Showing posts with label Camus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Camus. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

What's your Answer to Life?

I ask this question because so often I am bombarded with inside and outside influences telling me to find my life somewhere other than where I am, in other words, there is a 10 billion dollar industry for personal development, plus all the nonsense religion propagates, everyone telling us how f@cked up we are and how they can fix us or they have the cure. My philosophy or way of living and thinking is life is its own point, it does not transcend itself to get to somewhere else, but I will be the first to admit that I could be wrong. However, if life transcend itself where is it going and what will it do when it get there and will there still be another point beyond that point that it need to transcend? These are interesting questions, at least to me. As I stated before, I think life is its own point and this means to me it is something that cannot be improved but, it is something that as one who is "in" life should participate. In other words, I will take an active role in life, its good, its bad and its indifference, it is like Sisyphus with his rock, it is mines and this existence is all I know and is the one thing am certain of, anything that transcends it is to me irrelevant or meaningless to the life I am experiencing for it is not "in" life but outside of it. It is like Epicurus conclusion on death, Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not or to put it in slang, death aint sh!t to me, for when I am, it aint and when it is, I aint, why should I fear sh!t that does not exist when I do? This is why suicide philosophical or physical is not an option because to me it is trying to escape the one certain thing we have for something we don't. My answer to Life is "hell yeah!" Think about it.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Existentialism Part 2

I decided to research more the philosophy of Existentialism. I downloaded a book entitled : Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction by Thomas Flynn. According to the description of the book: "One of the leading philosophical movements of the 20th century, existentialism has had more impact on literature and the arts than any other school of thought. Focusing on the leading figures of existentialism, including Sartre, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, de Beauvoir, Merleau-Ponty and Camus, Thomas Flynn offers a concise account of existentialism, explaining the key themes of individuality, free will, and personal responsibility, which marked the movement as a way of life, not just a way of thinking. Flynn sets the philosophy of existentialism in context, from the early phenomenologists, to its rise in the 40s and 50s, and the connections with National Socialism, Communism, and Feminism. He identifies the original definition of "existentialism", which tends to be obscured by misappropriation, and highlights how the philosophy is still relevant in our world today." After I listen to the audiobook in regard to free-will, individuality, and personal responsibility, I asked myself: how does determinism, which is the philosophy that everything or events has prior causes, throw a wrench in the theory of existentialism? I found an answer on ask philosophers.com. The answer was even if determinism was true, existentialism would not be affected because existentialism is about the choices you make in life, whether the events were determined or random, you still have a choice to make, and even if you refuse to make a choice then a choice is still made and if you will accept the responsibility for that choice. I have a choice whether it’s determined or not, and I am responsible for my choices and this is what Jean-Paul Sartre meant when he said we are force to be free. Think about it...