- In two healthy paragraphs, summarize the speech and show (with framed quotes and paraphrase from the text) what you believe to be the author’s three main points/arguments. Support with textual evidence and include your own initial response to the material.
- His main arguments were that the world does not revolve around you, no matter how much your brain tells you to believe it. That everyone lives a life as complex, if not more, as yours. You can choose to think that everyone is living in spite of you, and therefore you in spite of them, or you can realize that everyone is just trying to live their lives despite their daily hardships. A complicated part of this for me is that I know most people don’t think this way; that most people do live in spite of others, but I have to choose to believe otherwise. A part of this is having faith, not only in God but in society. I do struggle with my belief in God, whom or whatever that might be. I struggle sometimes to believe the stories or that something out there, that’s larger than all of us, is always looking out for us. This essay reminded me that there is no way of knowing any of these philosophical things, from the belief in God to knowing what other people are really going through. Because of this, I’ve realized that it comes down to what I choose to think, “If you really learn how to pay attention… it will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred, on fire with the same force that made the stars: love, fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down,” (DFW 3). I realize that how you perceive the world will shape your thoughts and actions, which in turn shape how you experience life. If you believe that everything sucks, then everything WILL suck. I’ll admit that I have been lost in believing that people suck, but I always want to come back to believing that people are good.
- This reminds me of the song, “Most People Are Good” by Luke Bryan. He sings: “I believe most people are good… I believe this world ain’t half as bad as it looks”. I think this quote relates to the idea that DFW talks about how our brains are often wrong in their initial thought process; he refers to this as the “default settings”.
- Do you agree with DFW’s main arguments? Why or why not? Explain.
- A few years ago, I was introduced to the word Sonder – it is the idea that everyone lives a life as full and as real as the next person. Everyone knows this fact but not everyone remembers it. I think that people would be much kinder and would work more cohesively if everyone could remember it. But the simple truth that I am coming to realize is that not everyone is going to think the same as I do no matter how much I wish they would. Admittedly, I do not always practice what I preach, as sometimes I have bad days and everyone IS in my way. But I think back on these moments where I am the center of my attention, and I regret it almost every time because I hate being the center of attention. Honestly I dislike almost any attention unless it’s from the people I love, but I digress. I agree with DFW’s speech, in fact, the idea of sonder is what I come back to when I feel myself drifting away from who I am, usually due to new environments or new friends. This idea that everyone else around me is probably feeling like and going through shit too is what keeps me going. I know that I can’t just give up and start acting like the world is against me just because of the silly problems of everyday life. I can either let these silly problems run through my brain constantly and let them effect me, or I can acknowledge them and find peace in them.
- Do you believe DFW is referring to empathy, even though he never uses the word? Or is he hinting at something else?
- I think DFW is referring to empathy in a much deeper way than most people think of it. He’s referring to empathy in the way that you can understand that other people are going through problems, and you don’t necessarily have to solve them, but you definitely don’t need to make things worse for them either.
- Find one DFW quote that evoked a strong response. Paste the direct quote from his piece, then write a few sentences in which you challenge or support his statement.
- “Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out”
- Being smart has always been one of the main parts of my personality from a very young age. My parents always told me how smart I was, even going as far to say that I was more intelligent than my own brother. So I held onto this idea and absolutely ran with it… into a brick wall. In elementary through middle school I always felt ahead of my peers, and I was. I’m not going to brag about my achievements because they don’t mean so much to me now, but at the time, I felt that I was smart and I always had to be smart. I felt so embarrassed when I answered something wrong, my face would get red and my palms would start sweating, and for the most trivial things that no one even remembers. By the end of middle school I decided that I wanted to go to a prestigious prep school for a better academic environment and a more competitive hockey league. At this prep school, is where I met my beloved brick wall: almost everyone there was much smarter than I was. There were kids from all over the globe taking high level math classes in their freshman year that I never even reached by senior year! That brick wall didn’t hit until I heard the word Sonder my sophomore year. I discovered that these people are all probably worrying about something in their lives that I had no idea about, and that they weren’t thinking about how smart I was, maybe they didn’t even notice me at all. In all honesty, I am still working through the idea that random people don’t really care what I do. Sometimes I get caught up in hearing drama and other people’s problems, that I forget about my own. And then I think about how these people are all probably gossiping about me behind my back. But I have to remind myself that none of that really matters. In a week, no one is thinking about my outfit choice or nail color. In a month, no one will remember that I answered a question completely wrong in class. In a year, no one will even remember that I tripped on air in the middle of the street. But somethings I will always remember is how I act and how I think and feel. I will remember if I ruined someone’s day just because I was in a sour mood. I’ll remember that someone made my day by simply having a smile on their face. I’ll remember that even though they could have been having a rough day, that just smiling at a stranger made at least 2 seconds of their life a little bit better.
- How do DFW’s main points interact with those of Paul Bloom (from our last reading)?
DFW’s points relate to Paul Bloom’s in the way that they are both talking about caring for others but in different ways. I think Bloom talks about how some people take empathy too far, how they only think about certain people and others are left unnoticed and not helped because of the spotlight effect. DFW talks about how people lack empathy in the way that their default setting is to only think about themselves, and that breaking free from this state of mind will bring them peace from the automatic assumptions in their heads.
