April 2 - Martin Heidegger & Death

Today we talked about death and Dasein or existence in class. My group was presenting,and

honestly before the presentation I was very foggy headed about the content on which I was presenting. However during our presentation, and through our class discussion I further understood the material much clearer. To begin our presentation we did a skit where I was killed, and my partners analyzed my death through the individual, my perception, and the “they” perception of death. Then we asked the class how they felt they viewed death. I was surprised to find out that ,most people felt as if they accepted death, and that they wouldn't run from it. However much like Thad Botham, my mom died while i was very young so i have seen death, and experienced a loss at a very rather young age. This tragic incident in my life, has forced me to view death from the “they” perception.

Although I would naturally expect me to be accepting of death , seeing my mom pass away when I was five. However I felt as if I was very unlucky and unfortunate, or to have lost my mother so I viewed death in a very pessimistic way . These events naturally caused me to run away from the idea that death would ever occur to me, when in reality it can occur in the blink of an eye. When a few of my fellow classmates opened up and began speaking about their near death experiences and how it  shaped how they view death it really was an eye opener for me. Death really could be right around the corner for me, and I wouldn't be accepting of it. This caused me to kinda have a paradigm shift in my view on death. I feel like I would be accepting of it, I would most definitely attempt to avoid it but if it was a certain thing, I would reflect on my life and hope that it was of satisfaction and then say my final prayer.

Martin Heidegger-March 31

Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher. Heidegger’s  main interest was ontology or the study of being. He attempted to access Sein ( or being) with phenomenological analysis of Da-Sein ( or human existence). However I  feel as if Heidegger's redefining of the word “being” only added to the confusion of the topic. Understanding Dasein- or human existence is fairly hard concept for me to come to grips with.

When I was reading the material quite a lot did not make sense to me. Existence or Da-Sein made me wonder about my place here on this planet. Am I a being who is living life waiting until my die in acceptance. Or am I an individual who lives life in the moment because of the fear that I can die any day. Honestly although I am not sure if possible I feel like I am in the middle between the two. I feel as if I live life in the moment to the fullest. However I also perceive myself as someone who does not fear death. Of course naturally I do not want to die, but if in the face of death I would accept it and hope that my life was satisfactory

In class we started talking about individuality, and authenticity of people. To me I feel like people are not 100% of themselves. The reason being, is because everybody learns things from parents, friends, social media. It is only after people have gathered all this information, then decided which parts to believe in, which parts to practice, and then formulate their ideas and opinions based off the knowledge learned. So therefore people are individuals but only to a certain extent. However if a person was to live isolated by themselves and somehow gained knowledge and then formulate their personality, then will they be an authentic individual .

March 26- Victor Frankl

Victor Frankl is a very interesting man to me. He survived some of the most tragic circumstances and still remained optimistic through it all. He believed that no matter what someone can always find meaning in their life. To me i like the way he views life. It is somewhat very similar to my outlook on life. I feel as if i have had some of the worst situations for a college student to grow up in, but i somehow still made it to a university full scholarship because i remained optimistic in the roughest of times.

However now that I am a college student ,a dn i now live freely and independently i am often dazed and confused and feel like my life doesnt have meaning. I believe I would most certainly fall into the Logotherapy category as someone who is depressed because they have yet to find meaning in their life. In fact its something I think about daily. What major should i be in? What career do i want to pursue. Am i making the right choices? Doubt is constantly riding my mind, so i feel its better to live the Victor Frankl way of life and attempt to find my meaning to escape this depression state of life.

So now that i know what I must do in order to obtain happiness, why haven't I achieved it yet, along with many other people. Why is it that so many intelligent people are stuck inside the existential vacuum. I think its simply because we seek to know the unknown , we quarrel with the notion if our lives have subjective meaning, and if we truly have happiness when in reality we will never know if we picked the right path. Therefore I personally think it doesn’t matter if your meaning is the right one or not. If you find a meaning in your life , run with it and live life as happiest as possible.

March 24 , Miguel Unamuno & Inner Contradiction

Miguel Unamuno was the very definition of myself. He was consumed with inner contradiction much like myself. I've been grown up in the church. I ate , pray, slept the bible. I had to say grace at dinner. I had to say my prayers before dinner. I had to be at church on the weekends learning about god, and singing the songs of the youth choir. I was force fed the religion of Christianity and considered myself a devout christian until I turned 18. That was the day i began to think for myself. I stopped going to church because my Dad couldn't force me to anymore. I no longer read the bible, or said my prayers.  I began to live my own way of thought, whatever seemed rational to me. Here is where my conflict grew much like Miguel Unamuno. I was exactly stuck in the passionate commitment of spirituality vs the rationality of the human .

I couldn't fathom anymore believing in Christ . I couldn't bring myself to grips to believe Jesus performed all these so called miracles. I had strayed as far away from Christianity as i possibly could. Several months went by, i had been doing good on my own. In fact i felt like the laws of the bible was what was holding me back. I felt foolish for ever believing all of that stuff. However somewhere deep down inside i was shriveled with questioning if what if it all was real. I would definitely not be see fit in front of God. I definitely do not want to be cast down into hell either. So much like Miguel i am torn too between the passionate commitment of Christianity vs the rationality of my own human brain. Here is where i cannot agree with Miguel. I cannot see myself pursuing the saved, and holy life , my brain consistently see its as rationally as possible if the religion of Christianity can’t be 100% proven , then why believe.

Feb 12

Today in Existentialism a lot of topics came up that interested me. For starters the ethical vs aesthete topic confused me when I read it alone. It seemed to be almost the same thing for me. Now after the class discussion I can see that an ethical person is someone who ends up failing to either make his goals, or live up to the ideal image so therefore they are always anxious. I also see that an aesthete person is one who lacks commitment, therefore finds himself in despair. My problem however is i have the qualities of both therefore I cannot determine which type of person I am. I’m a person who lacks commitment severely however I’m always finding myself anxious to get a certain idealistic goal done . Therefore I’m really  not sure which category I would fall under. The second thing I found interesting was the statement “ lack of proof causes religion to be based on inward faith and subjectivity which is absurd”. To me, I for the life of me cannot see how people can believe in God, Christianity, or any religion for that matter without any hard concrete evidence.  It would have to be absurd to read the contradicting bible, hear of all the wondrous miracles and performances that Jesus and just believe without evidence. Also I feel like if a person has faith in their religion is it really faith if that religion is telling you to have faith and believe in it OR YOU WILL GO TO HELL. As for the truth vs the amplification of truth debate, I believe that everybody has their own truths no matter if they heard it from someone else or if its not ever true. As long as that person truly believes to themselves its the truth then it’s their truth. Lastly when their group did the last skit on “What's of Christianity vs The how of Christianity” that it really hit home with me. For the period of time i did believe in Christianity I still felt like going to church, and dressing up nicely wasn’t the essence of Christianity. I had always felt like a true Christian is someone who believes in God, and has a personal relationship with God.

Feb 5 - Judgement

After a rather interesting debate from class on February 5th I look at judgement completely different.  In my eyes I always considered judging someone to be perceived in a negative way. I know understand that judgment of someone can be both positively , and negatively done. It was very interesting to me when the one lone guy in class claimed he never judges anyone though. I believe he contradicted himself by saying he simply takes in all the details, then he evaluates. To me an evaluation of someone, or someones actions is pretty much the same thing as making a judgement about the person , or person actions. As far as me I judge people often without realizing it until after. I have a habit of looking at how someone dresses, or talks and make bold judgements about that person. Too me I think its become second nature to people, like most people will form general judgements about people because its what we humans do. I However feel as in terms of judging somebody as far as good and evil nobody has the real right to do so. I believe that everybody has their own faults, and impurities so therefore no individual can judge another individual . You would have to be pure of all sin , and all bad things and the only one who qualifies is the so called “God”. I also want to bring up the point that was made by the TA Carson about if someone was to jump on a grenade and kill themselves to save others that it could be selfless. I disagree entirely with the majority of the class who claims that whether a person jumps on a grenade to protect his loved ones, or whether they do it to be remembered that either way its a selfish act. I think that if a person truly did it for the sake of others than it was not a selfish act and that person truly just was a hero.

January 28 Mersault

After that class period I was seriously surprised by how many people were against Meursault and some of his actions. I do agree with them disagreeing with the action of Meursault killing somebody. However I love how he's able to detach himself from worrying about the future, and thinking about the past. I find that aspect of Meursault interesting because I too attempt to live my life accordingly. I also found a very similar connection with Meursault because I too have lost my mother. I can't fathom however not crying at my mothers funeral. I do get the concept of how he's not trying to show any emotion because in doing so nothing will change, his mother will still remain dead. So in retrospect I already imagine myself to live my life like Meursault. I also try not to worry about the future, or think about the past. Also I make very rash decisions sometimes without any thought at all. Often times I also hear from people that I show no emotion, or they consider me heartless. The reason why i choose to live my life this way is simply because often times people stress out about things that are simply out of their control. I figure why worry yourself about things you can not change, but rather instead would focus my time on the present tense and what's going on currently in my life. This has caused many people to disagree with my lifestyle, much like a lot of my fellow classmates disagreed with Meursault's lifestyle. I believe though that if people would actually take their time to test the idea out of leaving their emotions out of certain situations , and to learn to live in the moment that sometimes the quality of life can seem much greater. Lastly I believe that if people would begin to be more open minded, and not just shut any concept that does not seem normal to them out of their minds that they might actually find themselves to agree with some things.