In the last year I have noticed more significant changes in my life than the first 18 years combined. These changes vary from being really simple and relatively trivial to some having an effect on my daily routine. I feel like I am a seemingly normal person, but am constantly reminded of how different I am from other people. I have allotted a good amount of time recently to trying to figure out what it means to be Benjamin Stelly, and although other people may not consider those things to abide by their own principles, I have to be able to stand for them myself.
I have presented the information before, though I have not tried an in depth study really at what effect my father’s ailment and subsequent death has had on me. I realized last summer that I never even let myself grieve over my loss, and upon this realization went through a very hard period of time where I felt negative a lot, and had a difficult time even leaving my bed in the mornings, or getting out of the house at all. As I continue to explore myself, I come to focus my attention more and more on how I view and treat other people in general… be they peers, friends, competition, elders, etc. and have made the realization that I do not like a lot of people, but don’t really understand why.
The definition of compassion that I found goes like this, “The feeling of emotion, when a person is moved by the suffering or distress of another, and by the desire to relieve it; pity that inclines one to spare or to succor” (41). The thing that I struggle with in my life is that I live in a hypocritical mindset that narrows my perspectives and gives too much attention and I get upset over things that not only do I have no control over, but things that shouldn’t even bother me in the first place. I tend to focus on the latter part of that definition. My compassion is two part: on one hand I am an extremely compassionate and emphatic friend and hold my relationships with the people whom I trust and value the most at this unobtainable level, while on the other hand I pity people who do not value things the way that I do. I know that this is wrong, and is something that I have worked, and continually work on figuring out the roots of the problem.
More importantly the dichotomy of my life of being so attached to some things and in disgust of others runs through everything that I am presented with. For example, my friends have tried to define my sense of humor with no avail. I am the kind of person who is turned off by the ‘commercialization’, for lack of better term, of ideas. Things that the majority would like… I tend to veer away from. HOWEVER, I do not consider myself to be the kind of person who likes things for the sole purpose of no one liking them or trying to be trendy about it. I believe that the fundamental rationalization behind this unorthodox mindset lies in my emotional attachment, and lack of emotional intelligence. In Goleman’s essay, he talks about how the “emotional brain is as involved in reasoning as is the thinking brain” (60), and is a defining problem in my life. Often times I feel far too emotional involved or sensitive, while a little coherent though would equate to a more appropriate response.
When asked about my greatest strength and weakness, I think that I have finally figured out what I would consider my most prominent flaw: lacking contentment. Ironically, the entire second semester of my senior year I dedicated to writing a thesis (of sorts) on the topic of obtaining the feeling of being content and happy in the moment. Instead of focusing my attention on how to really live up the time that I spend minute-to-minute, I continually analyze a situation and categorize events, music, comedic timing, and, although it may sound harsh, individual personalities. As I said, hypocritical should be a part of my name, I know that, but it is also something that I am devoting a lot of time to dealing with more effectively. I found some consolation in Goleman’s last statement. He said that, “to do well in our lives means we must first understand more exactly what it means to use emotion intelligently” (61).
I think that it compliments my erratic behavior to say that what I fear most is becoming an android of sorts. I value the fact that I am sensitive and emotional about things, it means that I am alive and thriving, and will one day change how things work that I dislike. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, there is a particular quote where one of the officers is discussing how to identify an automaton, and defines their characteristics by saying “an android doesn’t care what happens to another android. That is one of the indications” (101). Maybe I am a flawed human being, but at least I feel. To me there could be nothing worse than being a face in the crowd and blending in. It goes hand in hand with my goals to do something with my time that I am alive, and be proactive in changing wrongdoings.
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