End of year reflection

Period 1 philosophy this year was unlike another class. It was truly eye opening and inspiring of deeper thought. Over the year I found that my ability to analyze almost anything, especially from a philosophical standpoint, improved immensely. In addition, the class brought me a realization that acquiring knowledge and the process of developing new ideas is something that is necessary for the growth of the mind. It is entirely possible to sit around and learn nothing and do nothing every day. There are people who do that quite well! However, after studying philosophy for almost a year, to that concept of living, I say, what a wasteful and mundane existence! The mind desires to be set free and roam the vast fields of knowledge!

Although many of us from class may forget the exact details of those fields of knowledge, we will be much less inclined to forget the chemistry that existed between us. Never before have I been apart of class in which all the members molded so well together. Paraphrasing an idea that Mr. Summers spoke about early in the year, school is more about learning how to act in a social environment than it is learning the required material. Even though Mr. Summers may have been talking about education at younger ages I believe the same holds true for kids right up to high school. That's not to say that learning in school is pointless, but rather that the most meaningful and valuable things obtained from a high school class, like friendship, will be the most easily remembered.

Thanks to everyone for making philosophy class enjoyable and memorable!
I would also like to take this time to apologize for arriving 1-7 minutes late to class every morning!

Have an awesome summer!

Signing off of my philosophy blog with thanks to all,
Eli Hallowell

Albert Camus

Albert Camus (1913-1960)
French existentialist
Stanford Camus article

-Human beings cannot escape the question of living "What is the meaning of existence"
-The endless search for the meaning of life and the existence itself is the absurd

Myth of Sisyphus, Philosophy of the Absurd:
Sisyphus rolls a rock up and down a hill for the rest of his life but still manages to live life by embracing the absurd
-Camus argues this situation is not unlike the existence of humans that find themselves in patterns in the monotony of life
-The paradox of life: We keep looking for the meaning of life (rolling the ball up/why we continue to desire to live) only to find out that we can never know the meaning (watching the ball roll down).
-Camus implies that if one is content with the monotony of life and its absurdity then they can live

Other philosophies:
Camus uses the absurd to present ideas surrounding suicide and death, to only name a couple

Sleep meditation

Assignment: Take a bath and consciously go to sleep

Because I couldn't take a bath I instead took a shower. While taking the shower before going to sleep I tried to consciously think about how I was interacting with the water around me. I made the connection between the heat I was experiencing and the heat of the water. The water is the medium through which the heat flows, and humans are apart of the continuous cycle of energy that exists in life. Many times water is compared to the way in the Tao Te Ching. Understanding the flow of water in a stream is understanding the way. Even though it might seem a little far fetched, while taking the shower I felt that I was closer to the way.
After the shower I felt calm and ready for bed. My worries about the next day subsided and I found myself left with an open mind. This made falling asleep very easy. I fell asleep that night quicker than I usually do.

Tao Te Ching favorite passages

Book 1
Exterminate the sage, discard the wise,
And the people will benefit a hundredfold;
Exterminate benevolence, discard rectitude,
And the people again will be filial;
Exterminate ingenuity, discard profit,
And there will be no more thieves and bandits.
These three being false adornments, are not enough
And the people must have something to which they can
attach themselves
Exhibit the unadorned and embrace the uncharted block,
Have little thought and as few desires as possible
pg 23

This passage has to do with the idea of inter-being, especially between opposites. Without profit there cannot be thieves to steal the wealth. This passages was intriguing to me because alludes to the classic saying 'with great power comes great responsibility.' With the knowledge that the sage and the wise bring, it also brings obsession with knowing and understanding. This idea of obsession with understanding is seen as a bad thing in Taoism as the 'way', or the Tao, is not supposed to be capable of knowing.

Book 2
When the way prevails in the empire, fleet footed horses
are relegated to ploughing the fields: when the way does
not prevail in the empire, war-horses breed on the border.
There is no crime greater than having too many desires;
There is no disaster greater than not being content;
There is no misfortune greater than being covetous.
Hence in being content, one will always have enough.

I chose this passage as one of my favorites because I thought that it related a lot to contemporary western society. Traditionally American society revolves around many desires. This is most clearly seen in consumerism as Americans constantly desire to buy more and more as well as accumulate as much wealth as possible. It makes sense to me that having no desires would correlate with being content and satisfied because if you desire things you are constantly looking for things that you don't already have.

Meal meditation

Assignment: consciously eat a meal while paying full attention to the food you're eating.

For my meal I chose to snack on some Fig Newtons and a cup of water. When I started to eat the fig newtons I had a similar experience to that of the tangerine party. I though about how many different ingredients had to go into the snack just to create it. This relates back to the idea of inter-being: The Fig Newton cannot be without any of the ingredients that are inside of it.
Drinking the cup of water consciously was especially unique from any other experience I have had while drinking water. I tried to sense the water flow down my throat. It felt unusually smooth and together. Water is composed of many different molecules, however, they can come together to have the sensation as one distinct object. I also noticed as the water seeped down into my chest it seemed to take a few different paths around the area of my stomach. The most obvious observation was how the water tasted. It had no real strong taste, yet I desired to drink it more than the flavorful Fig Newtons. Also as I drank the water I remembered from the Tao Te Ching that water is thought to be in competition with nothing. As I drank the cup of water I agreed with that thought because at that moment it made perfect sense: How could a substance that is necessary for life to many things every be in competition with those same things that desire it? Also, water is rarely at fault since it is the basis for many living things, much like the Tao.

Homework: Do nothing

For the first time ever my homework was to do nothing for 15 minutes straight. What a great assignment! When I first heard of the assignment I thought it would be incredibly easy, however, siting still for 15 minutes turns out to be harder than you would think. I sat on the couch in my house and just looked around the room aimlessly. At first my mind wandered. I thought about the homework that I still had to do, and then about the things that were coming up the next day. It felt like I was wasting a huge amount of time. To be completely honest I did not make it to the full 15 minute mark. Although, the fact that I couldn't stand still that long illustrates a good point: doing nothing for any period of time is something that I rarely do.
In the US many people are brought up believing that inaction is bad. This is very different from the eastern philosophies in Buddhism. If you're overly active and have no time for inactivity (like many people in the western world) then it can be reasonably assumed that you're setting goals or trying to accomplish things. This is fine to a certain extent, however, if it is to the extent of being stressed it may mean that you're desiring too much. This is opposite of what is stated in the Tao Te Ching: "There is no crime greater than having too many desires." In Buddhism, an abundance of desire leads to a perpetually unsatisfied life. This is why the opposite of having desires and constantly doing, or inaction, is respected. A person that has time to do nothing and just take in life is content and desires less than the  one who is constantly doing.

Tangerine Party

A couple of class periods ago the class had a 'tangerine party'. During the tangerine party the class went outside and each person consciously peeled and ate their citrus fruit. The exercise was overall very eye opening to the fact that most of the I eat I am not thinking about what I'm actually doing. This phenomenon of absentmindedness while eating is especially apparent in Western society. While I was peeling my tangerine I thought about the journey the tangerine took to get to me. First the tangerine tree was planted then it was picked. However, in order for the tangerine to have been picked someone needed to pick it. After the tangerine was picked it was shipped to the US where it was distributed to grocery stores (and so on). The point is that tangerine could not have been in my hand at that moment if it wasn't for a variety of other factors. In fact I could not have had that tangerine in my hand at that moment if it wasn't for everything else in the world. This relates to the Eastern philosophical idea of inter-being. In this idea things in the world are related to other things through the idea of existence. This is very opposite to US culture where people don't often think about what a thing is or where it came from but rather what the object can be used for. It is the essence, not the appreciation for existence that seems to be valued in many western cultures.