Essay: The Discovery of Subjectivity

From the moment we are born we are influenced by everyone and everything around us. Whether we will become the next rocket scientist, a fast food worker, a novelist, or even exotic dancers depends on the environment and the actions of those we are entrusted to upon our arrival. Our behavior patterns, religious beliefs, and even types of people we associative with are set into a design that while upon retrospection is certainly easy to navigate, is entirely unforeseeable. To put it simply, we as humans are born much like the blank canvas of an artist. Like an artist life will splash the paint of it's ideas, influences, and design shaping the masterpiece that we will become. Unlike paintings however, humans are never really a finished artwork. As any great master can tell you, a painting is never finished. There are always imperfections. Over time life has sharpened up my edges and made me into the person I am today. Until recently I have always questioned why people do bad things. What makes us who we are? Why are some people more talented than others at certain things? Why do bad things happen? A few weeks ago I was apart of a class discussion about the play Rosencrantz and Guldenstern are Dead in my AP English class and a girl brought up a statement that deeply puzzled me. Her words were, "Humanity is inherently evil." It settled wrongly into my gut the instant it issued forth from her mouth. How could we be evil when first born? Could we as innocent babies really have the capacity to inherently do wrong? I followed up with a question asking why she thought as she did and her answer was that babies sought only for their own comfort. To feed only themselves and satisfy their own wants. That it was inherently selfish. That selfishness was evil. I was stunned. It was undeniably true that babies thought only of themselves and then i began to notice behavior patterns in people. Patterns much like that of a baby in which they only thought of themselves. The idea introduced to me haunted my thoughts. As i lay in bed wondering about what she said the ideas of Darwin and Maslow came into mind. I won't bore you with my musings of that night, instead i'd rather tell you of the conclusion that I came to. We as humans