Outside Reading: Reflective Essay #1

Reflective Essay: "Mine is Longer Than Yours"

by Michael Kinsley

published April 7, 2008

           This essay is about living with Parkinson's disease and the competition of the length one's life. The writer begins the story with a couple personal experiences he had that dealt with age. He meets two men who seem to brag about how old they have been able to live. This brings him to the idea of the competitiveness about age, like it's something people have a large amount of control over when really most of it is determined by genetics, culture, and finances. Throughout the essay he displays a tone of slight criticism and jealousy but also contentment.

        Kinsley begins with a small amount of criticism towards those competitors, saying that “extending your own life expectancy is the most selfish motive imaginable for doing anything,” when one could focus on sacrificing his or her life for others (2). He goes on to debate the glamour of death at different ages. While dying very early can be noble or glamorous along with dying at such an old age that it’s shocking, dying in your fifties and sixties is not in any way interesting. It is not until he begins to talk about the three highest causes of death that we learn the writer actually has Parkinson’s disease. Now the reader can begin to realize and understand the tone of jealousy hinted in the first few pages. The envy is minimal though as the tone of the piece converts to acceptance and contentment. Kinsley talks about the limitations one feels when hit with the news about having a chronic disease. Most people take the viewpoint that you are automatically excluded “from the club of living” and left with a finite future, but the writer takes a different outlook (5). Each choice you make isn’t necessarily the last. He describes the unfair feeling that the arc of one’s career or life is not only unachieved but “unexpectedly chopped off” (7). Rather than being disappointed about a younger person beating you for a position, people with a chronic disease, feel disappointment about losing a job to someone older because while that person is still going strong, they realize that their time is running out. 

        For an AP essay the tone used is fantastic because it is appropriate and understandable. The writer is never angrily ranting, or making jokes, but rather calmly discusses his perspectives about different aspects. The tone is also always supported by reasons for the way he feels. He doesn’t just criticize a person’s actions without eventually giving his rationale. This essay is full of emotions from acceptance to disappointment and jealousy, which is completely understandable when one is forced confront life’s length and meaning, but Kinsley pulls through and has an overall positive tone.