Personal beliefs and rhetorical persuasion through pathos, ethos, and logos

¶ … Personal Belief

This I believe: when a person sings or smiles while singing -- which can be done -- that person is going to raise her level of happiness and make others happier. Scientific research verifies the idea that smiling lowers the blood pressure, relieves stress and makes humans more appealing to others, among other benefits. Research also shows that singing in a choir is a way to change one's mood and gives a comfortably warm feeling with a sense of close emotional involvement with other people in the choir. Singing alone is beneficial for many reasons but the actual scientific benefit is in the production of endorphins that occurs when a person sings out in a strong song. Endorphins interact with receptors in one's brain and that takes away the sense of pain.

I believe in smiling and singing because I have had first-hand experiences with those actions. When they are self-directed they can be powerful mood changers. For example, I was alone the other day and had been procrastinating doing my assignments. I was feeling some tension because my grades and my success is important albeit sometimes I'm just not in the mood to do research and writing and that attitude worries me, hence, the tension.

But suddenly I began to sing a favorite song from the Eagles, "Peaceful, Easy Feeling," and for a few moments afterwards (I don't know all the words) I felt calm and collected, and sat down to begin the assignment. I smiled at the fact that I was a bit flat but since no one heard me I didn't care. Music has been an important part of my life since I was in youth choir in our church, up through adult choir and singing in college.

ETHOS: We do tend to believe people for whom we have respect. The choir director for our youth choir in church was actually a professor of music, and he could be a bit impatient (he hated it when the last word of a hymn ended with an "R" and we held the "R" out… 'rrrrrrr"), but he was really good at teaching us. He said many times that music can made a sad day glad, and make a dark dreary day alive and bright with "human sunshine." I believed him then and I do to this day, not just because he was an expert in music, but because he had charisma as well, and he could create energy and enthusiasm even when we were dragging and wanted to go home.

PATHOS: My small ensemble from high school choir used to go out and sing for various community groups. In particular, we would sing for the elderly in a nursing home a couple miles from the school. At Christmas time one year, my senior year, we went to a different nursing home quite a ways from school, where some of the people seemed very mentally and emotionally disabled. Some just sat all day and kind of rocked back and forth with blank stares, we were told by an aide who welcomed us. Pathos relates to making an emotional appeal through writing or verbalizing -- especially to someone suffering -- so when we sang songs these elderly disabled people recognized from perhaps their childhood, we got smiles and applause. We sang mostly up-tempo versions of Christmas songs, and when we sang "Jingle Bells," probably the simplest but best known holiday tunes, almost every person (there were about 18 people there) either tried to sing along, or at least smiled while we sang. We smiled too. It was a mood-changer in the room, no doubt it relieved some stress and created positive feelings where previously hopeless and grimness seemed to be the rule.

LOGOS: It was logical that we would make those elderly people happier. We reasoned it out when we chose the songs we would sing, that these folks would relate to happier, sillier, and songs that were not deeply religious in substance. So instead of "Oh Holy Night" or "Silent Night" (which might make people sad) we chose "Frosty the Snowman," "Jingle Bells," and "I Saw Mamma Kissing Santa Clause," reasoning through Logos-style logic that simple, familiar, and fun songs would make these sad people happy, or at least make them smile for a moment or two.