Diagnostic Essay Update

Given the choice of a super power I imagine most people would like to have X-ray vision, the ability to fly, super strength, and/or even the power of invisibility. If I could wake up tomorrow with any super power, I’d want it to be the power to switch people’s lives completely. I’d like to be able to have people experience life absolutely as each other. We have become a very superficial society, placing value on physicality and making snap judgments about individuals and situations solely based on what we see. To experience that part of person’s life, shoulder their responsibilities and take on the everyday fortunes and misfortunes of that someone else, my thought is that is the only way to understand the why and how of a person’s life. We would have to exist as that individual.

People are more inclined to commiserate when we can identify with the individual or their circumstance(s). It’s easy to feel disgust for a beggar on the side of the road not knowing how he/she got there. The movie ‘Trading Places’ with Eddie Murphy and Dan Akroyd is a perfect example of this. Two people from completely different social, racial and economical backgrounds trade places so to speak, and although not of their own choosing, each in due course, began to become accustomed to their new roles. Eventually, these two men who aside from both being male and human had nothing in common, after finding out through what circumstances their situations came to be, they teamed up to even the score with their foes.
Perception is defined as the process of attaining awareness; this is an eye opener. It allows for one to speak knowingly. Those who lack but are open to gaining, I admire. This is all starting to sound a bit heavy, so I will put it simply. I would just like the power to have one individual walk a mile in the other’s shoe.