Final Post

Well the semester is finally over and I feel like I have only hit the tip of the ice berg. So much has been discussed in this class that I don’t even know where to begin with this blog post, but I have to start somewhere so why not start with the basics. This is what I got out of the class in regards to what existentialism is. Existentialism is how we live life, it is the way we value the decisions in our lives. It is a way of evaluating what is important, what isn’t, what others think is important, how what others think is important affects us. I also realized that the philosophers that we studied didn’t have any regard for writing format so why should I, hence the horrible run-on sentence prior to this sentence.

A question was asked in class on Monday which I thought was pretty interesting considering the students in the class. The question was how this class has affected us, if we feel empowered, depressed, or indifferent. A majority of the students raised their hands saying they felt depressed which I thought was surprising. I was surprised because I didn’t think people in our class unparticular would care what other people so much, especially the guy who dances at the football games to Gangnam Style. I felt indifferent because I didn’t let the opinions of a small group of guys to affect my opinion on life. I can see why some people felt empowered because when someone tells you a certain way of life is good and that is how you are living then you will feel empowered. But personally if someone told me that what I what I was doing is wrong and causes me to be depressed over it I wouldn’t listen to that person because they just make me feel bad. But on the other side people let this make them feel depressed when they don’t have to live their life like that, this is just was a bunch of old dead guys said.  Anyways I’m sorry I’ve been rambling so much but my minds a little scrambled with finals and everything.

All in all it has been a pretty good class I learned a lot from it I now have a slightly different understanding of life after taking it. Like I said before I didn’t let this class get to me too much but I did find the readings interesting. However, Heidegger was a pain in the ass to read.  I don’t think I that I am alone in saying that I learned a lot from this class and I am positive others have learned even more than me. So I think the way the class was structured was pretty effective. I think it was the best way to teach the class. I think a lot more people would be depressed if we had a teacher trying to sway us in thinking a certain way. I didn’t take the class because I have had Thad before or because I was already interested in the subject I took it because I thought it would be interesting because I had theology teachers in the past who mentioned the class and said it was interesting. I remembered my past teachers telling me to not read too much into the text because it would only make me depressed, so I don’t think I was being defiant by not obsessing over this subject only I took what I have learned from other classes and applied it to this one.

With this sentence it is nice to be finally done. 

Sartre

One of the main topics in the reading by Sartre was choice. Sartre does not look at choice as something positive it seems. Instead he makes it sound negative by saying that we are condemned to live a life of choice. So what does this mean exactly? Well I think it means that we were condemned to live this life full of choices by being born. Our birth was not something that we chose but it is something e must deal with. From our birth on our choices are completely up to us and we must deal with the consequences. For some of you that mat may be getting irritated with how bland and straight to the point my blog is I hope you have realize that I used my power of choice to make this as simple to understand as possible. I do not use big words to make my posts more interesting because I do not think it matters that I know how to use the thesaurus tool on Microsoft Word. Which brings me to the next topic of discussion on how we live our lives. There were two methods discussed in class, the first was that we shape our lives off of what the others think or the second we digest what the other says and become our own person. I think that the majority of us shape ourselves off of what the others think. We do it to avoid being hurt. If we walk through a room getting insulted we think of why that is and we change ourselves to stop the insults. Modeling ourselves off of what others think is not necessarily a bad thing and I don’t think it only applies to how we act. I believe it is similar to what we consider to be good and bad. What we consider good or bad is based off of what the majority of us believes. Well in the case of how we act if the majority of us think acting a certain way is the right way then shouldn’t we act like it? Sure one can say that just because the majority of people think something is right doesn’t mean it is but then that is also the case for what is good or bad. So why not change the others opinion. I think people are constantly acting a certain way because of what others think. Take the classroom for example; it is always the same people adding to the conversation going in you know someone is going to talk. But every so often the people who normally talk don’t have anything to contribute they make comments like “I agree” or “irrelevant” because they think it is expected of them and by not doing it they won’t uphold their status. But this logic also applies to the students who don’t say anything because they are afraid they will be chastised by the class. There is nothing wrong with shifting the way we act to different social groups it could sometimes be taken as a sign of being polite. We all act differently when we are by ourselves than we do when we are with our close friends or when we are with our family or in class. We do it because we are acting in a way that is acceptable to the people around us. If somebody were to say that they act completely different than the people around them and do everything different than the others, I would say that person is lying. Because when does anyone want to be around someone that gets on their nerves. That person who acts uncivilized would end up being alone.