Who is this guy?!!

     Meursault is a rather unusual character. I can't really describe him, since his character is very odd and mysterious. Basically, he is detached from the rest of the world. He says what on his mind and doesn't fabricate anything, he’s completely honest. Personally he seems a bit annoying and selfish.  He is always doing things that will satisfy him physically or speaking his mind, disregarding anyone else’s feelings. He even does this to his "girlfriend" (I put it in quotes because I am unsure if they are officially dating) Marie. She is deeply in love with him and when she wants to know if he feels that same, he tells her without thinking twice that "it didn’t mean anything but that I probably didn’t love her.” Although honesty is a good thing, this just showed disrespect for her. If he cared about her, he would have come out and said no he would have consideration for her feelings.

     I can honestly say that I have never encountered a person like Meursault in real life. I don't think someone could be so emotionally detached, it's almost like he is a robot. At this point, I'm not sure if Meursault can ever change. Even at his own mothers funeral he felt no sorrow, instead he complained about the temperature of the room.

     So far, I do not like Meursault. He seems arrogant and his constant “emo” phase seems like it will get annoying but I do sympathies for him. Anyone this strange would have had to have a significant problem in their life. He even says he wasn’t like this when he was younger when his boss asks him if Meursault would like a promotion. He says that is for young people who have ambitions. He also says “”When I was a student I had lots of ambition like that. But when I had to give up my studies I learned very quickly that none of it really matters.” Maybe something bad happened in his life, which made him give up hopes on his dreams and desires. Or maybe he had a really troubling childhood, so far he hasn’t mentioned the whereabouts of his father and he didn’t show any grief when his mother died, maybe he hates his parents.

Manifesto

    One of the hardest questions for me to answer is what do you believe in? I feel that as someone in there teenage years, in between childhood and adulthood, such a question can not be properly answered. Choosing beliefs is a serious decision and at this stage of life, I think most teenagers  are just starting to develop a sense of maturity to appreciate those types of questions. Its something you develop as you get older and have more experience handling difficult situations. Beliefs should come from your own personal experiences so we have the rest of our lives to decide what they are. They shouldn't be set in stone, you should always be able to change them. All of my beliefs are made up of stories and memories from my childhood, and also the people I spent them with, some of the best times were with my family. There are many things I am thankful to my family for. They have always been there for me and have helped me grow throughout the years. It is for this reason I would have to disagree with David Banach's argument that "When you think of it, each of us is alone in the world.  Only we feel our pains, our pleasures, our hopes, and our fears immediately, subjectively, from the inside.  Other people only see us from the outside, objectively, and, hard as we may try, we can only see them from the outside.  No one else can feel what we feel, and we cannot feel what is going on in any one else's mind.” We cant truly connect to others thoughts through their experiences because we have all had different ones and different reactions towards them. No one can truly understand others train of thought, this does make all of us individuals but not alone. When one is alone, it is only a current state not a permanent one. We can still find comfort with other individuals and I would have to say I feel this way around the people closest in my life, my family. They will always be there for me, therefore I feel like true loneliness can't be achieved as long as you have at least one person who can support, understand, and console you.

      What I also got from that quote was that Banach feels we can’t truly share the exact  same thoughts with someone, which I would have to disagree with. I believe that depending on how long and how strong a certain relationship is, sharing certain ideas can be possible. I had first agreed with Banach, but my friend convince me that I was wrong. There have been so many times me and my best friend Hannah, who I have known since the 6th grade,  have said the exact same thing at the same time or could tell what the other was thinking. Sometimes we even say almost full paragraphs at the same time! This has not only happened to me with her, but its also with close family members and other close friends.  I think it’s because when you spend a lot of time with a person, you begin to pick up on little things like the way they talk and/or act without noticing. In order to do this I feel like you have to have a really close connection to the person, it doesn't happen to me with strangers or even aquanrtnces. However, I do understand what Banach is saying. I think his main point is that although people can have strong connections, knowing what is going on in each others minds is impossible. Although we say the somethings, our thoughts could be different. No one can know what you are thinking except for yourself. Banach describes this as being "alone" but I think it's only one part of you thats alone. We are  alone when it comes to our thoughts, but personally I find that a good thing. I think certain things are best to just keep to yourself, people don't need to know everything about your life. Having your own private thoughts seems like a healthy way of living to me.

     We all are freed, but we have different types freedoms. I do not feel that we are truly able to be free in this society, even though our land claims to have freedom of speech and be the land of the free. People are often punished for freedom of speech, usually when it is something the government finds offensive. For me and probably most teens, there is no freedom of speech at home. Parent scold us and its not like we can talk back, most f us have to sit there and take it . It use to be the same at school but I think teachers are finally starting to notice that we are growing up, they no longer treat us so childish. I do feel we are free mentally though. We can think anything we want and not get in trouble for it.  However, sometimes our thoughts hold us back as well. Banach gives a great example of this when he says that “We are all familiar with the ways in which we try to excuse our actions by pretending that we are simply our bodies and are controlled by the forces that determine them.  We have all said things like:

I can't talk to people, I just don't have that kind of personality.

I can't pass this course, I'm just don't have the brain for calculus.

I can't help the fact that I was born a man (or a woman); Certain things come naturally for certain types of people.  (Says the man who can't take care of his children, or the woman who can't fix her car.)

I'm no good at this; I guess I just wasn't made to go to college.

Gee, I'm sorry about last night.  I guess my hormones just got out of control.

I'm sorry I bit your head off yesterday.  I must be premenstrual. 

I don't know what happened.  I guess the beer made me crazy.

In these cases, I am identifying myself with one of the pictures of me I find on my mental TV screen: I am my body, or my brain, or my personality, or my hormones.  In each of these cases, I am deceiving myself.  I am more than just these, and no matter how I try to avoid it, I am free.”. I think what Banach is saying is that it isn’t our bodies that represent us, its our minds and that we can’t hide behind our own excuses because we all have the potential to be what we want to be. I know I am a victim of letting my thoughts hold me back. To this day I still think I am shy and often feel exactly how Banach put it,  “ I can't talk to people, I just don't have that kind of personality.” What a lot of people don't notice is that the only one doubting us is ourselves. We are ones telling ourselves we can't do something just because we are afraid to. The way I see it is you only live once, each day is a day you can't get back. So you might as well live your life the way you want too. Although I strongly believe this, actually following through and defeating your fear is much easier said then done. 

     This world is so mysterious, can we even truly define what happiness is? I think not. It's just as Banach said, we can't know other peoples experiences or what's going on throughout their brain so happiness is different for us all, but I think we can all agree that true happiness is a mystery. When I think about it I am unsure of what makes me truly happy, It kind of just happens but  I do have a theory of what it is. I think true happiness is when you get something you want, which makes me feel that we are all bit selfish. It first occurred to me when I had read the passage on happiness in Banach's lecture. "Our life is a series of meaningless actions culminating in death, with no possibility of external justification.  Yet, Camus will say that we must imagine Sisyphus (and ourselves) happy?  "One must imagine Sisyphus happy." (MS, p. 91)  Why?  Why would this fool be happy eternally rolling a ball up a hill, and why should we be happy rolling our ball up the hill to nowhere?" I believe Sisyphus is eternally happy because he got what he always wanted, immortality. Although the rest of his life will just be pushing a rock up a hill,  the thing Sisyphus wanted most was granted to him so he is satisfied. Another thing I found interesting in this quote was when Banach says "Our life is a series of meaningless actions culminating in death, with no possibility of external justification.". The idea of death has always been my biggest fear, but it doesn't mean you stop living. If anything, it makes the series of meaningless actions even more special. It's like how Matthew wrote in one of his blog posts, "....i never planed for, they just came to me. But maybe this is were true happiness comes from all the unexpected little things of life, the stuff we don't ,we can't plan for". I completely agree that my happiness surfaces at any random time when I see something that just makes me smile wether I am painting, people watching, having a heart to heart with my father, etc... all the little moments that seem insignificant are some of the things I can honestly say I enjoy the most in life. If we don't have the little things to brighten our day, then thats what makes our  existence meaningless. 

     There are still so many questions in life to be answered. Why are we here on Earth? What is true happiness, freedom, peace, and individuality? What is the meaning of life and what is the "right"  and "wrong" way to live it? These are questions people have been asking for centuries and millions have come up with their own theory, but which is correct?  I am still unsure of my own beliefs, but I do believe that these are questions man were not meant to know the answers to. We just have to sit back and enjoy life to the fullest. 

Response to Assignment 3

Dear Matt,

"in daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife,in love. In 525,600 minutes ,in 525,000 journeys to plan, in 525,000 moments"Yeah that sounds right." made me laugh so much! I totally agree though its like the perfect quote to explain your views on happiness. I love how you provide so many other quotes from other pieces of work and not just Banach's. I agree with you, maybe true happiness in life are all the little things. They always feel so insignificant, but yet you when you reflect on them they are some of the best moments we have. Your writing always make me think deeper about my life, I like that. I can't think of anything you should correct in this assignment, it was pretty much perfect. Once again great post, can't wait to read the others

Yasmin

Dear Anias,

I really like how you connected media to this assignment, I hadn't really thought of doing that. I also like how you took the time to respond to students questions and not just the ones on the assignment. I agree with your statement that absolute freedom would be good, but in the end would bring absolute chaos. People would take advantage of that power and begin doing things just because they couldn't get in trouble for it. I too think there will be many more robot in the future. We already have so many advanced ones today who knows we might actually have robots similar to the one sin "I robot" soon :/ I would have liked to see you respond more about your feeling on the article though. Once again nice post cant wait to read another.

Yasmin J

Response to Assignment 1

Dear Matt,

I think you had some of the best responses I read for this assignment. Both examples were just so good! First off, I loved your statement about a mother and their child. I never really thought of mothers like that but I understand what you are saying, they are protective of their children so it is like  they have two minds one for themselves and one to worry about their children, right? And I also enjoyed the statement about how we all are a bit selfish which is something I also noticed. It is so annoying when something so big to you is reduced to something small to your friends or family. And you always get the same response! Ether aww  I’m sorry to hear that or like a long story about them, your so right ><  It's like we all care mainly about ourselves without even noticing. Although I loved this post, I do agree with Stephanie. I don't think Banach means we can't care for each other (even though he is making it sound that way), I think he means that no matter how hard we try, fully understand each other isn't possible. Overall great post, would love to see you write a little more on the topic though because you brought up brilliant points-

Yasmin!

Dear Anias,

I liked how honest you were in your post. We all judge people by their looks, but I don't think anyone was brave enough to admit it :P I agree that the only way to truly judge someone is through actually getting to know them. So are you saying judging a book by its cover is bad? Should we all be less judgmental of each other? What's on the outside shouldn't be more important then what's on the inside. What I would have loved to see is a little more of what you were thinking on this topic because from what you have written, you had a lot of good arguments. Also you had a few run on sentences, but those are easy to fix :) Over all great post, can't wait to read the next.

Yasmin J

response to I <3 Huckabee's

Do we live in a world that is meaningful and makes sense?

I would have to say no, the world doesn’t make sense . I feel for us to live in a world that makes sense, we would all have to understand each other so there would be no misunderstandings. However, I feel the world is meaningful because it doesn’t make sense. I saw a very interesting quote from Nikki C. on the classroom board today. I can’t really remember what it said but it was something along the lines of if we understand the meaning of life, then what's the point of it? I feel it sums up exactly how I feel about this question. There are many things we don’t understand in this world. How did we get here? How do we exists? These are questions mankind can’t truly answer because the answers are unknown. But if we understood everything in this world, what would be the point? The world wouldn’t be mysterious anymore, I feel life would become boring. However in the movie I heart Huckabee’s, it seems all Albert want’s to do is answer these questions. I think he want to live in a world that makes sense (I’m not entirely sure I missed a third of the movie). He’s always asking Bernard and Vivian all these questions, he seems confused and looks for the answers through his other friends and himself. But what I think he learns in the end is that you just have to live life. He seemed more understanding at the end of the movie when he saw himself in Brad which I think was a message that we can all connect. It’s true, everyone can connect to each other some how even if it is unknown at the time, what I am wondering is why it was so important to Albert. i think it was because he felt that he didn’t get Brad’s way of life at all. He seemed to be all about himself which confused Albert. But once he saw Brad break down at the scene of his home going into flames, he realized that he now was in pain just like Albert. Overall this movie confused me. Many of the things that happened or were said didn’t make much sense to me, but thats also what I liked about the movie. The parts I didn’t understand kept me thinking and amused which is what I think the mysterious of life are here for, to keep man kind guessing. 

Reflection

Banach’s lecture was one of the most interesting texts I’ve read in all my years at School of the Future. It was a little difficult to read at first, but what really helped me understand it was re-reading challenging sections and reading them slower. After that, I got use to Banach’s writing style and surprisingly the rest of the text wasn’t that difficult for me to read. However, combining his ideas into my manifesto was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do at School of the Future. This assignment was definitely the most frustrating I’ve gotten in a while. I re did my manifesto over and over again, trying to make it sound perfect but I don’t think it ever will which is something that has been bothering me. I’m still trying to finalize it! Over all, I am not proud of my manifesto. I don’t know why but putting all my beliefs into this paper was so challenging. I had a hard time making it flow so it was understandable to the reader, it just felt like I was jumping from topic to topic. I mainly don’t like it because I don’t feel like it represents me at all. I don’t think  I can express my beliefs through a big manifesto because writing isn’t one of my talents. Maybe an artistic way would be easier for me because it’s something I enjoy more. So far, I find personally this class  very hard. I have a hard time expressing my thoughts so most of my writing sounds jumbled. Also, this is the first year we are working with blogs and I find the idea of using them kind of annoying since forgetting to do the homework on them seems easier. However despite the fact that I find this class challenging, I also admire it. I have learned SO much in just these first few mouths of school and about things I actually care about. I feel that in the next ten years I will definitely  remember Banach lecture because it brought up so many interesting topics and opinions to questions I’ve been asking forever. I will also remember learning about existentialism, something I had never knew about until this class. I just loved doing all the fun activities in class learning about them like watching I heart Huckabee’s and reading the stranger, I feel as if I’m not only learning a lot more in general but a lot more about myself as well. 

HW 2

For the second part of this lecture, Banarch describes what freedom is. I think he has divided it into two different types of freedoms, mental freedoms and physical freedoms. For the first part he describes physical freedoms with the idea of existence over essence. Sartre is quoted in the lecture saying “If existence really does precede essence, there is no explaining things away by reference to a fixed and given human nature.  In other words, there is no determinism, man is free, man is freedom.” I think Satre was saying that god, who he sees as an artisan since he is known as the creator of everything living, created all life but made us capable of developing our own forms of essence there for we are truly free. I agree with this statement. Who better to determine what's bad or good then ourselves? However, I also disagree. All living things should have certain essence in their life. I feel the essence is common sense and morals since these are things that come naturally in a humans life. We usually don’t know when we develop these things, it feels as if we were born with them. I think we get them from the surroundings we were raised in for example, part of my morals revolve around the ten commandments since I was raised in a Christian house. However in that quote, I think Satre is saying that if the significance of existence surpasses essence, then we are truly free and can’t be held down by things like morals or the ‘right” way of living life, we are all simply free human beings. In this society, the ideas of what's “bad” and what's “good” can’t really be made up by ourselves, we are taught what they are from law systems and authority figures. I disagree that the idea of existence outweighing essence is what our freedoms are because there will always be someone who says otherwise.

    Another point Banarch makes is that we are in complete control of our bodies, a point I see as mental freedom. We can’t hide behind things we are scared of doing because we are actually fully capable of doing them. He says “I am not identical with any of the externally determined images on my mental TV screen (our points of view).   I am forever beyond the reach of their determinations within the island of my subjectivity.[1]  Even if I were a puppet, my body and its actions completely controlled by some malevolent master, what I am, my mind's eye would still be free and untouched”. I feel the “mental TV screen” represents our eyes and our brains. Our eyes control what we see in this world and our brains determine how we react to these things. We are free to develop our own ideas, which is something that can not be taken away from us. I would have to agree with this statement. In many ways, I feel that mental freedom’s are the only ones we have. We can think anything we want without judgement or punishments because they are ours and ours alone, but the way we use this power however is a different story. There are some people who use this power to its full potential and are very open minded, developing lots of far fetched ideas and thoughts about life. But then there are also people who believe anything they hear, not thinking for themselves and just going with the crowd. This leads me to believe that there are two types of people in this world, leaders and followers. Leaders live the life Banarch and Satre believe in but followers defy these ideas by not having any original thoughts at all. A life where you can “still be free to rebel against (your) master or make whatever (you) wished of the situation.  They can do what they want to my body, manipulate the objects or pictures of me on my mental TV screen, but they can never touch or control the real me.  The self within its island of subjectivity is radically free in virtue of its radical individuality.”is the life for someone who is truly an individual, but  followers don't show much creativity at all and stay bonded to their “masters”, not using their brain to their full potentials.