the downside and upside of being a practicing communication major

For those of you who don't know, my major is Communications. For those of you who don't know much about the Communication major, we are taught how to critically analyze rhetorical artifacts (which is basically anything that is trying to convey a message). We are taught to take a hard look at the every day discourse that takes place in our lives; from conversations, to television, to politics, to advertisements, all the way down to things like social interworks of the internet.

I know that some people read my blog posts and are just like "Why does Chad always gotta be bringing the heavy?", "Why does Chad have to be so critical of so much?"?

I know that I have lost some friendships because of this mentality of wanting...of needing to be in an almost constant state of critical rhetorical analyzation. These people that have not understood why I feel the need to do this so often absolutely refuse to take a critical look at their surroundings, and are much happier going about their daily lives, not even beginning to understand the discourse that they surround themselves with. To people like that, it's being "negative" when I would examine the rhetoric of something or someone, to try and find what is really going on--as opposed to be being settled with the low involvement of a message and take it for "what it is".

I know that IPC (Interpersonal Communication) as my major used to be called is jokingly called "I Passed College" by some people outside of the Communication department. But to be sure, being a Communication major has taught me how to be a critical thinker far better than some other people I know and used to know who are far too content to be in Lala Land to take a step back and actually analyze the discourse of everything they're being fed, and everything they fill their life up with.

I would MUCH rather be trying to figure out the the underlying discourse for someone or something in my life, than just skip along through everything without even beginning to understand yourself or your surrounds as you should. I am not satisfied, like other people may be, to see the surface of something and be like "Oh, okay well that's obviously how it actually is"--because as I've learned in my classes, very rarely is something actually what it appears to be, and so I want to know the "Why" and the functions of this rhetorical object and just in general what is behind the surface.

I think it's disgusting that some people are naive enough to think that what is on the surface is all there is to something, including themselves. That people are too satisfied and unwilling to critically examine themselves to HONESTLY figure out "why" or "how" or ANYTHING.

So you will have to excuse me while I open up my mind and attempt to understand and figure out the world around me and what really pulls the strings while some other people are too busy just enjoying the puppet show and too naive to see the strings.