Final Class Reflection! 12.3.19

Wow! What a treat this last class was. I didn’t really know I was going to be so sad about things ending...until it was over! This class truly provided the most unique learning experience I have ever encountered in my collegiate career, and I feel so thankful I had the opportunity to learn among so many thoughtful, inquisitive, intelligent peers. 

I was super curious as to how these final presentations were going to play out being that “What is Existentialism?” is quite a lofty question to tackle. We’ve met so many philosophers and heard about so many different ways to approach “life.” I even but “life” in quotation marks because now I interpret “life” as being synonymous with “existence” and I’m now (like...pleasantly) confused about existence. The two groups who presented did a wonderful job of tying everything up with a nice bow. Which leads me to an analogy that I could employ to describe this class. At the beginning, we unwrapped this “present” and we had no idea what was going to be inside. We sit in class for the first couple of sessions with Thad after we’ve unwrapped our gift that came without an instruction manual, and we proceeded to unlearn most of what we’ve learned about or gift of existence at first glance. Each week our understanding of existence grew more broadly and more fervently. And now, this final class, allowed us to re-wrap our existentialism gift and secure it with a fancy bow - as we now all carry an everlasting gift. This gift is a new way of thinking and seeing the world. I can now say with confidence that I think about life differently and see things through a much different lens than I had when this course first began. 

I really enjoyed how one of the groups tied in pop culture. Aside from sporadic mentions of certain movies and such from time-to-time in class, I had not thought much about how much existentialism is a recurring theme in any great piece of film or television. This really inspired me for my paper and I was happy to receive that little spark due to the group igniting conversation about existentialism in pop culture. The first groups rendition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire was a fun and interactive way for the class to engage with re-calling upon excerpts from readings, re-visiting stimulating quotes, and reviewing all of the existentialists we’ve learned about. It was a satisfying way to reflect on everything we have learned! The following group, who encourage a choose-your-own-adventure type of presentation which I’ll call choose-your-own-existence...was a beautiful way to spend our last hour of class together! We talked among ourselves in small groups about existential questions and these small group conversations and interactions really allowed me to see how robustly everyone’s knowledge has grown. 

This final class meeting was an excellent way to display how we’ve all been given the gift of encouragement to think differently, to question how things “are” and wonder how things could be, to wrestle with that idea that yes, life moves around us...but how do we move around it? The final group gave us all sticky-notes in the last couple of minutes and wrote some statement-starters, or prompts at the end of their powerpoint to encourage us to fill-in-the-blank. One of their prompts simply said “I’m here to…” I thought about it for a second, and then actually realized one of my own personal philosophies before even engaging with this course was “I’m here to ENJOY.” and whenever I have to pause and question where I’m going, or what direction I’m heading in, I simply remind myself: I’m here to enjoy. 

Class Reflection, 11.19.19, readings from Sartre

     This past class was a good one because my group got the opportunity to teach the class! Of course we had two readings on Jean Paul Sartre, so we observed our classmates for the first half of the class period, and my group presented on Sketch of Emotions afterwards. The first group’s reading was Existentialism is a Humanism and Freedom and Responsibility. It was nice to have the other group go first to set the tone for what Sartre was all about.      My understanding of Sartre after doing my own personal research was that his most defining belief had to do with the limitless freedom that we as humans possess. This should be something that is generally known and “believed” yet most people don’t truly act-on or embrace their freedom. Sartre suggests that freedom is a vital aspect of all parts of our lives, whether it be the path of life we believe we are to take...or the emotions in which we choose to “feel.” Sartre coined this term of bad faith which is essentially his way of making an umbrella statement to explain what it means to live your own life inauthentically. Bad faith is the notion of not being true to yourself, sticking to prescribed roles and what is expected of you, and generally just losing touch with what it is you truly want along the way. When learning about bad faith as a backdrop for Sartre I found myself puzzled with how many examples of bad faith exist in the world around me. It is all-too-easy to fall into routine and a comfort zone in life, forgetting that there is so much more out in the world to experience and be. Sort of similar to the saying “the only thing to fear is fear itself” - a similar catch phrase could likely be formed of the irony that comes with conceptualizing freedom. It is sort of scary how much freedom we have, and it is both scary (and also comforting…) to know that even with the limitless amounts of freedom at our fingertips - we as a society live in a civilized manner….The follow-up thought, though, is always: “But why?” But why is the question that existentialism makes you constantly go back do, because a lot of the theories are easy to understand, but difficult to explain. We can all agree on the true freedom we do possess, but who can assert an answer for why? Sartre is trying to help us...maybe.      I chose my reading Sketch of Emotions from A Sketch of Phenomenological Theory specifically (meaning it wasn’t assigned to me.) On the day we were asked to either sign up for a reading or succumb to being assigned to one...I definitely wanted to exercise my freedom of choice by selecting my own reading. I was skimming all of the titles of the various options, seeing the word emotions grabbed me and then it wouldn’t let me go. I know that the word “emotions” can be ambiguous - and if a word is going to mean something obscure and different based on interpretation, it’s going to occur in the field of existentialism. I am so satisfied with my choice. Pondering the idea of emotions can get some wheels turning with a quickness. I liked my reading because it offered every student the opportunity to relate to the subject matter. Everyone has constant, almost incessant experiences with emotions. In my world, emotions are so strong they’re disruptive and always making themselves known. Sartre really wants to convince us that all emotions we experience and completely in our control. Sartre dazzles us by suggesting that emotions are magical transformations of the world. I think there’s a little truth to all of Sartre’s assertions on emotions. I think an evolved version of his way of thinking of emotions would be the idea that “life is 10% what happens to you - and 90% how you react to it.” I wholeheartedly believe this is true and anyone who has experience with having an opportunity to look at any situation from the 10/90 lense would believe that we can be vastly in greater control of our emotions if we’re given space, and careful with our reactions. This concept of being judicious with our emotions is certainly nice in theory - but many people do have what I believe to be deep-rooted triggers that can be revealed at any given time. We are all highly sensitive beings, at the end of the day. This conversation of whether or not we can control our emotions could really go on forever and ever, and go down a number of tributaries. I believe if we have the foresight to delay our reaction and response, then, sure...we can control all of our emotions. I think how eager our egos are to feel safe and secure prevents us from providing ourselves with the time needed to process things before reacting.      My final question to the class with Sartre’s Sketch of Emotions as an inspiration was “Do we love people, or do we love how they make us feel?” I was happy to wrap up the class with this final thought, in hopes that we could all take a deeper look and assess what our emotions provide us with, and if they truly can be magical transformations of the world. 

Class Reflection, Tuesday 11.5.19, Unamuno & Heidegger

We made some new friends this week in Existentialism. Enter: Miguel De Unamuno, and Martin Heidegger. Both were equally as compelling, and the group that presented on Heidegger left quite an impression on me with the way they were able to articulate Heidegger’s fascinating (and equally as confusing) philosophies. I enjoyed both of these readings, Miguel De Unamuno offered a short and sweet, but super dense theory on self evolution and the importance of passion and commitment over reason and rationality. While Heidegger’s reading was equally as long as it was cumbersome. I got through them both though, and appreciated the way the groups shook out their brief dissertations on these dudes. 

We dove deeply into Miguel De Unamuno, but mid-discussion Thad stressed the importance of our understanding of “dogma” in order to fully grasp what Unamuno was getting at. Dogma is the blanket that keeps all of Unamono’s theories and philosophies warm and cozy. We popcorned around the room a bit, trying to help one another grasp what dogma is, and in the context of Unamuno’s writing...exactly what it meant. We settled on the fact that dogma is not something that is self evident, that some examples of dogma would be the idea that scientific method trumps superstition, and the 10 Commandments of Christianity is another good example of dogma, basically dogma is a set of ideals and principles that are essentially ingrained in you. Dogma is the foundation for everything you do, usually you don’t have to consciously consider your dogma - it just shows itself in what you do. To reference Unamuno’s metaphor, dogma is what keeps you on the boat whether you’re sinking or not. The passion you possess for your dogma keeps you on that boat even if you consciously know it’s sinking. Unamuno happens to believe that everyone is essentially on a faulty ship. Unamuno believed that faith offers guarantees, while reason leads to skepticism and despair, Unamuno was sort of aligned with Kierkegaard in regards to their views on the importance of one’s faith. Unamuno asserts that humans seek immortality, and while science and reason conclude that immortality is impossible...faith argues otherwise. Unamuno was famous for contradicting himself, and he was proud to do so, and therefore a lot of his reading felt like running in circles. This got me thinking that this is the most prime example of humans and our impermanence, and how we’re constantly changing and evolving. Unamuno believed in self evolution, and that we aren’t limited by the outside world and sentenced to just one particular purpose, yet we are also not limited by ourselves and what we set as our own purpose. We are dynamic and ever changing. Unamuno believes that happiness should be our ultimate goal, and that attaining happiness is more important than fulfilling our duty. Yet, Unamuno stresses this concept of dogma...seems interesting that he argues that we’re constantly changing, yet encourages this presence of dogma which is in essence a firm set of unshakable beliefs and views that we withhold. There he goes again with those dang contradictions…

I knew from the assigned reading for Heidegger that talking about him was going to be an uphill battle. Which isn’t always a bad thing, but nonetheless. The assigned reading was difficult to get through and interpret, but I was grateful the group who taught us about Heidegger did an excellent job. We mostly got caught up in discussing this whole concept (seriously, a whole, involved, complicated concept) of “Da-Sein.” (Super similar to how vital an understanding of dogma is to Unamuno, the same is true of Da-Sein for Heidegger. Foundational building blocks of their philosophies for sure.) I was glad we spent a lot of time tackling this concept of Da-Sein and really distilling it, because it really is vital to understanding what Heidegger is getting at, even if just from a helicopter perspective. Here’s what I gathered of Da-sein via class discussion: Existence is just the way that Da-Sein is. In English, we would say that certain things exist...Heidegger would suggest that certain things have being. I think some of the confusion and our inability to grasp this with ease is the language barrier between Heidegger’s native language of German, and the English translation. In English, we also rely a lot more heavily on the term “existence” which makes this altogether more difficult to grasp.  We can recognize other Da-Seins, which makes us differ from all other species/animals that we know of. “How does Da-Sein live authentically?” was one of the most compelling questions that the group who taught Heidegger offered us. We come into this “world” with essentially everything already set in place around us, our surroundings are already prescribed upon arrival. We dissolve into the environment we’re brought into. Are our ideas our own? Or are they just a product of our reality and essentially just the product of other metda-seins? I kept asking myself what this means about the concept of “originality.” Like, is anything ever original? Thoughts, ideas, concepts, inventions...everything stems from something else, it’s all stems from chain-of-events. This alone was thought provoking enough that I think we could have spent our whole existentialism class period discussing “How does a Da-Sein live authentically?” Geeeeez, and to think that’s just the tip of Heidegger's massive existentialism iceberg. 

Class Reflection, 10.29.19

Class Reflection, 10.29.19 During this past class period we dove a little deeper with Nietzche and had our first meeting with Dostoevsky. 

I was looking forward to talking more about Nietzche since last time his writings inspired so much conversation among the class. And after this class I’ll stick to my initial impression...that Nietzche has been my favorite existentialist to learn about thus far. I think that there are a few things that contribute to my affinity for him...his writing has been the most enjoyable for me to read, of course considering that this has been translated from the original language it was written in..however, reading his words have sent me on the most mental journeys and thought excursions thus far. It takes me a solid 20 minutes at times just to digest one page of his work...to someone this may sound tedious but I like how much each sentence makes me stop and think, consider, ponder...repeat, re-read, research. In addition, there’s so much background from a historical perspective to everything that we have been learning and discussing.  To endeavor to understand the full scope of what is being said by any of the existentialists we study...researching the life and times of said existentialist made the material so much more dynamic. 

The topic of “desires” and “power” dominated a good portion of the Nietzche conversation. When discussing “desires” I caught myself really diving deep trying to assess what my deepest desires are. I think I started daydreaming in class for a moment trying to be in touch with my desires...but I felt myself coming up a little short. I will say that the word desire has always seemed so strong to me. During my Nietzche research, I came across a quote of his that read “Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.” That quote hit me hard and I’m still here thinking about it multiple times throughout the day...days after I first read it. Our ability to desire is certainly one of the things that makes us human. But I do often feel like sometimes all of the fun is in the act of desiring something...and generally, once you acquire that “something” we’re on to focusing on fulfilling our next desire. I think as time goes on in our world as we know it...our ability to be “fulfilled” will grow smaller and smaller. Our society as a whole is always seeking the next best thing, Nietzche would be mind blown if he knew to which level humans in 2020 are obsessed with the desire.

POWER was another theme in regards to Nietzche for the evening. The group who presented the topic of power referenced Kanye West which I thought was funny and relevant...Kanye has a song that goes:            “I'm living' in that 21st century             Doing something mean to it             Do it better than anybody you ever seen do it             Screams from the haters, got a nice ring to it             I guess every superhero need his theme music             No one man should have all that power             The clock's ticking', I just count the hours             Stop tripping', I'm tripping' off the POWER            (21st century schizoid man)” 

I wouldn’t say I consider myself a fan of Kanye West, but this song definitely pops into my head when I hear the word power. I’m not sure if it’s just ironic that Kanye mentions a “superhero” in his lyrics, but it is interesting to draw the connection between Nietzche’s belief of Übermensch. Tripping off the POWER is the right way to describe the energy of a lot of powerful people. When we first started talking about the concept of power, my initial thoughts of what power equates to are things like...running for office, or being the president of the USA. I think that American ideals and society have forced us to put power into a box. I’ve never really strived to be powerful, nor felt that that was a goal of mine. But maybe I don’t understand the full scope of power. Maybe our American ideals have tainted what I associate power with.

Our first look at Nietzsche, Class Reflection

10.22.19

I left our class session thinking that Nietzsche has been my favorite philosopher that we’ve learned about thus far. I think that these readings propagated the most unique and riveting class conversation. During the reading I found myself Googling a lot of words I had not heard before, and also researching some of the religious themes that were referred to. I was telling my classmates during our discussion in the last class session that I had not anticipated that a philosophy class would have so much to do with religion, but now that it occurs to me I was putting the topic of philosophy (and existentialism) into a box. I’m trying to get a grip on the influence that religion had on all the philosophical views that we’ve had the opportunity to study. 

(*One of the groups lead their discussion a bit differently by posing a question or thought, and then letting us discuss in small groups for a few minutes, and then opening phasing into a classroom-wide discussion. I preferred this method because to think deep I need more than just a few seconds to collect my thoughts. This gave me a chance to mull over my responses and reactions to the deep questions that we were presented with. Kudos to that group!)

A big theme of The Gay Science excerpt that we read was that “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.” My interpretation of this was that as the generations have changed, so have our hierarchy of needs. In earlier times...God was “there.” Now, we focus much more on other things, and our priorities (as a whole) have changed. It constantly amazes me to read such enlightened thoughts that are hundreds of years old, yet have aged so beautifully in terms of how relevant the texts remain. I did some deeper research on Nietzsche’s views of morality as to better understand his texts and writings. One of my classmates often offers the background of Judeo-Christianity and the impact of that movement on these philosophical movements. My understanding is that Nietzsche wasn’t a huge fan of the Judeo-Christian morality due to it’s roots in slavery and submisiveness. Christian morality is the dominant morality of our age...Judeo-Christianity undermined traditional ethical models which had previously honored strength and freedom in favor of meekness and the self-sacrifice of Christ. Nietzsche seems to view Christiantiy as ideological enslavement. (This is where things began to get very interesting to me!) Slave morality saw virtue in shying away from exercising power, and thus Judeo-Christians viewed using power without compunction as evil. (sooooo interesting!!!) Christian morality arose precisely in these kinds of conditions of enslavement under the Roman empire. (I love the history lesson here, seriously.) This explains why the Christian worldview is centered around subservience, being submissive and conservative, being obedient, and to “ignore” your desires and impulses. (wow!) In turn, the slaves harbored deep resentment of those who did do what they wanted in life with no regret (typically their masters…) the slave’s gave themselves peace of mind by knowing that those who lived a life opposite of theirs would ultimately suffer in Hell as punishment. This attitude the slaves garnered diminished the importance of living this life here on earth, in favor of fantasizing about their afterlives...when the scores would be settled. This fixation on the afterlife negated the value of THIS life...Nietzsche argued passionately that that is no way to live life! Of this stance, arised Nietzsche’s concept of “Amor Fati” or “love of fate.” Nietzsche felt deeply that we are meant to fall in love with the whole of life, even the warped and painful parts, and even the trials of suffering. This made me think a lot about the ancient concepts of yin and yang, darkness and light, masculine and feminine energy, the moon and sun...all of the balance that occurs without thought in NATURE. Nietzsche was getting at that point...that while yes, times can be difficult and there are instances where suffering simply must be endured...however, without those times we would not know how wonderful life is when we aren’t in pain. The ebb and flow of life is inevitable, and I really love Nietszche’s stance that we should embrace both. I also love how he defends going after our inherent passions and desires, and letting that create our Amor Fati. Why would we shy away from what is natural for us to feel? This is an existential question that we should all consider.  

Week 6:  Kierkegaard’s Truth-is-Subjectivity, Kierkegaard’s Existential Dialectic

Continuing with Kierkegaard this past week I think I’m starting to gain a broader understanding of his philosophical and existential views. I took a lot of notes when reading “Truth-is-Subjectivity” and it took a lot of reading and re-reading many of Kierkegaards sentences...having to decipher what exactly he was saying, while trying to thoroughly understand the difference between “subjective truth” and “objective truth.” I wanted to make sure I understood the difference, because without that the rest of the reading would have been vastly difficult to make sense of. I tried using multiple formats of “notes” and comparisons to try and see what Kierkgaard was getting at...I at one point thought it would be best and easiest to make a venn-diagram...but then realized there wouldn’t be much in the “middle” or “overlapping” section of the venn-diagram. That's when I started to understand that maybe one of the main points Kierkegaard was making was that there isn’t in fact a “middle ground” or overlapping of the two concepts…(it was ironic during our lecture that a fellow classmate presented the same example or suggestion of the venn-diagram comparison…) Anyhow, what I finally understood was that Kierkgaard feels that subjective truth is the only real truth, the truth that points inwards. Noting that religious faith is a mode of “being” and that “passion is subjectivity’s highest expression.” Essentially Kierkegaard is all about finding truth by appropriation...meaning we take things for our own use and discover what something means to us...as opposed to focusing on “objective” or “outer” truth. Kierkegaard explains that objective truth emphasizes what is said, whereas subjective truth emphasizes how it is said. I had never really thought too far into the distinctions between subjective and objective truth, so I was intrigued by realizing the differences between the two per Kierkegaard. I had always used these terms in conversation but I didn’t expect there to be so much contrast between the two in a philosophical sense...I’d say I have always been one to err on the side of “objective truth” as I’ve never been a religious person...meaning truth to me is more about science and history and what is provable. The group who taught this reading to the class did put together a skit that was pretty representative of that concept, of what is said versus how it’s said. Each group-member dictated some mock ratemyprofessor.com reviews of Thad and made the point of this contrast between the tone and opinion of a statement versus what was factual about what was said...exemplifying the idea of finding our own meaning in something. Everyone’s realities and experiences are relative. We continued an idea/debate from a previous class about what makes a “good religious person a good religious person.” Which sort of all relates back to how you relate to something is personal and Kierkegaards beef (it appears) was that many people in his time were claiming to be men and women of Christianity but weren’t actually being and living a good Christians...but rather, sort of practicing and going through the motions to do so. Again, this all circles back to making the distinction between which type of truth is the right type of truth...but truth is so personal! Are we in a place to judge another person’s truth...ever? I think not. Would Kierkegaard agree? I think he would. I think his objective is to find the origin and inception of a person’s “truth” and what motivates them...appropriation. 

Week Five, The Fall pt. 2 & our first look at Kierkegaard

We finished up the second half of The Fall. The discussion went in some different directions than the conversation we had concerning the first part of the story. We talked a lot about the topic of judgement and that sparked a lot of conversation. Most of my peers believe that we inherently judge people and our environment, constantly. We're constantly “invetory-ing” our surroundings  and for the most part we can't control these judgements. Some may argue that there's a fine line between judgements and observations. One student posed her stance that we actually don't automatically judge people, she argued that we are in fact just constantly observing...and what we do with those observations can turn into “passing judgement” on something. We also discussed that judging isn't always a bad thing...and some times it in fact helps us to survive! Evolutionarily speaking, being able to cognitively judge and/or assess a situation may have been our means to survive and outsmart our enemies. I've also learned of the idea of social-comparison in psychology, which in it's distilled version essential means that we learn about ourselves through comparing oneself to others. This helps us evolve more quickly. “Judgement” or “judging” is one of those words that's just perceived as ugly -but this conversation really put it into perspective for me in terms of how often we're employing our ability to “judge.” Clamence was in a constant and semi-anxious state of always judging others but also judging himself even harder...we all are our own worst critics, after all. The hardest judgements we inflict I'm sure are on ourselves, we're just not aware of it. 

The Kierkegaard reading was something I was looking forward to because a friend of mine who has a psychology degree raved about her love for Kierkegaard when I told her about this class and that we'd be discussing his writing. With that being said, I really did enjoy what we read of Soren. Like all of the other readings, it's very dense material and I found myself constantly re-reading sentences and passages trying to fully wrap my head around what was being said. I think some of the thoughts presented were so simple that I was overcomplicating it. I think as humans we do that a lot and can't just accept when something is simple! I think Soren might agree? Our minds are always toiling. I myself didn't grow up and any type of religious household, so I find myself struggling to feel passionate when the topic of religion gets brought up...I tend to be more of an observer of conversations concerning religion because I don't feel educated enough on the topic of religion to interject, it's more interesting for me to listen to those who on the contrary have grown up with religion talk about it. While those people would probably enjoy to hear my thoughts given the contrasting situation I grew up in. We talked about whether or not we as humans need a “master” in order to go about our lives. We established in class that a “master” can be something good, or bad, and that and could be a person...while it could also be a career goal, a religion, money, power...the term “master” gives itself to endless interpretation. I've always thought we're masters of ourselves, and I've always thought of faith as something that we create as humans and if we “have” and “feel” that sense of faith...then we have faith in ourselves...I've kind of always thought (but have had a hard time articulating) that we are all our own individual “gods” or “masters.” Kind of how the meaning of life is something we can only attribute to ourselves...our life has meaning because we give it meaning...our life has faith because we create that faith. Anyways, I really liked the biblical tie in when Kierkegaard was making his point that everything in life has stemmed from BOREDOM. What a concept. I've never ever thought about it like that. I've always heard of the term “boredom is the devil's playground” and this just brought that phrase to a whole new level for me. The more I thought about it the more it brought everything together. At one point two students were debating whether or not boredom leads to anxiety. I was screaming “YES!” in my head...because I'm an expert and ruminating when I have nothing else to think about. Boredom is extricably linked to anxiety in my opinion. And I think anxiety and anticipation (for me, at least) are very closely linked, almost synchronized. Anticipation is the worst part of anything that gives you anxiety. This sort of relates to the boredom piece. If we have time to anticipate things and be anxious about them...then we'll do exactly that. When our mind isn't busy...it wants to busy itself. This is why meditation sounds so simple and dreamy...but it's so hard for us to quiet the mind and make it less busy and noisy. It may even be impossible. So this boredom thing really stuck with me the minute I read it in the text and even more so after the class discussion. I'm looking forward to reading more Kierkegaard, and I'm gonna keep this first reading in mind as dive deeper into his philosophies.

Week 4, Camus Part Deux

Week Four, Camus Part Deux  Readings: The Fall & The Myth of Sisyphus      So I really enjoyed these two readings and was super excited to see how discussion would go in class. Without a doubt, the whole time I was reading “The Fall” I kept thinking about the saying “character is what you do, and who you are when no one is watching.” I thought a lot about the contrast between The Stranger and The Fall. There are so many major differences between Mersault and Clamence. In The Stranger you've got Mersault who essentially goes through life with hardly any consciousness...literally going with the flow and not really inserting himself into life but rather just living life as it comes. Then you've got Clamence who is our main character in the Fall who in contrast almost seems overly conscious. I found these two fellows to be interesting foils to one another, and I wish we would have discussed that in class. A lot of the class discussion centered around religious and it's place in the world of absurdity. I saw the discussion going in another direction and was really hoping to talk more about this one theme: do we do good things because they make us feel good or because they make other people feel good? Clearly this isn't black and white and all of our actions having some degree of selfishness behind them...but it kept me thinking about what our intentions are when we “do a good deed” or do something nice for someone else. Is there such a thing as full-on selflessness?      Clamence seems to be addicted to helping people, or perhaps the perception that he believes his helping people conveys. There’s a point in the text where Clamence tips his hat to some blind men (knowing that they are blind) and this gives us the impression that in fact his kindness is really a public display as opposed to genuine or sincere. Clamence states as he reflects on this moment: "To whom was it addressed? To the public. After playing my part, I would take my bow". Following up on this theme of public displays of kindness for clout as opposed to humanity is reflected in his lack of drive to help the woman whom he hears “fall” off of the bridge…once he just walks away from the suicide he just technically witnessed…it is difficult for him to avoid his hypocrisy. This is a turning point in the story.      Post his ignorance to the woman’s suicide…Clamence’s lifestyle takes quite a turn and he went from being a reputable and well renowned man (and lawyer) to basically a drunkard…however his motives and “character” remain. Before the suicide incident he is constantly chasing this motivation to set an example for all of his fellow humans through shallow social interactions, and as the story continues and post suicide, he is simply a drunkard providing sincere yet still ego-driven advice on “humility.”      Another quote reads "too many people have decided to do without generosity in order to practice charity." This exemplifies that his motivation in good deeds and being generous is not for the person on the receiving end of the good deed…but rather for the public perception and reputation of the good-doer. I can relate to this, I have had certain people in my life who tell me that I “need to be more selfish” or I should consider putting my needs before other peoples’ sometimes…but often times my response (which can sometimes go misunderstood) is an effort to explain to someone the fulfillment that I get from doing that good deed. Perhaps not so much so for a public display but sometimes I feel I benefit just as much form being generous towards someone as the recipient of the generosity…which makes it a semi-selfish act, I suppose.      In general, throughout The Fall we are faced with societal social norm and the idea that it is difficult for a charitable person to do “good” without some sort of benefit coming from doing said charity. Think about how when donating or volunteering it is often made a very public display…corporate companies who host team bonding events where they volunteer…or sports teams who do the same, it is always heavily documented and publicized. We could argue that this documentation and publication of said acts is to simply spread the word and encourage others to follow suit, but generally it also shows our desire to let it be known when we’re doing something charitable.      How can one differentiate between doing good since it's the right thing and doing good because of how it makes them feel? That's the main question The Fall made me seek an answer to. 

The Myth of Sisyphus I found equally as riveting and I just find it so ironic and fascinating that something that was written so many years ago is still completely relevant today in (almost) 2020. It kind of drove the point home to me that these existential ideals are literally timeless and contemplating the meaning of life and our purpose as humans knows no bounds. We'll never have the answers, and most of us will continue to push our rocks up the mountain only for them to tumble down again. But we keep doing it. A whole lot of our lives are just monotonous...so what compels us to keep going? Through class discussion and hearing the debates arise about why we live our day-to-day-lives and what keeps us interested in or motivated to wake up again tomorrow and “do it all over again?” I came to the conclusion during class that it just comes down to the fact that we all attribute our own meaning to our own lives an that's really all that matters. For now that's how I feel and (of course) this idea and feeling of mine will probably be challenged many times throughout this class. A lot of my fellow classmates are a lot more well versed and informed about other branches of philosophy and their teachers and teachings so I've been delighted to hear the well-supported arguments of those around me in class. I think we learn a lot through comparing...and this is relatable on a personal level, meaning we learn about ourselves by comparing ourselves to others...and in addition comparing and contrasting helps our learning process, too. Someone brought up how Aristotle compares us to “tools” and how each tool has a purpose...but what is the meaning? For example, a hammer might have the purpose of helping you to construct or build a house...but what is the meaning behind that act? I’m really thankful the person who contributed that thought did so because I’ve been giving it a lot of thought ever since.      Overall I loved these readings and both groups did a great job in presenting, and the one group that made the rap music video really had me laughing and appreciating their hard work and ability to use the content in a creative way. I wish we would have unpacked more of a diverse set of themes and ideas from these readings instead of centering the discussion so much around religion – but that's just my opinion.

Tuesday 9.10, The Stranger, Albert Camus

Tuesday 9.10  I was really looking forward to class today, and I knew it was the real deal when I went to enter the classroom doors and I saw Thad's note about not entering class if you were late. I was glad I was early! Being that it was our third class meeting, it meant that this was the first class session of the students doing the teaching. I really didn't know what to expect from our first two groups that were set to lead class, so I was eager to see how things would play out as we discussed the very thought-provoking assigned reading The Stranger by French philosopher Albert Camus. 

The book at first read left me with a lot of interesting things lingering on in my mind. I kept thinking about how the sun really drove a lot of Mersault's decisions and moods. I also kept thinking about the world's prescribed views towards grief and “feelings” in general. I was definitely at times very confused about Mersault and what exactly I was to be making of his character...my impression of him most of the time was that he was vapid, detached, and just in general quite an anomaly of a person. I did some research on Camus and found out that he had a very close and loving relationship with his mother...in light of that I took interest in the fact that he created a character who seemed to be (for lack of a better word) unconcerned with his mother. This thought alone could send me down a thousand different tributaries; routes that were causing me to consider modern day family structures and dynamics, the classic nature versus nurture debate, family psychology, how evolution has impacted maternal instincts. So many things! 

As anticipated, this book encouraged lots of colorful conversation among the class, it really is so awesome to read something and have your own perspective and perception, and then to get the opportunity to hear how someone else interpreted the story. There are certain times during class discussion where my brain is like “SKRRRRRRRT!” and I think to myself...I just made a 180 degree turn in how I was thinking about this. I know this class will often encourage me to second guess my own thoughts. A lot of the class time was spent discussing Mersault's character and one of the initial questions posed was whether or not he was a human. I actually had not even considered whether or not Mersault was a human so I was surprised when that question was posed. It sparked a lot of conversation among the class, though. I think that Mersault is undoubtably human yet he makes us question what being a human means. We also grappled with the idea that Mersault's character was constructed in such a way that his character and personality traits are heavily and tactfully left up to the interpretation of the reader. This book really lead me to reconsider our social norms, especially when it comes to how we expect people to grieve. A question that occurred to me was; does a person's inability to feel an intense sense of mourning or sadness when grieving make them a “bad” person? I think instinctually “we” as a society would answer ‘yes’ to that question. But perhaps it just means that individual feels or grieves differently than the average person... Here were a few more of my random thoughts on The Stranger:

-Through my reading and after listening to my classmates discuss the book, I decided that there is a perception of Meursalt that he may be so detached that he doesn't care about anyone or what they think of him...but there are certain parts of the book where the opposite is exposed of him, for example on the very first page he's going on about the fact that he's stressed that he's burdening his boss by taking a day off for his Maman's funeral, but justifies it with himself when he considers that his boss will understand once he sees him in mourning. Additionally, with his neighbor Raymond...he essentially becomes “friends” with him by just saying what he thinks Raymond wants to hear, or whatever he needs to say to make him happy. In the instance upon which Raymond was accused of beating up his girlfriend and Meursalt defended him because that was just what Raymond told him to do, or even when it came down to getting in a fight with the Arab...all of these events seemed to provide a small glimmer of Meursalt caring what someone else thought. Then again, in class a similar debate was posed and some students suggested that Meursalt just literally went down whichever path was easiest or required the least amount of friction or deliberation when presented with “options” or situational decisions..

-Do the people in the home feel more upset because they're more emotionally tied to Maman since they're in a similar situation/age group/”reality” to Maman who is now deceased? Meursalt living without Maman had allowed him to be “detached” from her condition and thus it was easy for him to avoid thinking about her inevitable deterioration...out of sight out of mind? Was he just running from something that was going to cause him to feel real emotion?

-There was this moment on page 12 (after his mother's vigil took place) where Mersault’s thoughts bleed on to the page and he observed this post vigil dynamic, notice how I said “observed” and not “felt. Some of the members of the home became Mersault's fellow vigil attendees.” As the folks from the home exited the vigil, Mersault thought to himself (in regards to them)... “on their way out, and much to my surprise, they all shook my hand—as if that night during which we hadn't exchanged as much as a single word had somehow brought us closer together.” this shows the contrast of those people thinking a shared experience means shared empathy, Meursalt doesn't get that...he takes his lack of real connection with his fellow vigil attendees at face value and doesn't consider them “bonded” as a product of their fellow mourning or “experience” / “existence” sharing. 

This book still has clearly left me with a ton of unanswered questions but with so much to chew on and think about. Existentialism was truly exemplified in this first assigned reading, and I'm left wondering what makes a person “bad?” What makes a human a human? How do you separate observations from feelings, and what if we all went around saying we had “observations” all of the time instead of talking about our feelings? Would that cause us to lose our humanness? Does being human equate to the ability to cognitively “feel-” and that's what sets us a part from all of the other animals we share this earth with? The ability to deeply feel sorrow and pain, and the ability to grieve and mourn? This is truly just the inception of our questioning of existence.

Class session 2

Tuesday 9.3.19 Class number two was another “unordinary” session. Next week is the week everything truly begins! I'm looking forward to that. In preparation for next week, I've been spending some time rereading The Stranger as well as doing some research in regards to the book as well. I have gathered that the more prepared we all are, because regardless of whether or not we are “teaching” on any given week...things will only go well if we all act as if we are teaching that week by really delving into the readings and material. I'm really looking forward to seeing how the first group to teach is going to present the material and I am even more excited to see how the students in class engage with one another. Those of us who did not choose a reading on the first day of class got assigned to random groups. I myself chose the reading entitled The Emotions: A Sketch of Theory by Jean-Paul Sartre. After last class when we were presented with the options for readings that we could choose from to teach, I think a lot of my classmates just opted to get assigned something...I decided to peruse and choose. I am the type of person who has a lot of trouble making decisions when I am presented with a slew of options because I am always afraid I am going to miss out on a better option. Instead, my approach should be that whatever draws me in is most likely the best option for me. 

That thought about tough decision making leads me to reflect on our in class activity from our most recent class. Once we were in our assigned groups we were given a “prompt” to consider. Thad presented us with this scenario: if we were given the chance to have a “soothsayer” read our fortune and they could tell us with 95% accuracy how our life is going to play out...would we take them up on the offer to know, or would we prefer not to know? (Let me first say that I had never heard the term “soothsayer” prior to this class, so I am glad I have familiarized myself with the fancy term for fortune teller.) Any how, we were told to write our answer down and prepare to discuss with our new group mates. My instant reaction was to opt out of having the soothsayer tell me my fortune, my first instinct is that I do not desire to know what is to come, I would rather just experience life as it comes. I wrote in my response that “the wisdom of the universe lies in uncertainty” and I truly believe that. I am interested in metaphysics and spirituality, and I do believe that our paths are already laid out for us, and  I find enough comfort in that, that I do not feel eager to know what the future holds. I think that if I found out about everything that is to come, it would take away from the serendipity and beauty that is uncertainty. I am at peace with whatever has already been laid out for me. If we disrupt that flow...then who knows? Once we consulted with our fellow group mates and the rest of the class, I was again reminded of the wonderful opportunity we are being given to possess our own knowledge, beliefs, and thought processes, but this class will certainly be challenging us all to look at things from other's perspectives. Listening to everyone else's responses really made my reflect on my own answer. I still stick to my belief that I would opt out for the sake of preferring go with the flow of life and where it takes me...as opposed to having a 95% accurate blueprint laid out.

class session 1

Tuesday 8.27.19 Our first class session was not an ordinary class, and the next one will not be ordinary either. Before we can really get into the flow and true swing of things here, we have to have some introduction to the course. Some things need no introduction, but Existentialism does. I was both eager and anxious for our first class meeting. Not knowing what to expect evokes the emotions of “eager” and “anxious” for me. I always take care when choosing my classes for school, and this selection was no exception. The many reviews I read on ratemyprofessor.com did not serve me wrong, indeed. I like to research what I'm getting myself into ahead of time, kind of like reading movie reviews before choosing what movie you want to see. This course and the professor were spoken of highly. Our first reading assignments (the introduction to our textbook and Albert Camus' The Stranger) left we me with a lot to chew on. The Stranger was easier to make sense of for me, but I knew there was so much there to be unpacked. The introduction to our textbook was more difficult for me to digest. My intrigue for what is to come grew with the readings. I had knowledge going into this course that class would be conducted in a non-conventional manner, through a series of socratic seminars, lead by the students. This enticed me. I had a class in high school that I adored because my teacher employed the socratic seminar method so I was drawn to this course for that feature in particular. We were encouraged to mingle with our classmates but with more riveting questions than the typical icebreaker offers. We were told to discuss among those sitting near us “something about us that not many people know about us, but that we wish they did know.” This is a pretty intense question to ask people who are essentially strangers to you...but that was exactly what I liked about the question. I can tell that a lot of what we discuss in class is going to leave my questioning my instincts versus my lingering thoughts once I've “chewed on” and evaluated a question further. It is a beautiful thing when someone answers a question so differently than you..that the contrast in their answer begs you to think differently about the original questions at hand. I think that this question and the way it made us think was a gentle precursor to everything that is to come. Yes, just that simple icebreaker question had my wheels turning and burning.

Thad's introduction and explanation began with him telling us all about how he chose this 6 PM to 8:45 PM time lot specifically, because this course requires some post-class reflection. I appreciate the intention behind choosing to have this class meet in the evening given the density of material and thus the complexity of the conversation that arises. It seems like the perfect recipe for enlightening discussions. Thad went on the explain the unique relationships that the students make in this class, and how the atmosphere we create is unlike any other university experience, I already am confident that his statements are 100% true.