How I became part Treadmill | TED Talks & Storytelling
In her TED talk (video above), Catherine Mohr details her experience of her excursion in the Galapagos Islands while scuba diving with a group of her friends. Accompanied with illustrations, Mohr goes on to tell the story of how while trying to capture an image of hammerhead sharks, she looked down to see a few sea urchin spines puncturing all the way through her glove and the other side her hand. Slowly assessing how she should take care of the situation without panicking, she quickly pulled the spines out, emphasizing how the adrenaline took over while doing so, which left her no recollection of the event. Mohr then goes on to describe the different "brains" that popped up in her mind while trying to carefully treat her wound, while being surrounded by sharks, and how to get her back up to shore without being attacked. She slowly made her way back up to shore, and unfortunately to treat her hand, since she had no near medical resources, she had to submerge her hand in boiling water in order to draw out the poison from the spines and cauterize the rest of the veins. Once she got back to civilization, Mohr was able to schedule surgery to get rid of the small part of the spine that was broken off in the tip of her finger. Yet, the weekend before the procedure, Mohr bore her pelvis in a horseback riding accident, causing her to postpone the removal of the urchin spine. While recovering from her injury, one friend stayed by her side throughout the whole process and helped her during this difficult time. She ended up marrying this friend of hers, and now they have been together for 21 years. During the time post her recovery, Mohr discovered she no longer needed the procedure to be done to remove the spine as it had been embedded into her finger as her body was trying to heal her broken pelvis. In the end, what started out as an adventure, ended as a love story.
The way that Mohr develops her argument about storytelling in her presentation is a different one, specifically as she used a personal anecdote to convey the message. Accompanied with illustrations done by her daughter, Mohr is able to convey how stories are powerful in the sense that they are a record of the most significant events in an individual's life, and are able to be told to others to inform, entertain, or persuade them. During her recollection of the events following the removal of the spines in her hand, Mohr demonstrates the ethos through the examples of the different "brains" that helped her to rationalize what to do next. Her scientific background proved to be useful in this case, as she was able to take the necessary steps to safely secure her hand without getting attacked by sharks. With this, logos is also being utilized as Mohr referred to specific scientific reasoning to continue her rationale, while creating suspense in her story. Lastly, Mohr was able to sprinkle a little bit of pathos as she reveals the connection she created with the one friend who took care of her during her recovery, and would later go on to marry him. Through the development of each of these appeals, Mohr was able to tell an intriguing story to the audience, while revealing how the telling of stories are significant to an individual's life.
What attracted me initially to Mohr's TED talk was the illustration that was presented as the thumbnail, it really caught my attention and caused me to want to learn more about this story. Also, the title being "How I became part Sea Urchin" may have played a role in my decision. While listening to Mohr speak, I found myself relating to her injury-filled story. Like her, I have also been in numerous accidents due to silly mistakes or being unaware of my surroundings. Unlike her, most of my serious accidents have occurred with my feet. For example, when I was around 7 years old, I accidentally caught two of my toes in a treadmill at my cousin's house. This was all due to a dumb idea I had come up with to try and imitate things falling onto a conveyor belt. Just how Mohr experienced the rush of adrenaline, I felt the same as I yanked my foot out and my cousin immediately unplugged the treadmill. Yet, like Mohr, the recovery took some time, but it ended up working my favor, since my mother decided to buy me a pair of uggs as a "cushion" for my foot.
*There's also a story involving an escalator, but that's for another time (I may have pictures...)*
Hey Mady!
ReplyDeleteRight away the title grabbed my attention. It was funny and intriguing, which is something I can never seem to do with my titles so props to you. Overall your post was fantastic. I thought the story itself was absolutely adorable, and your analysis of the speaker was great. The story about the treadmill was also hilarious. You had a few typos that I think you could have caught had you just read over it quick or put it in text to speech. Overall, great job :)
first off, every time i come back to your blog I always love its aesthetic and its written matter. i loved the story, though I already hated large bodies of water so will now never go scuba diving. I agree with you that the thumbnail does a very good job at getting the audience intrigued because when I saw it I knew I wanted to read this post! I loved your post, as always, and look forward to reading more, as always!
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