Your Life on Earth
Reflection:
At the beginning of this semester, we studied philosophy. When I heard that we were going to study philosophy, I immediately imagined us just sitting down and having deep off-the-cuff discussions about the meaning of time and reality and such. That was not the case, however, as we first had to understand the many people who had debated these very questions before us. We studied a wide range of philosophies from transcendentalism to absurdism to Nicomachean ethics, learning about their core values and their origins, as well as reading texts from each of these schools of thought.
After we had studied the philosophies of people of the past, we were tasked to create a project that illustrated our own personal philosophy. At first, I had a hard time thinking about what type of project I could create that would not only show my personal philosophy but also do it in a way that represented my interests. I eventually came up with the idea of writing a Dr. Seuss-esque book. I have always loved Dr. Seuss’s books and their ability to deliver a meaningful message without needing to use complicated language. The most challenging part of this project was incorporating my personal philosophy into the story without saying it outright. I ended up weaving it into the plot more than any one character and letting the reader interpret my message their own way with a rather open ending.
Over the course of this study, I have learned a few key things about philosophy and my life on earth. The first of those is that I am not alone in my way of looking at the world. Before I started doing this project, I didn’t even know I had a personal philosophy, and now I know that it is very close to secular humanism, a predefined school of thought. Secular Humanism is based around two key ideas: There is no god or deity or higher being and each and every human being has an intrinsic ability and want to do good by others. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t unexplainable things in this world. Modern science has no way of explaining many things, from the nature of thoughts and emotions to the thoughts and emotions of nature. It simply means that those mysteries aren’t caused by some benevolent higher power.
The second important thing I learned about my personal philosophy is that even though I don’t personally believe in god, I don’t necessarily disagree with people that do believe in god. In this project, we read the book Cat’s Cradle, wherein Kurt Vonnegut discusses the idea that God doesn’t need to exist for religion to have meaning. When I read this, my mind underwent a rapid polar shift. Before, I had simply argued with people of strong religious affiliation, saying that there is no way that God exists, so why do you still subscribe to this religion? I realized, however, that this isn’t the reason that people practice religion. Even if God doesn’t exist, it doesn’t detract from the important moral and ethical teachings that religions offer, and so if God needs to exist in someone else's eyes to help show them a moral compass, there is no reason to argue with them.
Despite my professed knowledge of my own philosophy and how it fits with the philosophies of those around me, there is still much pondering that I have to do before I will be able to even truly approach the question of my place on earth or the meaning of my life. The first thing that I still have to ponder is the origins of each person’s personal philosophy. Does your personal philosophy come from your parents? I can certainly see how the way your parents look at the world could shape your own set of morals and beliefs, and I see the philosophies of my parents reflected strongly in my own personal philosophy. At the same time, I don’t believe that that is the only thing that effects your personal philosophy because if it were, my own philosophy would not have the tangents that it does regarding over-soul or a higher force, as I have a completely different stance on that than either of my parents.
The second thing that I would love to dig deeper into is the fluidity of your personal philosophy. Does your philosophy change over time? How much? Can the core beliefs of your personal philosophy shift over your lifetime? Can they shift over a matter of years or even months? I know for a fact that personalities shift over time, but is that shift directly correlated with a shift in your philosophical standpoint? Does the personality dictate the philosophy or the other way around? And even more importantly, if your philosophy does change over time, what is the point of defining and expressing it now, or at any other given moment in time? Does it help us feel like we still have a way to communicate with the people around us? Does it help us to better understand ourselves? These are all questions that are both mentally stimulating and whose answers are of utmost importance to anyone who wishes to be a self-aware member of society.
After we had studied the philosophies of people of the past, we were tasked to create a project that illustrated our own personal philosophy. At first, I had a hard time thinking about what type of project I could create that would not only show my personal philosophy but also do it in a way that represented my interests. I eventually came up with the idea of writing a Dr. Seuss-esque book. I have always loved Dr. Seuss’s books and their ability to deliver a meaningful message without needing to use complicated language. The most challenging part of this project was incorporating my personal philosophy into the story without saying it outright. I ended up weaving it into the plot more than any one character and letting the reader interpret my message their own way with a rather open ending.
Over the course of this study, I have learned a few key things about philosophy and my life on earth. The first of those is that I am not alone in my way of looking at the world. Before I started doing this project, I didn’t even know I had a personal philosophy, and now I know that it is very close to secular humanism, a predefined school of thought. Secular Humanism is based around two key ideas: There is no god or deity or higher being and each and every human being has an intrinsic ability and want to do good by others. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t unexplainable things in this world. Modern science has no way of explaining many things, from the nature of thoughts and emotions to the thoughts and emotions of nature. It simply means that those mysteries aren’t caused by some benevolent higher power.
The second important thing I learned about my personal philosophy is that even though I don’t personally believe in god, I don’t necessarily disagree with people that do believe in god. In this project, we read the book Cat’s Cradle, wherein Kurt Vonnegut discusses the idea that God doesn’t need to exist for religion to have meaning. When I read this, my mind underwent a rapid polar shift. Before, I had simply argued with people of strong religious affiliation, saying that there is no way that God exists, so why do you still subscribe to this religion? I realized, however, that this isn’t the reason that people practice religion. Even if God doesn’t exist, it doesn’t detract from the important moral and ethical teachings that religions offer, and so if God needs to exist in someone else's eyes to help show them a moral compass, there is no reason to argue with them.
Despite my professed knowledge of my own philosophy and how it fits with the philosophies of those around me, there is still much pondering that I have to do before I will be able to even truly approach the question of my place on earth or the meaning of my life. The first thing that I still have to ponder is the origins of each person’s personal philosophy. Does your personal philosophy come from your parents? I can certainly see how the way your parents look at the world could shape your own set of morals and beliefs, and I see the philosophies of my parents reflected strongly in my own personal philosophy. At the same time, I don’t believe that that is the only thing that effects your personal philosophy because if it were, my own philosophy would not have the tangents that it does regarding over-soul or a higher force, as I have a completely different stance on that than either of my parents.
The second thing that I would love to dig deeper into is the fluidity of your personal philosophy. Does your philosophy change over time? How much? Can the core beliefs of your personal philosophy shift over your lifetime? Can they shift over a matter of years or even months? I know for a fact that personalities shift over time, but is that shift directly correlated with a shift in your philosophical standpoint? Does the personality dictate the philosophy or the other way around? And even more importantly, if your philosophy does change over time, what is the point of defining and expressing it now, or at any other given moment in time? Does it help us feel like we still have a way to communicate with the people around us? Does it help us to better understand ourselves? These are all questions that are both mentally stimulating and whose answers are of utmost importance to anyone who wishes to be a self-aware member of society.