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Eli Siegel explains in the Aesthetic Realism essay The Call for Ethics: "The best thing ... in man's mind ... can be described shortly as a man's inability to like himself if he saw that he met someone or something and wasn't in some way good for that someone or something …. This desire for self-respect is a much more powerful thing than is thought." — Kevin Fennell |
By Kevin Fennell How We Affect People Begins with How We See the WorldYet when I wasn't singing, I mainly had a very different purpose. I wanted to be the most important person in my sister's life, and enjoyed conversations with her in which I made fun of people, looked down on them, and encouraged the feeling that the world was unlikable and beneath us. Without knowing it I was going after the victory of contempt, and didn't think about what kind of effect this had on me, my sister, or anyone. My parents were very busy—my mother with a house and four children, my father often with second jobs on top of his long hours as a fireman—and there was often tension between them. The lives of my oldest brother and sister seemed to be in frequent turmoil with school, friends, parents and each other. And I remember feeling very early that life was confusing and difficult. The remedy I came to was to separate myself and feel superior, "too good" for all this. As the youngest, I cultivated a mild-mannered innocence. I got a lot of praise from my family for being well-behaved, good-looking, smart, a pleasure to be around. I used this to feel I had a special quality that made just my mere presence good for another person, without my having to do anything. Meanwhile, I came to be more and more dissatisfied, and saw the rest of the world—which didn't give me the automatic approval my family did—as harsh and unfriendly. This affected very much how I was with people. In his essay "Is a Person an Aesthetic Situation?," Mr. Siegel explains: "If you feel that the world is ill-managed, is contemptible, is unkind, you have to show that in how you see" other people. I got less interested in things, and took to hanging around with Matty O'Brien on his back porch where we'd complain about having "nothing to do." With friends in college, I wanted to be seen as witty and keenly insightful as we mocked people and pointed out the "phoniness" we’d seen in "society." And I encouraged my friends to use drugs with me—mostly marijuana—ratifying in each other the feeling the world was unlikable and should be put aside. One friend, David, was often torn between his pre-med studies and social life on campus. I'm sorry that I never once encouraged him to study, but instead pressured him to party with us. Though I acted like I could laugh everything off, inwardly I agonized about my relationships with people. I would curse myself and cringe, going over and over things I'd said and done. I despised myself and had no idea why. I Learned from Aesthetic Realism that the Effect I Had Was Not the One I WantedI knew that beneath my smiling surface I really didn't care so much about the lives of the people close to me, and then I saw something very important: I had actually hoped another person would dislike the world, because in doing so they seemed to be making more of me. The great thing that happened is that in seeing this purpose consciously, I didn't want to have it anymore! Eli Siegel explains in his essay "The Call for Ethics": Click here for Part 2 -- A discussion of Elvis Presley and "The Good Effect on People That Is Art." |