Month: October 2025

The three main points in DFW’s speech were one, don’t be a slave to your own mindset. Two, don’t let yourself fall victim to your “default” settings or feelings. And three, try to see situations from other perspectives and to realize that there is usually more going on in most circumstances than what you can see. In DFW’s speech he repeatedly mentions the “default” setting, as seen in this quote “how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out” (DFW 12). This quote relates to what I believe to be one of his main points, which is to not mindlessly make decisions and to instead think about and acknowledge your surroundings. I find myself agreeing with a lot of his points that he makes during his speech. Specifically, not going through life on “default” feelings or thoughts is what I found myself agreeing to the most. I personally have seen this with some adults that I have met where for years have defaulted to feeling resentment and like everyone else is in their way. I have seen how it makes it so that they are just going through the motions of everyday life and letting their thoughts dictate how they feel.

            A specific quote that stuck with me from the speech was “It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master” (DFW 11). I don’t necessarily agree or disagree with this quote. I somewhat agree with the point he is trying to make here that is people can sometimes let their base instincts in their mind control their actions or thoughts. This can be tied back to the other point he makes which is to not be a slave to your own mindset and view things from other perspectives at times. I don’t believe however that this speech refers to empathy as the thing to default to or to feel more of towards others to experience more of what life has to offer. Instead, I think DFW is referring to what Paul Bloom’s alternatives to empathy are which are things like rational compassion and moral/reasonable decision making. Making a conscious effort into experiencing life to the fullest and to not having resentment towards others.

Three main points that the author is making here is that one, empathy has a narrow focus; two only lets us focus on the few not the many; and three, empathy allows our own biases to dictate where our empathy is directed. As seen in this quote, “but spotlights have a narrow focus, and this is one problem with empathy. It does poorly in a world where there are many people in need” (Bloom 1). This quote from Bloom is an example of one of the points he is trying to make which is that empathy is narrowly focused at times. I find myself agreeing with a lot of Blooms points that he makes about empathy. He didn’t necessarily challenge any initial beliefs I had about empathy, his argument made me think about empathy in a deeper, more complex way than I had before. I don’t believe however that my opinions changed on empathy because of bloom’s points.

            A claim in Bloom’s writing that he included to invoke a stronger response was “empathy is limited as well in that it focuses on specific individuals” (Bloom 2). This claim he makes that empathy can only focus on the few not the many is something I find myself agreeing with. Even in my own experiences, either giving or receiving empathy I realize looking back that people can only give so much empathy at one time. This makes it hard to have empathy for many individuals affected by an issue or that need empathy.