At the beginning and all through my paper I had asked questions as an attempt to make the reader think but looking back it is irritating and would probably turn the reader off of my paper. I took these questions out and rewrote the paragraphs in a way to keep the idea but to make it clear and easy to read. To show you what I mean here is an example of the original “Why do they pick a certain group? Why are they attracted in the first place to a particular group of peers?” and then I revised it too say “There is a reason that we pick a certain group to spend our time with. There is a reason that we are all attracted to a different type of community”. By revising this paper I realized that I just had too many useless words, I needed to get rid of a lot of my paper. I cut out the reference to Hostetlers essay and then rewrote my personal experience to make it actually relate to my thesis. I also rewrote my ending so that it wasn’t repetitive and weak and I think that I made it stronger.
Original (with cut outs due to length):
Who needs to feel Special?
All over the world people can be found getting together in groups to share their lives with each other. Why do they pick a certain group? Why are they attracted in the first place to a particular group of peers? It is because there is some aspect of that group that makes them feel accepted, understood, and most of all special. In all cultures people gravitate towards the communities that will satisfy an inner desire to have this need, of being special, fulfilled even if that community is oppressive or even destructive.
Look through the phone book; there are support groups, community groups and church organizations that are listed in huge numbers. Look on the internet and there are web sites in unimaginable number to which a person can join and become a member. This is evidence of the vast numbers of people in the world who are actively searching for something, a need that needs to be filled. People are going to search and search until they come to a place where they feel that they have found a safe sanctuary where the big bad world cannot inflict its universal pain on them. A sanctuary that makes them feel special.
Does this mean that these groups can supply a perfect environment that is positive and protected? No; there are dangers that are imbedded in these societies even though they might provide emotionally what is desired. They can foster a negative and destructive force that can be responsible for oppression or even destruction of those who seek it.
Mim Udovitch describes in her essay, “A Secret Society of the Starving” a world where girls and women seek out membership and friendship on the internet with others who are living with eating disorders. The general attitude is that these sites exist to help heal these girls who are potentially dying. The reality is the exact opposite where the sites offer advice on how to make their disease easier to manage. Udovitch explains this reality as, “A kind of a perverse support group, a place where a group for the most part very unhappy and in some part very angry girls and women come together to support each other in sickness rather than in health”(Udovitch).
So what attracts these girls and women to this site if it does not heal them of their sickness? It is the need of feeling special, a feeling of superiority over everyone else in the world so that they do not feel so bad about these inner demons that they are consumed with. Udovitch uses the example of this with a quote from one of the websites that announces to the world that proactive anorexia is something to not only be proud of, but it is something that everyone can do because it takes a special inner power to be successful at it. This quote from one of the sites shows how it would be fulfilling an inner need for these girls and women to belong to this group. It says, “Contrary to popular misconception, anorexics possess the most iron-cored, indomitable wills of all. Our way is not that of the weak…If we ever completely tapped that potential in our midst…we could change the world. Completely. Maybe we could even rule it” (Udovitch). Who would not feel special to belong to a group that professes to posses these marvelous qualities?
(Here I have taken out one page where in the original it talks about The Amish Charter essay by John M. Hostetler.)
Marriage is a perfect example, on a more intimate level, of a person’s desire to feel special. I have been married for ten years and one of the main reasons, apart from love, is that my husband makes me feel special. We can boast to each other about our successes and we are present for the big things as well as the little things that help us to fulfill each others inner desire to feel special. I believe that this inner desire to feel special is one of the main reasons why infidelity breaks up marriages. That is because the spouse who was cheated on does not feel special anymore while the spouse who did the cheating usually does it to feel special.
The universal theme of needing to feel special is not anything new but it is nonetheless very relevant today to people all over the world. These groups, communities, and organizations do fulfill the needs of people to feel special. People are going to search out and find a way to fulfill this need to feel special, like the girls with an eating disorder, or the Amish people, even if it leads down a destructive or oppressive path. There are ways to fulfill this desire in a way that is not harmful as I have found in my marriage and am lucky enough to be able to fulfill this need and to feel special every day of my life. People are innately motivated to pursue this inner need to feel special and whether we do it the right way or the wrong way is all up to us.
No comments:
Post a Comment