Your Life - Blog Post 3

What philosophy is closest to your definition of quality of life? Throughout this course we have seen several types of philosophies from many different people. Most of these philosophers are probably borderline insane, to be lost in some of their ideas I feel like a few of them crossed that thin line between genius and crazy. Really, do you want to go through your life questioning everything that you see and experience? When you look at your dining room table do you think it’s a real table? Or do you think that we are just taught the shape of the table is only a symbol?

Some theories are quite ridiculous to me. I choose common sense, I choose to believe what I want and experience what I experience. Most philosophical theories will leave you questioning your own physical existence. They can mostly be far-fetched ideas of what an object is, does it exist, can you prove it, and that your mind and body are two completely different beings. I agree with William James and other pragmatist and their common sense approach, if you will. Philosophy’s true purpose is to help us live by showing us how to discover and adopt beliefs that fit our individual needs and temperaments - as we learned in Chapter 15; The Pragmatist, William James (from the beginning of Ch. 15 through 15-3a).

I feel like all of the philosophers that we read about were in a deep depression for most of their lives. Of course not all of them were but that’s my perception of them. The greatest thing about us as humans is that we each get to be different from one another. We can all read the same passage and each get a different meaning. With that in mind, how can one philosophy be correct for all? It can’t. We live in a time where it seems the bigger words you use or the more expensive of educational institution you attend, then you are clearly superior to others. I find it difficult to deal with people like that. Therefore, when I read or learn about someone else who appreciates common sense it is refreshing to me.

I work in an industry that has created terminology that really feels like it was done solely to confuse normal people to get something over on them. I break down all the lingo to explain it to those I come in contact with. I do not agree with the ideas that are out there and speculations that drive what I do for a living. I can relate to Mr. James when he disagreed with the silliness of philosophies out there. I appreciate his ideology that philosophy is different for each of us. Not everything has to come down to an absolute. Not everything has to have some sort of distorted meaning. I think that pragmatism is a simple approach to live our life to the fullest. Experience things for yourself, adopt beliefs that work for you. After all, we are all unique individuals with the ability to think for ourselves.

Word count 513

To What Degree Are We Free?

To what degree are we free? Being a United States citizen means freedom, for most people. America has not always been a free country though. There are still attitudes that can oppress individuals of all aspects of life; race, religion, disability, political alignment, gender, etc. In Unit 13 we learned of philosopher Karl Marx. In today's society we can relate to what he said about the relationship between workers and the corporation, the 1 percenters if you will. This being an election year, I have a quote of Mr. Marx that was not in our readings but one of my favorites; The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them. We as a civilization have the opportunity to vote. This is one of our freedoms, voting is something that used to be important. It was something worth fighting for. If we don't exercise our right to vote, others will elect people to roles that can change things for the negative or prevent changes for the good. I think we have a lot of freedoms but more importantly how are we going to protect or preserve them and continue to improve for future generations. I feel like if we do not use the freedoms available to us they could disappear without our knowledge. Yes that's slightly dramatic but there is truth to that. If we are just robots that go through life on auto pilot and let whatever happens happen, what will life be like for those in generations to come? People want to become U. S. citizens for many reasons, most like the freedom our country is known for. The quote I used is a sarcastic tone for me. It tells me that we can continue with whatever is holding us back or we can do something about it. This applies to everything not only voting but also your job, education, even a relationship or partner. Take advantage of things that we can, I linked this post to voting because so much can be done if you get people who you want to represent you in an office. That can be locally and nationally. Not just thinking about yours and my own benefit but generations to come. Thinking about outside of our walls and what it's like in another person's shoes. What do they need? How could we make this an even better place to be? You and I can be as free as we want (with consideration of laws). There is and always will be room for improvement. Of course there will be certain freedoms that you won't have use for, but there must be a majority out there that does. We can and should respect individual rights. America is the land of the free and home of the brave. We can be still and stay on auto pilot while the world moves on or we can do something about it. Take action, take charge, and be a leader to change for the good.

Word Count = 509

What would this world be like if we didn't blame others for what all happens to us in our life?

What would this world be like if we didn't blame others for what all happens to us in our life?

I will be discussing Chapter 7 and specifically 7-8c "Some Things Are in Our Control"

"In our power are opinion, movement towards a thing, desire, aversion; and in a word, whatever are our own acts. And the things in our power are by nature free, not subject to restraint or hindrance . . . if you think that only which is your own to be your own, and if you think of what is another’s, as it really is, belongs to another, no man will ever compel you, no man will hinder you, you will never blame any man, you will accuse no man, you will do nothing . . . against your will..."

We would have a world free from excuses. Everyone would take responsibility for their own actions and everyone would get along. Those who committed a crime would own up to it, there would be no more innocent people paying for the crime they didn't commit and no unsolved mysteries. On the other hand, we wouldn't think bad of those who are successful in life. We wouldn't blame something that happened 50 to 150 years ago for the reason people live the way they do.

I have a sister that always blames everyone else for her actions. She is older than me by 6 years, she turns 36 this year. She has never lived independently. Is she capable of living independently? Absolutely, she has no aliments keeping her from doing so. She has addictions, we all have some form of addiction but we do not need to blame others when our addiction has caused a problem. She has lived off of other family members that were nice enough to allow her to stay with them. They all have had the same request, that she not bring her addictions into their home. Without fail, she will bring it in and then when it's time for her to leave for breaking the rules it is somehow the other persons fault. Time and time again others are to blame for her actions, in her opinion. I could produce and endless list of excuses that she has come up with but it's not necessary to prove my point.

In my quote from Epictetus above, he stated that what is ours is ours and another's is another's also that you will never blame another person...I feel like if my own sister followed this philosophy she would be much better off. She would be a successful person in her own right. I know her so well, I can predict the outcome about 90% of the time with her and what ever her adventure is. We came from the same two parents, grew up in the same area, hung out with the same people, and yet we took completely different paths. I take responsibility for my actions, I fight the urge to get mad at another when something is done against me or my family. Am I successful? I think so. I have a loving wife and mother to our two boys. We provide for ourselves relying on no one else. Meanwhile, she hops from place to place after setting fire to bridge of that relationship because they always have done her wrong or caused her to use drugs in their house when they originally asked that she not bring that stuff in their home. You get where I'm going with this. Not only with my sister, but the way of life in certain areas. My family and I are new to the Phoenix area. The attitudes from many different races are so extremely different from what we are used to. I love the attitude here compared to the feeling of oppression from where we have been. I just feel that if more people acted out the above quote from Epictetus, our world would be a much better place.

My word count is 665.