the reason to why you’re giving them in the first place. The reason why I’m saying this is not to shoot down charities or nonprofit organizations, but to make you guys realize that if 6.5 billion people in the world operate in a manner where they only take and don’t give, the there will be economic, familial, ecological, and many other problems persisting and getting worse and worse every day. Since I only have three minutes I’ll have to end this monologue by saying that if we understand what it means to truly give and operate in accordance with nature and its laws (mutual balance and harmony), then not only will we truly give, but much of our problems will cease exist.

Community service is key for a society to function properly. However, there arises a problem of people serving the community for a recommendation or to make money in the future; that wouldn’t be community service, but self service. We have to learn to work together and realize that my welfare is based on yours, regardless of whether or not I see a benefit for myself. I am excited about what we can do to better the lives of people and in turn make a difference and am hoping to do some real community service with you guys :).

Who do I think I am? I think my name is Mordakhay Kholdarov. I think that I’m a student, brother, son, cousin, friend, stranger, and pretty much everything else with respect to other people. But who am I with respect to myself? Well…I am the center of the universe, the epitome of a tall, dark, and handsome fellow, with less stress on the dark and more on the handsome. Who I am to me is a question that calls for an extremely subjective answer, meaning that it is hard to find my true personality when looking for it through my own self loving perspective. I got it! I am a body of flesh and blood, whose sole purpose in life is to live it, in a manner that is at the detriment of another, hence the notion of me being a self loving individual. That’s way too philosophical and boring. What I’m trying to convey in the least in-depth philosophical way is the fact that I am the making of my surrounding environment; I am who my environment has and will make of me. The question now is who will I become as a result of being influenced (whether positively or negatively) by my new environment-Baruch College.

I am concerned about my freshmen year at Baruch College, not only because of how it will change who I am, but because I’m scared out of my pants every time my professors announce a test coming up in the immediate future. I DON’T LIKE TAKING TESTS. I get nervous and am prone to messing up so bad, that I regret setting my alarm the night before the test. But most importantly, I am concerned about having gone to college without finding a decent job after, for reasons that are obvious. I miss high school. The other day, I actually visited my school and found it extremely easy to climb up the stairs and not only that, I found that my teachers still remembered me three months after summer break, unlike the teachers here who will forget you five minutes after class is over and of course you can’t blame them, you have to blame the school population. However, regardless of how different Baruch is from the previous school I attended, I am eager to spend this year in college in a way that will shape me as the responsible tall, dark, and handsome fellow that I am supposed to be (according to society of course). Lastly, I hope everyone gets out of Baruch what they need to strive as a human being in life both personally and professionally!

Baruch’s library was beautiful; it was the first time I saw it. I’m not really a big fan of libraries, but this one made me feel like I was at home (well at least the couches did). The meeting rooms were very neat and very convenient as well, talk about a go hard CUNY. I don’t know what else to write so I’m gonna say that it was very nice of Aiman to give us a tour around the library  and I hope we can–as block buddies and new friends–get some social cohesion going on (as Emile Durkheim would put it) in the library before quizzes, midterms, and finals.