Introduction:
After reading both essays, “This is Water” by David Foster Wallace and “Is Empathy Overrated?” by Paul Bloom, I can honestly say i’ve been affected by both. “This is Water” was a commencement speech given by Wallace where he went into detail about how us humans go through life in a “default setting”, as well as going into his beliefs on college education. On the other hand “ Is Empathy Overrated”, Bloom argues that empathy is a powerful tool with many pathways off it, but if used wrong can cloud our morals. To me empathy is the ability to understand and fully process someone else’s feelings and thoughts and arrange them in a way you can correlate a response. David Foster Wallace’s theories have an important message to them especially for college students currently, If I was to make changes to my life I would encourage his theories on the default setting, choice and thinking, and awareness. These conclusions, which Wallace endorses in “This is Water”, adds weight to my argument that there is more than one road in life, meaning that there is not a set path that you are expected to take, you shouldn’t settle for the first one you find. Life is a concept that is seen in today’s society as something with a bunch of rules and how you should follow those steps to be successful in life. I believe these rules and steps given are very mainstream, there’s way too many doors to unlock.
- I believe the strengths of my introduction paragraph from my second essay include things such as structure as well as adding a good amount of my own voice throughout the paragraph. Some weaknesses I could point out would include going a little deeper into my claims rather than having them so vague. Some things that I improved in this section was adding more detail to what I’ve said as well as connecting the pieces together more thoroughly. I believe my thesis is pretty strong due to the fact that it is noticeable in my writing as well as allowing my voice to come through .
Conclusion:
Both pieces by David Foster Wallace and Pual Bloom have left me with a different perspective on life then I did before. The perspectives that Wallace has allowed my eyes to open to is being able to see the different sides of life and how our decisions play a role into being able to claimit. It has given me a chance to realize the ways life can be functioned and processed rather than green-lighting it through. David Foster Wallace’s theories have an important message to them especially for college students currently, If I was to make changes to my life I would encourage his theories on the default setting, choice and thinking, and awareness. There’s two sides to everything spoken in both pieces and I see both sides but overall I’d stand with what David Foster Wallace says about life itself. I agree with some of the things provided by Bloom to an extent because I still believe there is room in life where empathy plays an important role, rather than having empathy seen as something bad all the time. In the end, I support the idea of fixing your own life and making it yours in any way possible, life is precious and it shouldn’t be something seen as a set storyline with no change, but as something that has a breakable barrier for growth.
- In my opinion, I believe my thesis statement connects and returns quite nicely into my conclusion. I believe I incorporate it into the paragraph in a different way and in a different format than when I first started it. My conclusions always could use some work, so I’d say my conclusion is a little rushed. I definitely could’ve added a little more to this paragraph, allowing myself to extend out a little more.
