Week 12 - The Final Week

The idea of self/existing with the self

The reason that I chose the self was because I believe at the end there really is only the self. All other things – work, family, money, partners, logic, god – all these things are purely temporary in the end. The one thing that you’re stuck with, day-in day-out, is yourself. Your mind, your thoughts, and your philosophy; and thus the goal of life should be to train the self to be as healthy and high-performing as possible.

Freeing yourself from the influence of others (environment vs. true self)

I don’t believe that there is really a way to completely free yourself from the influence of society. Like I mentioned previously, the essence of society itself comes before your existence, and due to the age of society and its grasp upon the world, it will always in at least some way circumvent you from acting completely independently. But I think that that’s alright, since there is no real reason to act completely independently; just take the ideas from society that you genuinely enjoy and follow through with them.

Fighting your ascribed meaning

I think there is something valiant in the idea that if humans were ever given their true life purpose that they would fight against it. Perhaps that’s why we weren’t given the answer in the first place – perhaps its better for all of us if we don’t know. There’s also the fact that if a purpose is given but a person refuses to accept it, can one truly say it’s a purpose? It seems as though you would need to follow a goal or a meaning in order for it to come true; if you go the opposite direction out of spite, then perhaps that meaning becomes worthless. Perhaps that’s another reason we aren’t told the true meaning; if we aren’t told what it is, then we’ll continue to go down that path.

There are no excuses in existentialism

I think this is a very appropriate quote to use to sum all this up. No matter what you think, how you act, or what you do, existentialism always follows. There are no ways to avoid it; you either spend the rest of your lifetime with it looming over your head or embrace it front and center. There are no excuses in existentialism, only ultimatums and definitives; ironic, as a massive part of existentialism itself is the belief of relativity and subjectivity. Then again, is there a relativity to believing in relativity? Of course not.

Pros and Cons of actual class

Now that it’s finally done (at least for now) discussing Existentialism, I thought I would take the first time in this discussion series to talk about the actual class. Honestly, I found it… mixed. But what are you going to do? Some groups will do better than others, and so the quality of lecture and discussion changes – not only day by day, but also between each of the groups. But then again, this isn’t a classroom experience – it’s a learning experience.