ALONE

Being alone can be beautiful.

Having people around is great, but I think people tend to underestimate the importance of being alone. Being alone most of the time is connected with words like loneliness and sad. In society being alone has been labeled as bad, but I disagree.

With college visits I realized the importance of being alone sometimes. I went to go see Columbia College with my grandma. As we were taking a tour of the place she made statements about the school. I appreciate her feedback and it was part of the reason she was with me on the tour, but I notice that afterwards I starting to rethink my own opinion of the college that I had before and it was hard to form any new opinion with my grandma's words stuck in my head. I felt kinda frustrated and confused, trying to sort my grandma's thoughts from how I felt about the school. From then on I decided I would take college tours alone so that I could form my own opinions about the school and figure out if I really liked it. After taking the tour alone maybe I would bring someone to come with me for a second tour.

I don't really get to be alone that much. The only time I'm really alone is on the rare occasion when everyone in my house is gone and I'm left home by myself. And. I. Love. It.
I play my music without thinking about if it's too loud. I can sing loudly. I go to the bathroom without thinking to knock on the door first. When I go to make dinner I don't need to ask if something has already been pre-decided or what other people want. I could walk around without pants until the desire to put them on strikes me. If I wanted to I could have ran through the house and jumped on the couch.

Before being alone and thinking about it, you never realized how many times a day you take into consideration the other people around you with simple everyday task and how they really do change how you think and act. Being alone can be very freeing and I think it could lead to you finding out more about yourself.

Man's Search For Meaning

In Man's Search For Meaning Frankl states that the prisoners who gave up on life and commited suicide did so because, with the situation they were put in and the day to day torture they went through, they saw no reason to live. The only prisoners who resisted giving up and continued to live were the ones that saw hope for the future. They found their menaing and reason to live on. As Frankl said, "..the attempt to restore a man's inner strength in the camp had first to succeed in showing him some future goal. Nietzsche's words, " He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how," "

In the movie  La Vita è Bella,  Roberto Benigni's character truely embraces  Frankl's philosophy. The moment he figures out that he and his son are being put into a concentration camp Roberto saw his meaning and his future. His reason for being alive and pretending everything was okay was his son and his wife and the possible future of all of them coming out of the concentration camp together.

Our Stranger Meaning

     
     I believe that life can have meaning and we can create meaning in our lives. I'm not sure if we have any preset purpose or that we would be able to figure out if we do.
     When I asked myself what I found meaningful in my life my family automatically popped up in my head, but I also think something that's meaningful to my life is creating a meaning for my life. Everyone faces death and I realize that it may be the only real experience that connects all human beings, but you can't tell me the time inbetween birth and death means nothing. We are a speck in human history, but that does not mean that what we do won't effect others in our present or future. When you think about people like Ghandi, Albert Einsten, Martin Luther King Jr., the people in their lives and any other person that has made a big impact, were their lives just meaningless specks in time?
    I think it's important to do something with your life. Enjoy it, help others along the way and believe in something.

Voltaire and Camus are voting for.....

At the end of the book Candide there was an emphasis on cultivating your garden. I took this message as each individual should live their own lives and working to improve themselves. So I think that Voltaire would vote for the Libertarian Party. The Libertarian Party has a platform based on individual rights as they state on their website.

"We, the members of the Libertarian Party, challenge the cult of the omnipotent state and defend the rights of the individual."

"We hold that all individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose."

(http://www.lp.org/platform, Nov 2, 2012)

They go on to state things like people should have the right to marry who they want, abortion should be a choice and that education and health care should be provided by the free market. Their stance overall to me is that the government shouldn't be involved and everyone should be free to go about their business.

As for Camus I'm not sure if he would find meaning in voting. I think he might vote if somehow he felt inner meaning in voting or felt it was important to some life mission, if he felt he did have a life's mission. 

Candide's Punishment

Throughout the book Candide receives many punishments for a variety of reasons. The question is did he deserve them? When answering this I tried to approach it in an unbiased way. As a reader you understand that Candide over all is a nice person with good intentions but the more I thought about event s that took place in the book the more I realized Candide did commit crimes that deserve a punishment. As the book goes along Candide does things that deserve punishment.

The punishment he received when in the army and the punishment of being kicked out of his home was not deserved. As we get farther into the book Candide starts killing people. In the situation where he killed the Jew and the inquisitor, which he is hunted for, as a reader I can forgive that. Since he was protecting both himself and Cunegonde I will not count that against him. Then he kills Cunegonde brother, which he is haunted for. In this situation his killing was probably unnecessary. Then he killed the ladies lovers, which was like killing innocent people.

I think despite his good intentions Candide is deserving punishment more and more.

How Do You Know What You Know

Scene
It's Christmas Morning.The family gathers in the living room of grandma's house after breakfast. People begin passing around presents. I am handed a medium sized box covered in candy cane wrapping paper with a beautiful gold bow.

Grandma: "I saw a jacket at the store that I thought you might like. It was on sell so I couldn't pass it up."

I rip the wrapping paper and ribbon off the box, excited to see what's inside. I pull out a very stiff feeling jacket that has a color resembling a weird grayish purple. My excitement has instantly vanished.

Grandma: "Do you like it?"

Me: Yeah thank you so much.

I plaster on a grin for my grandma.

Grandma: Oh good!
-------------------------------------------------
Alternative scene
It's Christmas Morning.The family gathers in the living room of grandma's house after breakfast. People begin passing around presents. I am handed a medium sized box covered in candy cane wrapping paper with a beautiful gold bow.

Grandma: "I saw a jacket at the store that I thought you might like. It was on sell so I couldn't pass it up."

I rip the wrapping paper and ribbon off the box, excited to see what's inside. I pull out a very stiff feeling jacket that has a color resembling a weird grayish purple.

Grandma: "Do you like it?"

Me: "Umm. Not really but thanks."

Grandma: "You don't like it?"

Me: Umm, no.

Grandma (slightly sad and disappointed): Oh.... ok. I guess we can return it.

AKWARD

       From an early age everyone tells you that your not supposed to lie. I always seem to go back and forth with the idea of lying. But I have come to the conclusion that it is okay to lie under certain circumstances. I've learned this from experiences of telling the truth. I have told my share of lies, some of them much like the first scene.Usually I feel fine with lying when there isn't a serious situation happening, there's really no consequences to others that come from me lying and when someone's feelings are at stake. It just doesn't feel good when it I think I'm crushing someones feelings unneccesarily. I guess my stance could be argued on whether this is truth but, it's where I stand. 

The Unexamined Life and Gadflys

Is going through life without ever questioning things a crime? According to Socrates it is, as he would say "the unexamined life is not worth living." From birth many people have had ideas and ways of living taught to them and eventually ingrained in them over time. People learn to stop questioning what is considered norms in their life or society. It's like walking around with a blindfold on, trusting and depending on the say of others to guide you. This could lead to false idea and make people passionate and confident about beliefs they have not even truly thought about. I believe people should question life for themselves. It allows them to better understand the world and see it for what it really is. It is also a self fulfilling journey of determining morals and beliefs for yourself.

            I don’t think I know a modern day gadfly. No one really questions me to think about life. I usually just have a lot of people telling me about life. Although I don’t really have a gadfly I do love satires. The Colbert Report and sometimes Saturday Night Live are funny and usually leads me to question ideals and people in society.

In Rememberance of Tyra

Tyra was a wonderful person and will forever be missed. There are so many things to say about her. She was a nice person you would hardly ever catch her being mean to someone. She always believed that people should follow their dreams. She had big dreams of her own. She always wanted to travel the world. She said that one day she would see places like Italy, Puerto Rico, Germany and wherever else a plane could take her. She never lacked ambition. She always wanted to start her own business and had hopes of becoming a fashion designer. She was always in the mood for laughter and never missed episodes of New Girl, Psych and The Big Bang Theory. She had artistic abilities. I've watched her draw at least a thousand doodles on the back of random papers. Since she was young she has always loved books and going to the library. She enjoyed shopping, especially at thrift stores where she could go on the haunt for cool things. She loved food. She would always say that picking a favorite food was impossible. It is so sad that we had to lose such a great person but she will always be remembered.