Last Day

So, its the last day of class, and it got canceled. Thad said to write about how class would have been if there had been a class. I am not totally sure what to talk about. This right here is a sincere struggle with the course material. Imagine having a course, where everyday seemed like a new experience where you would take in new ideas about your existence. Coming up with a make believe day feels like terrible; it’s almost like a lie about gaining new knowledge. I’m not bouncing off my ideas with other students gaining knowledge. At the same time though it makes for an interesting idea for a class. Maybe we should have done this half way through the semester. Not take new material and read it as if class did happen, but based on what we have heard so far; create your own idea of how class would have been if we had one. 

I know this rambling sounds like gibberish, but I am actually curious with this idea. Imagine that you have friend that is going to tell you something completely new that changes your idea about the world, but you never hear what that friend has to say. Doesn’t that make you curious? Everything that you have ever done has led up to where you are right now. Imagine that and how maybe having class on Wednesday of this week could have impacted you. Sartre’s idea of our ideas have consequences that affect other people. The major changes in our life don’t usually last a long time. 

When I was younger my dad had some chores for me to do, and I was tired that day and said something like, “Yeah well what if I don’t do them”. My father said in such a sincere voice, “Well… I guess, I would have to do them”. After a split second of reflecting, I immediately got up and did the chores that day. I was happy to do them after that because my father was willing to do them for me because he knew that I was having a tough day. That simple conversation that shaped a fond memory of my father only last like 20 seconds. 

Group 25 - Last Group

Group 25 presented on what is Existentialism. My answer is simply what Thad was trying to make us do every reading assignment; a sincere struggle with the course content. Existentialism is struggling with the ideas of human consciousness. The struggle is what makes it philosophy. It’s a struggle because there is no object answer in sight. There might be an object answer to all the questions, but we as of right now don’t know.

I feel like Existentialism is different for each different person depending on what a person believes which makes it a unique class to study. If you go into Existentialism with the thoughts and ideas of what it means already firmly established, you are not going to be engaging in philosophical study. I believe that is why Thad had the class teach every class. Some students probably thought that Thad was lazy, and that might be true, but I believe that learning about philosophy from a person who isn’t well established with the ideas is better. The students who are teaching are struggling with the exact same material as the students who are listening. 

Group 25 presentation seemed to be focused on Sartre’s view of life. The words and ideas used felt like only a part of what existentialism truly means. A few times during the presentation I felt like arguing, but someone else brought up the topic first. Group 25 said, “ You are responsible for ever choice..” This is definitely Sartre’s view on freedom and responsibility, but other Existential authors would argue that it is not the case. While I agree with Sartre as it makes logical sense to me, this is a philosophy course; meaning that this is just theory.

This was the first group not to prepare a skit. The group instead had one person who wrote like a five to six page comic that covered the various authors that we learned over the year. The comic was amazing and had the whole class laughing, but I would have like to have seen a group effort in front of the class. Thad ended class saying that there would be no class on Wednesday, and had a funny video show casing various comedians and tying in varies Existential ideas. The last part was basically from Sartre; Existential is a joke, but it’s a joke that we all believe in.

Jean-Paul Sartre : Emotions and my groups up

Group 21 presented on Jean-Paul Sartre on The Emotions: A Phenomenological Sketch. This was actually my group so of course we did awesome. Actually, it was funny; I am terrible at presenting in front of people. I don’t mind talking, but I’m clumsy and lines will be messed up. Overall, I think we did a good a job. We should have prepared for it more, but it ended up just fine. During the skit I was supposed to say, “Do you have any raisins?” and she would respond with no. Then I would ask, “Then how about a date?” I screwed up the line and I’m not too sure if anyone got the reference that date is another fruit, but at the same time I was asking her out. Oh well. 

Jean-Paul Sartre’s two core concepts are freedom and responsibility. I feel like so many times we try to connect morals to the idea of responsibility, but that is not what Sartre is talking about. Sartre is a true believer in freedom, everything you do and everything you are is a choice. And you need to accept the responsibility of the actions that you take from the freedom that you exercise. With this absolute freedom that we have; your whole world could come crashing down on you, and you could still remain happy. You could be beaten up. Your family could have just murdered. You could have been fired from your dream job. The whole time, according to Sartre you have control over your emotions and could then in fact maintain happiness throughout the whole ordeal. 

Talking about the emotions, one thing I wanted to touch on is that according to Sartre these emotions are complete fabrications that we make up in order to avoid responsibility with the real world. We cannot change the world physically all the time to make it a more pleasing place, but we can alter our consciousness with the world. All of Sartre’s ideas sound like the basis for free will. We have so much potential to do anything, but you have responsibility that the actions that we make affect those around us. 

Jean-Paul Sartre Essence and Existence

Group 20 is up to present on Jean-Paul Sartre. Next week my group goes and this is making me nervous, because we also have to present on Jean-Paul Sartre but I feel like we can’t talk about the background of who he is anymore. Anyway the skit that group 20 did was terrible at the start but then God came in at the end and made it amazing.

Thad talked chimed in a couple times to say the main idea of this text was that people are responsible for their actions and our actions affect other people. Thad gave the example of how a train conductor in World War 2 was sending people to their deaths. When the train conductor was asked why did he do nothing to stop this, he said,”There was nothing that I could do”. Jean-Paul Sartre would say that you are removing your own responsibility that affect other people. People try to force you into believing that you have no choices, and that their is no other way. Sartre is a believer in absolute freedom; meaning that you always have a choice. 

Seth told the story of the scorpion and the toad analogy where a scorpion wants to cross a lake and needs the help of the toad to get across. The toad says no at first because the scorpion would sting him and the scorpion replies that he would die if that happens. So the toad agrees, but halfway across the lake the scorpion stings the toad. Before they drown, the toad asks,” Why did you sting me”. The scorpion answers, “It’s my nature”. The moral of the story being that some choice you have no control over because it’s your nature. Sartre would completely disagree with this fable. The major flaw that I see is that the scorpion made it half across the lake without stinging the toad. The scorpion or whatever the case is, can hold back it’s nature and choose their own freedom. 

Martin Heidegger's Ideas on Philosophy

Group 19 presented on Martin Heidegger’s ideas on the value of philosophy. Their skit was basically a fairy tale style book where the moral of the story was that philosophy doesn’t grant any knowledge, but it must work on the person to help them develop.

From the reading and presentation, it felt as if Heidegger was trying to say philosophy is meaningless in the real world. Saying things like “Philosophy cannot be applied directly.” Also, Heidegger states philosophy doesn't directly supply us with anything but it does shape our understanding. It shouldn’t be a foundation, yet it also shouldn't be rejected just because it is useless for certain principles. I almost felt like Heidegger was struggling to say that all the deep philosophical ideas that he has provided shouldn’t be looked at as fact. It’s like he is arguing with the audience to say, “Don’t just accept theses ideas I have written down; just think about them and let them work on you”. 

Thad’s main objective for his students is to have a sincere struggle with the course material. I believe the struggle with the ideas presented is what philosophy is about. I feel like when you read Heidegger’s or any philosopher’s material, you are not supposed to take a stance right away on whether you think their right or wrong. You are meant to struggle with ideas the same way that the author struggled with the idea when they were forming them. This brings me to a question I would like for whoever reads this to answer. When does a question become philosophical versus just a scientific question? Because I often feel like some questions that people feel are philosophical to one person might not be the same for another. What I mean by that is, people don’t struggle with the same questions as everyone else. One person may be very concerned with the afterlife which might lead to an existential crisis that will shape their philosophy, but another person might have no interest in life after death so it wouldn’t really be a philosophical question. 

Dealings with Death

First off, Thad really opened up today about his past and what has led to him being a teacher of Existentialism. Thad was asked at the beginning of the year if he experiences existential crisis everyday. Thad said he does; a really tragic experience happened when he was a kid and his mom and neighbors were murdered, and his father which Thad believes is innocent was blamed for their killings. He asked the class if they would be willing to help him april 13th in a mock classroom that might help him in his crisis. I will definitely be there.

Group 18 started off with their skit which was a sword fight that discussed death. The main topic is Martin Heidegger’s view on death. The group didn’t seem prepared for the presentation, and they looked very nervous. Group 18 felt that Group 17 talked about the same ideas and didn’t need to restate what was already said. While if that was true, they should have edited the presentation a little or went over the material anyway. The way they handled it was unprofessional.

The presentation was looking to be the worst one yet, but then we got to an interesting topic where the group stated everyday we have a brush with death. After that, the conversations went off and people were giving instances in their own life of death being a prominent factor in their lives. Martin Heidegger believes that death is a scary idea that we ignore, but we all eventually have to face it. I believe that death is such a scary thought that our consciousness almost refuses to think about it. Imagine the thought of losing any connection with the world could happen at anytime without warning. People use death as a way to avoid situations, sayings things like that is too dangerous or I can’t do that. People might also take the other route and use death as a reason to do things; for example, doing something really stupid with the excuse that well I will eventually die anyway. Death shouldn’t a reason to do things or not to do things.

Beings - It's Alive!

Group 17 Started off with a skit on Beings which I didn’t quite understand. It was a funny Frankenstein parody which I think was explaining what makes a person truly a person. Martin Heidegger is the existentialist covered this week, and his major influence was from being a part of the Nazi party. The course material was definitely tough to digest this week; one of the toughest readings which I could tell the class had hard time understanding the ideas. Group 17 did an good job at trying to make sense of the madness.

Martin Heidegger’s main idea is understanding what it means to be a being. A main concept that shaped his idea was the new idea of phenomenology. Phenomenology is the philosophical study of consciousness. Group 17 presented the idea that, “Being is to be understood phenomenologically through experience”.  Heidegger’s first step in defining being came with redefining what is human consciousness. Heidegger came up with the term Dasein which in German means “Being there”. Separating Dasein from consciousness was a great way for Heidegger to introduce the key concept of what consciousness is without all the baggage that is carries. I think this is something that Group 17 could have improved in their presentation. Right off the bat, Group 17 says that Dasein is basically consciousness which Heidegger deliberately went out of his way to avoid using the word. 

The other main idea was that of authenticity and individuality. The class had a good discussion, and the big debate was whether more interactions with people made a person more of an individual or less individual. One side argued that the more interactions the person had the more they copied ideas already in the world. The other side argued that that more interactions made a person more diverse and different. I was on the side that more interactions make a person more unique because the more interactions the more choices a person has to make that defines them. 

Logotherapy and Victor Frankl

Group 16 started off with their skit on group therapy that was used to introduce the idea of the way that people go through their lives. One person was just going through the motions, another was just following what others said but was happy with the way things were going, and the last had a major conflict in his life that he overcame by himself. The funny thing and I even asked this is class, “Why would the last person be in a therapy session?” The last person had the ideal life and yet he was in therapy? There must be something else wrong with him.

The author of this section Victor E. Frankl came up with Logotherapy which helps with the existential ideas by helping a person find their meaning in life. Frankl was a holocaust surviver which caused him to have a hard time developing a sense of freedom. By the way, it seems like most existentialist go through some serious traumatic experiences. Anyway, Logotherapy seemed like an interesting way to seek help for depression.

The main thing that I want to discuss is the idea of the existential vacuum that people experience. The existential vacuum is the lack of instinct for what to do, no traditional way tells that person what to do, and sometimes this causes them not do anything. From this, people enter existential boredom where they think life is meaningless. Many people are afraid of the idea of living forever because of this existential boredom. People like to give excuses like family and friends will eventual die, and I will eventually lose all will to live… Those things happen regardless of how long a person lives. Professional athletes can have their life dreams taken away from injuries and many family members and friends will die in our lifetimes, but that does mean that you can not find meaning in life. Even if the whole world appears to be falling apart and nothing seems to matter, that doesn’t mean you should just give up. Just get back on your feet and search for a new calling in life, and I’m sure you’ll find it.

Tragic Sense of Life

Group 15 up to bat, discussing Miguel de Unamuno’s idea on the Tragic Sense of Life. The main idea being that it is possible to live with contradictions; the biggest one being that we have this great sense of living even though knowing that you will eventually die. 

Unamuno believed that Passion and Commitment is more important than reason and rationality. Unamuno is all about action. Passion and commitment sounds more worthwhile, many people spend their entire lives looking for something to be passionate about, and probably many more people would use reason and use rationality to convince themselves that the things they are passionate about aren’t worth doing. My dad used to be one of the best bowlers in New Jersey and even has some tournament rings to prove it. He ended up getting a job instead of pursing the bowling career because his parents wanted him to get an actual job. Having said that, reason and rationality keeps us safe, but passion and commitment gives us happiness.Thad redirected the class several times saying that Unamuno believes the ethical person goes with his heart. The desires that you want are the right choices.

A quick remark on the lecture, the presentation was very nicely executed; a lot of polish on the little things. Most of Group 15 dressed in nice collared shirts with ties, and I believe is the first group to do a skit with no script. That alone showed that they put a lot time into preparing a good presentation. Thad had to redirect the class discussion a few times to the real meaning which I feel we never really hit on. The class got off topic towards the end as people were using confusing metaphors that weren’t connecting with the material. In closing, I feel like the group was very prepared to teach but it was on the wrong subject.

Dostoevsky - Underground Man

Group 13 presented on Dostoevsky, and the idea of the underground man. I just have say, they have done by far the best skit out of all the groups. The presentation was excellent, and the skit took the main idea and made it easy for everyone in the class to follow. It was a long skit lasting around eight minutes, and it really set the stage for the rest of the class.

The main idea presented by Dostoevsky was the idea of the Underground man. A person who has the free will to choose a completely random choice free of reason. Group 13 presented the idea, “Desire completely and stubbornly opposes reason”. Thad later gave the hypothetical situation; a choice between a blue button that grants wealth and a yellow button that has the person’s eyes poked with needles. He said the underground man could chose to pick the yellow button with no reason for choosing. I disagreed with the situation and Thad said, “You’re a scientist”. A scientist from the skit meant that you believed that every choice could be connected to a reason. We don’t do things without reason. You might say that you had no reason to do something, but there is always a reason.

This reminded me of the time we were talking about “wants”. I know with different authors you get different views of Existentialism, but the idea sounded very logical to me. Thad gave the situation of taking out the garbage, and even though he didn't want to do it he did it anyway to make his wife happy. Even if there are more favorable options you can choose a different choice but must want to do it. I know some people tried to say some situations in which they felt the choice was unwanted such as touching a hot plate that they knew was hot. Maybe they felt curious and wanted to see if they could touch it, maybe they were in a hurry to do something else, whatever the reason. They wanted to do it.

Spheres of Existence

Group 8 is up; my favorite number. This was the best group so far. I actually stopped commenting on this because it was getting repetitive, but they were that good. Thad even stopped class to say that they were a step above the rest. The presentation was good, but the skits made everything come together; they were funny and intelligent which forced you to want to listen. The guy talking like a girl with a mop on his head was pure gold, and had the whole class laughing. Overall another reason why 8 is my favorite number.

Group 8 started off with Kiekegaard’s aesthetic sphere of existence. The main argument that sprung up was if a person living in the aesthetic sphere of existence could they reflect. Thad gave an example of asking the person the meaning of life and their response would be a reflection of getting what you want. But I don’t think that is a true reflection, because they are answering the question based on their current situation. There is no reflection; just an opinion of what they are doing in the moment.

Then there was the ethical sphere. Where people base their actions and way of life on their sense of justice in the world. The best example that the class came up with was Hitler. Hitler while even though is actions are deemed morally wrong, had a strong since of duty towards his country. The big topic that got brought up was whether you could switch in and out of the aesthetic sphere and ethical sphere. Thad said you can not, and I don’t think you can either. While I do think you can change your perspective on life, it is a very hard choice to make. Thad argued that you never really left or went into the ethical sphere if that were the case. The last and most important point made was that the ethical sphere is a place where you fall short from achieving a certain principle.

Truth is Subjectivity

Thad before class said to think about subjective truth as action passionate commitment. Anyway, Group 7 started out by pointing out the differences between objective truth and subjective truth; stating that objective truth is the “what” while subjective truth is the “why”. Objective truth is logical and indifferent, and subjective truth is emotional.

The best part of the class was when a student in the front of class named Andrew said he completely disagreed with the person presenting. Andrew said the logical arguments didn’t make sense and went on to prove his case which made the presenter speechless. Andrew gained a lot of respect from Thad from that moment and got a nice complement. The reason why he was so familiar with the material is because Andrew is part of Group 8 which was assigned to read the second half of Kierkegaard’s readings. The question that Andrew asked the presenter was a little unfair because he used some of the material from the readings of Group 8 which Group 7 was not responsible to be prepared to answer.

Towards the end of class Thad gave his own opinions that I would like to touch on. Thad said the Kierkegaard loved the torment of not knowing. It is within the uncertainty that creates the passion, and even if you are uncertain you must make a choice. It reminds me of the phrase it’s not the destination but the journey. Just knowing or being given the answer takes away from the challenge and the fun.

Religious passion cannot be collectivized into an organized religion. I have to agree with this. Forcing to take into account every detail that a pastor or other religious figure says as fact gets in the way of connecting with God. I listened to a person on the subject of why kosher foods came about in the Bible aka why Jewish people don’t eat pork and shellfish. The reason being was because the cooking techniques used at the time caused the food to still have many diseases which killed many people. Now a days, following a eating program should only be in the best interest of keeping your body healthy. I am pretty sure that God doesn’t care if we eat pork or chicken for dinner. Anyway I have reached my criteria for the amount of words for this blog, but one last note. I think the Bible was just a bunch of the best myths and folk tales from a long time ago. And the Bible was indeed written by men, so you know it’s not perfect

Kierkegaard

Group 6 had to do the reading on Kierkegaard’s Existentialism dialect. Group 6 started out by asking the class if they enjoyed the reading; most people raised their hand. Thad raised his hand when they asked who didn’t enjoy the reading; I couldn’t help but laugh. Anyway they asked us to write down two questions before the presentation which we would answer later. We never got to that point so we waisted five minutes brainstorming questions that we never got to asked which gets me frustrated. This is the first class that I have had where there is a chance that you will not get the chance to voice your opinion because of the massive amount of people that want to talk. That is one reason I love these blogs; I get to rant on about how I would have asked and answered a question.

My favorite question that group 6 asked was, “Is truth your truth, or the amplification of someone else’s  truth?” Its a tough question and I’ll do my best to answer it. I believe that my truth is the amplification of someone’s truth until I can confirm it for myself. Whenever new information is presented, depending on how knowledgeable the presenter is and how much I trust that person determines whether I accept the what they said as fact. I realize that I and probably pretty much everyone was naive as a child and would believe in pretty much everything, even the impossible.

When I was little I was raised as a Christian, I went to several churches and even attended a private Christian school. I loved that school that I attended from when I was three years old until eighth grade. Eventually, I went to a public high school and attended a world history class that focused heavily on the religions of the world. I never realized how little I knew about my own religion by not knowing about the other possibilities. I had been raised to understand Christianity was the truth and I never once questioned it. I have since changed my view on religion, but I am so glad that I experienced gaining my own truth. I wouldn’t classify myself as a Christian anymore, but I still believe there is a God. Now the important part, even if my region did not change, I believe that the amplification of someone else’s truth becomes your own when you finally test your truth.

The Fall Part 2

Camu’s “The Fall” was again discussed today. Group 5 lead the class by a well organized plan; each person in the group was responsible for a certain theme that they found relavent to the reading. The five themes were manipulation, righteousness, shame, pride and “jaumness". Before each theme they performed a skit, which was a metaphor for the theme being presented. 

My favorite skit was on manipulation, where a man helps a blind person across the street but only so that society views that person as a gentlemen. I loved the way they took an innocent situation and made the person a bad guy. The whole point of the manipulation was that after the gentlemen helped the blind person across the street, the gentlemen tipped his hat to the blind person. The tipping of his hat was deemed worthless and only for others to acknowledge that he did a good deed. I think that doing small acts or rituals like that are common and are done regardless of whether the person on the receiving end cares.

When I was in high school, I worked at my look Fry’s grocery store as a courtesy clerk aka the bag boy. As a courtesy clerk  you are supposed to greet the customer, ask whether they want paper or plastic, ask if they need help out, and then give them a friendly goodbye. I said to almost every customer, “Have a nice day”. One day, my mom came through my line and I gave her a hug and a kiss, and after helping her I told to just “Have a nice day”. I felt so bad that I actually said, “No, wait, Have a great day”. I said that line so much that I feel the sentence lost its meaning to the people I truly wished to “Have a nice day”. I wanted my words to actually mean something. I’m sorry that got off topic, but maybe to the gentleman, tipping his hat had become so familiar that it lost its meaning.

The main theme of the class discussion was on how if a person recognizes that they are not innocent that it raises up how good one is. This reminds me of certain people’s opinions where they believe that perfect is impossible to achieve. Then doesn’t it become how close to perfect can we get? Even if nobody is innocent or perfect we should still strive to become as close as possible.

The Fall

Group 4 had to present Camu’s “The Fall” which I’m so happy I did not have to present. I could barely follow the logic in the way the sentences flowed. It reminded me of reading Romeo and Juliet in Highschool; a teacher was needed in order to point out the meaning in the use of the words. Anyway, Group 4 started their teaching of the material by having all the students write down questions that we could answer throughout the lecture. This was a disaster; not only did the questions not come up later in the discussion, but the way the questions were presented was horrible. The members of Group 4 dispersed across the classroom and each one read a question. The questions were way too long and read way to quickly to write down before another was given. There was probably like ten questions in all, but I gave up around the third one. If they ever have to present to a group of people again, they should realize that people need some time to write down information.

Now that is off my chest, let’s talk about the content. The main ideas that came up in the discussion were about judgement and innocence. I thought the best example of judgment came from the teacher, Thad said to think of a time where you judged someone. After giving a little time to think it over, he asked the class, “How many of you thought of a negative judgement?” I kind of felt bad afterwards because I definitely did. There is something about the word judgement that makes me want to think of someone being guilty. One person in the group said the quote, “ Always a reason to kill a man, but not to let a person continue on living”. The quote made me think about how we are so quick to find faults in others to make us feel better about ourselves.

I personally loved the innocence related scenarios. The main point that came across is that all people are selfish, therefore nobody is innocent. I believe that everyone is selfish but I don’t think having wants makes a person not innocent. Even before class, I did share the opinion that every choice that we make is because we wanted to make that choice. No matter what it is, we choose to live our lives the way we want. Even tough choices, one’s that are mistakes, or choices that we perceive for ourselves as wrong are because we want to make that choice. Whether the reason is because of a human instinct, moral righteousness, religion, or a promise ever action is because we ourselves want it. It is because of this that every person is selfish. After class, I asked Thad to give a situation where an action was chosen that we did not want. He the only one that he can think about is an action where we were not conscious of the choice such as accidentally doing something. Being selfish is usually thought of being a negative trait, but what matters more is what is your own reasons for being selfish.

Absurdity Zone

Group 3 started there out hour of teaching with their skit. The skit started out as three students listened to a “teacher” give them a ridiculous amount of work to finish within an unrealistic amount of time. One students said, “I quit”, and dropped out of school. Another student stayed because he felt like he had no choice but to tough it out. The last student was eager to finish the class as it signified they were closer to accomplishing their goal of getting a degree and eventually, a good job. This skit in my opinion was the best so far to represent what the reading was about. The skit was easy to follow and relatable to our current situations.

The main point of the skit was to represent the three choices we have while chasing the meaning of life. The first way of looking at things is the “suicide path”. The suicide path meaning that they have come to the conclusion that there is no meaning of life and no reason to live. The second path is acceptance of absurdity where the they accept the meaning of life is absurd and live with it. The third and final path is the leap of faith where you hope to find meaning of life in the next life. Group 3 thought it best if the class broke into groups and had a debate arguing each side. The debate went terrible, but the discussion went well. Each group presented a good opinion but no real debate happened.

One female student who had the class from last semester brought up the point of big M vs small M. Big M stands for the cosmological meaning of life and the small M stands for each of us finding our own meaning of life. The discussion never fully matured toward that direction though. Thinking about the meaning of life that way makes sense to me. While everyone wants to know the big M, the meaning behind why we are here. The small M is just as important in my opinion. A person needs to find meaning in their own lives regardless. If we were to apply the three paths of life to the small M, we can see how people can go through their lives. The suicide path would be where a person searched for their own meaning of life and never found something that they were passionate about so they gave up. The accepting absurdity path would be those that never  gave up searching for their meaning or they accepted their own meaning of life. Finally the leap of faith would be somebody that believes in an afterlife where they give meaning of life not to this one but the next one.

While I’m not sure if we will ever find the big M, the cosmological meaning of life, I am happy to find my own small M. I’m not too sure what it is but I’ll continue to search for it. Besides what if we found out the big M, and I didn’t like the answer.

The Stranger Part 2

First lets talk about the presentation. In my opinion, Group 2 did not do as good of a job as Group 1. That is not to say they did a bad job, but Group 2 just did not feel natural. Thad said to avoid straight lecture, get the students involved, and just allow the students to be apart of the presentation. The first ten to fifteen minutes felt like they didn’t want to get the students involved, they said to hold all questions till the powerpoint presentation was over. While I didn’t mind too much I would have appreciated being able to discuss some of their views while on the topic. The skit was really cool; coming up with a “what if” in terms of what was going through Meursault’s thoughts as he talked to the preacher was interesting. After the skit, Group 2 just let the discussion take its course which again made me feel great by the amount of participation. I even had my hand up to ask a question, but never got to ask it because of how many others wanted that same opportunity.

The question that I wanted to ask was about how many people were arguing about Meursault’s view on emotions. The thing that irritated me was that people thought that Meursault was living in the present by not allowing the past or the future affect his decisions. Living in the present is a good thing to do, but that was not what Meursault was doing. Meursault either had a mental disease that made him not care, or had Meursault had a traumatic experience that caused him to deeply repress his emotions. Now regardless of which one is afflicting Meursault, that isn’t a good way to live one’s life. When people say it’s good to live in the present; I believe it is because some people are too obsessed and want to cling to the past, or they are too busy worrying about the future that they neglect the present. Meursault did not care about the past or future. Meursault’s mom died and he killed a man, but the story didn’t put hardly any emphasis to show remorse. And when it came time for his execution, Meursault did not believe in God.

The past actions give us reasons for living, and we can share those stories with others. The present is what we can do to change either the past or the future. The future are the goals we wish to accomplish someday. One of my favorite quotes is, “Today is a gift, that is why it’s called present”. Both yesterday was once today, and tomorrow will become today; which makes them all gifts that should be cherished.

The Stranger

The first group, Group 1, had to present their lecture and skit this Monday. It felt like it was the first day of actual class. I felt sorry for group 1, not only were they chosen to be the first presenters, but they also only had 3 people in their group when most groups have 5 people. None of that stopped them; they did a wonderful job. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of quality discussion over Part 1 of the Stranger. The Stranger is a story of Meursault’s life after having his grandmother recently pass away. Group 1 started out leading the discussion for the day by using a powerpoint to examine the main points.

It looked like they had prepared a 10 plus slide powerpoint presentation, but they only got through 2 of the them. It was amazing; the first slide was on the personalities and characters in part 1, and as soon as a character was introduced students where egger to get their opinions out. The class discussion went over so well that the teacher actually had to remind them to stop the discussion in order for them do their skit. That was mostly what happened but lets talk about the main ideas that I thought were interesting that students brought up.

The first thing that I remember the most was that a person pointed out how the heat/weather should have been on the first slide as a character. It was an interesting idea, the heat definitely played had a huge part in the Stranger. Every time Meursault’s character was being challenged, he would complain about how harsh the heat was. Whether the heat was an actually real or just something that Meursault imagined, the heat was a very focused topic.

Our teacher, Thad, brought up an interesting idea that took up a considerable amount of time. Thad asked the question,” Who would like to have Meursault as a friend”. An interesting question that I wasn’t prepared to answer. It’s very hard to answer a question like that, Meursault had a hard time presenting his emotions. When he talked it didn’t sound like he loved is girlfriend Marie, and his neighbor didn’t sound like a true friend. The reason why the question was so difficult was because Meursalt killed a person. But as I thought about the question, I realized that being a murderer wasn’t that important to me to earn friendship. I think how a person treats me is more important than what they do to others.

Second Day

These Existentialism blogs are supposed, “Demonstrate a sincere struggle with the course material.” But so far our class discussions haven’t been that involved. I know it is just the first week, but so far we haven’t done much. Thad talked about how lengthy some of the course readings were going to be, and how certain Existentialist readings will impact each student in a different way. Also, Thad read a few lines from former students’ final papers that he felt showed a sincere struggle with the course material. I got to say the caliber of the writing from those students were phenomenal. I cannot wait to get into the material and have some of the same experiences as those students. 

After thad read Most of Wednesday was spent creating our groups that we will be with for the rest of the semester. The groups were chosen alphabetical which since my last name starts with “S”, I’m towards the bottom. Group 21 out of 24 groups. I can’t complain though, I’m happy that I wasn’t the first group. Being in that first group has got to be tough. They have no idea what the teachers expects from them, and have little time to prepare. 

Each group has five people, my group consists of Roman, Anthony, Pratishtha, Kyle, and myself. Roman can speak Russian. Anthony, if I remember right, was in a military branch. Pratishtha prefers to be called Sonny (or was it Sunny) and she can speak Hindu. I don’t remember too much about Kyle. We actually didn’t spend too much time together, right after we got together and had our picture taken we set up on next Wednesday to meet right outside class to work on getting our project started. Hopefully we can use that time to also get to know each other a lot better.

First Day

My brother told me Tiger Woods once said something like,”The day I don’t feel nervous before a tournament is the day I quit professional golf.” He said that being nervous was a sign that you care about something. The quote sounds so basic and simple which is why I love it. Today is the first day of spring classes at ASU, and I was really nervous. My first class was a CSE class which I knew was going to be easy, but my second class was a philosophy class called Existentialism. I only took the class because it fulfilled a upper division social science requirement. Almost as soon as the teacher started to talk, I knew the class was going to be fun. The teacher is the determining factor in having any fun course, and I have a feeling that  Thad Botham is going to make Existentialism fun.

Thad starts off the class by asking how the introduction was for Solomon’s book Existentialism. I was in the group that answered they had no idea what he was talking about. I kind of understood, but not enough to say that I got it. Somebody asked why did the book switch back and forth between his and her when using an ambiguous person; isn’t his usually the correct form? Thad gave a long answer that the author was trying to be more gender neutral, and then made a joke about it saying it’s the least we can do for women. I asked Thad if he wanted us to call him doctor. His response was a really long one that started off with don’t call me doctor, but I don’t think he ever answered my question. This is the second time that I have said he gave really long answers, but it’s because he isn’t like most teachers I have had before. Instead of just saying the answer he goes on to explain the reasoning and also making a joke about it.

This was also the first time that a teacher swore in the classroom saying fuck multiple times. Every time he swore it was because he was imitating what a student might be saying. For instance, after Thad said that for the majority it would be the students teaching the rest of the students; He said, “Some of you must be thinking, Fuck, I didn’t sign up to teach.” It was funny because I definitely could imagine somebody saying that exact line in their head. Thad ended the class with showing off his definition of Existentialism which was like a paragraph long that looked pretty good according to what I read. But just like the book, Thad didn’t really want to limit Existentialism with a definition, but wanted us to discover it for ourselves. 

This class feels like it is going to take a lot of work with the reading to get that good grade, but I feel like it will be worth it. Because if I can keep up with the material, the class should be really fun. We get assigned to groups on Wednesday, and again I’m nervous, but that just means I care. I hope the people in the group are fun.