Page 348, paragraph 34, talks about the statement of “And this where the virtuous circle breaks down: Afraid of being alone, we struggle to pay attention to ourselves. And what suffers is our ability to pay attention to each other”. I related to this topic in many ways, the most impactful was my time during army basic training. This is a time that many people struggle to remember exactly what went on. It was only about a 10-week period but was the combination of so many things happening while trying to keep your head above the water line made it a difficult time for some, and others was an easy vacation and paycheck. I met some people who really struggled with the concepts and agendas that we were getting put through, and you could see them slowly changing their ways and going into an eggshell mentality. And by the end of training had totally isolated themselves not only from us in the group but also from their families. We learned that they had stopped sending letters and updating the people they knew back home. It was interesting to se that they had issues communicating with others in this way, they had been so focused on certain aspects of training that they had become numb to anything and anyone else, which may have been from some level of homesickness or regret of what they had signed up for. I can definitely agree that the power of emotional absence is real in certain times and places, especially being away from family in friends like in basic training.

Another interesting part of the article was the direct quote on page 345, in between paragraphs 11 and 12, where it says “[The seventh-grader] was almost robotic in her response. She said, “I don’t have feelings about this”. She couldn’t read the signals that the other student was injured”. This passage seemed really interesting mainly due to the fact that when I see kids, I think that the time period of when they are 10 to 15 is when their emotions really start to increase in many ways. They are starting to become young adults and learning more about what goes on in the world. This should usually be the time where emotions are at the highest. The next part can confirm that kids around this age are not fully emotionally developed, and I would tend to agree. I don’t think at this age I was at the same emotional development as I am now, but I could probably say for myself and others I knew at the time that saying I don’t care about someone who is hurt in a certain way, especially saying it in an open manner. I do not miss the parts about being at that age where we had very divided groups and could be rude to each other in certain ways. This kind of leans into the quote above how kids develop skills and knowledge about school topics, it is essential that they learn and are motivated by life lessons such as not be rude to others and to learn how to listen to reason.