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Diego Camarena-Torres

Miss Williams-Arnold

English Language Arts II (Gr 10) Honors

5 May 2021

Color Key:

Light Blue - Compound Sentence

Light Pink - Complex Sentence

Yellow - Compound-Complex Sentence

Enlightenment

In order to feel enlightened you must have experienced darkness ahead of time, this was

my situation. Darkness can be a variety of different things, as it symbolizes some type of evil

enigma, so some people may be experiencing darkness without realizing it. In Plato’s Allegory

he describes a setting where prisoners are chained against the wall of a dark cave for their entire

life. Their reality is developed through observing shadows on the wall, and the behaviors of the

shadows. The prisoners believe that the shadows on the wall are reality, without realizing that

reality is what lies outside the walls of the cave. When a prisoner managed to see the real world,

no one believed their story. The prisoner's reality was projected on the cave walls, so if someone

tells them what they have been seeing on the walls their whole life was a false reality, the

prisoners wouldn't believe them. Similarly, children are always deeply influenced by what is told

to them, so feeding them false information makes them ignorant of the truth. Children are

gullible, so they believe anything told to them. If you contradict a statement told to a child, they

will believe you are lying and instead trust the information they have known to be true. Take for
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example Santa Claus, if you tell a child that Santa Claus does not exist they will think you are

lying since someone else already told them that Santa Claus is in fact real.

When I was in second grade a classmate told me that religion was not real, so as a

gullible 7 year old I gave credence to whatever he had to say. Around 3rd grade, my parents

decided to introduce me to catholicism; however, I believed it was fake because a classmate told

me otherwise. My family took me to church every Sunday and I would never pay attention,

instead I would fidget around and try to pass the time as much as possible. My parents even

decided to sign me up to do my first communion at the local church, which I thought was the

most boring thing ever. All we ever did was read ancient dialects and pray. I had these feelings

toward any religious activity because I believed it was all a hoax. However, two years ago my

family received news that my cousin had been in a terrible car crash, and his survival rate was

very low. This was the day that I decided I was going to ask the lord to condone my infidelity

and save my cousin. To my surprise, my aunt called the next day to tell us that my cousin was

still breathing. I was enthralled, I could not believe it. Ever since that day I’ve been more

religious than ever before and am now actually interested in religion. I have now completed my

confirmation by a connoisseur of the roman catholic church, and have since dedicated a 15

minute daily rosary to all the people of the earth. That experience changed my life for the better

and enlightened me to the truth, allowing me to grow as a person.

To conclude, one can feel enlightened in many different ways such as learning that

unicorns do not exist, or more serious topics like my case with religion. Everyone experiences

enlightenment sometime in their life. In my situation, my cousin had been the victim of a terrible

car crash. He ended up surviving which taught me a very valuable lesson about religion. I

sincerely believe that his survival was a demonstration from the lord that he truly exists. This
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enlightenment influenced me to begin praying and become more interested in religion. The

darkness of my past self that believed religion was false, was outshone by the new light revealing

the truth and telling me I was wrong. Enlightenment not only exposes you to the truth, but it

helps you become the better version of yourself.