Final

This project was very different from any project I have ever done, and I would like to thank you for being one of the few teachers that actually lets the students spread their wings for once and choose something they actually want to learn about. I enjoyed pretty much all of the project, but as you may have already guessed, my personal favorite part was attending the concert. Despite Mayer's good looks and charm, the concert was actually what inspired me to make this blog my topic in the first place, because you really don't realize how much you can love someone's music so much until you have witnessed their performance in person. Through this project I was able to learn things about Mayer that I didn't know before, the most interesting thing being that he befriended a four year old fan with MPS (an inherited enzyme disease) before a concert, who he still keeps in touch with. I found the most beneficial part of the project to be the book review. Even though I wasn't looking forward to reading "The Mirror Effect", it really helped me in my quest to answer the inevitable question: is John Mayer a Narcissist, full of vanity and insecurities, or is he a genius, unable to express his real emotions due to the harsh realities of stardom?

Now that I heave fed you some of the prerequisites, this is how I really felt about the project:

This project has evolved into a lot more than I had ever anticipated it being. At first, I thought that it would be something very simple, and not the least bit challenging. As I got more and more involved, I have came to the conclusion that John Mayer is neither a narcissist nor a genius. He is just a normal human being, who has said a couple of things without thinking. I would by lying if I said that I entered this project with an open mind, because it would be hard to try and disprove something I had decided on long before I began the project. What I think I learned the most from this is that no matter your status in society, people all make the same mistakes. Every single person has had at least one moment in their life when they just completely screw up, whether that be speaking before thinking or making a regrettable decision of sorts. That being said, I came to the conclusion that the media and the real world have more in common than meets the eye. They will both take your faults and exploit them, using your decisions and faults to come off as whatever the exploiter wants you to be. To be honest, I even did it myself in this very project. I did not exploit Mayer's faults, but rather his strengths. I could have taken countless things out of Mayer's interviews to make him seem like a total asshole, but I didn't because I wanted to make my point. Technically, you could say that this project made me realize my own hypocrisy, but that was my opinion and I stuck to it. If I could have done anything different, I would have come into this project with a more open mind, rather than approaching it on such a biased level. As much as I would like to say that I got some type of brilliant epiphany from this project, what I really got the most out of it was simply an enhanced respect for Mayer's music, and to put aside everything that the media had thrown at me and my personal presumptions and to see Mayer for who he really is: a musician, and a brilliant one at that. I envy his dedication to music, and I wish that I was able to be as passionate about anything as he is towards music. Through this project, I learned to respect him as both a musician and a person.

Note: I have literally been trying to figure out how to put this in words for weeks, but I still feel like there is something lacking. So i'm sorry if that was completely scrambled and contradicting.