Solitude

I have never had the opportunity to enjoy pure solitude. I live in a house with 7 other people: my grandma, aunt, cousin, two brothers and my parents. Not to mention our dog. Any silence in my house is very rare and very brief. I have my own room, but with a lock that my 8 year old brother can open in two seconds it's safe to say that I have no privacy either. With my grandmother being home almost 100% of the time I never have a moment of peace. In my house doing anything that involves focusing is hard. I can only focus and do homework in school in the library where it is quiet. As I'm writing this now all I hear is my grandmother yelling, as usual.

Imagining what I would do with even a couple of hours of solitude is hard to say. I would probably focus on my writing. I never have the time or space to actually sit down and write so I think if I was able to get away from everything and focus for a while would be great.

Or maybe I would work on editing my photos since I have gotten behind on them since school has started. With my schedule and course load I don't even have time to sleep. Right now would be the perfect time to have a weekend when I can just relax and work on what's important to me in peace.

I know this means something...

Music. Possibily the most real and important thing in my life. When life is too difficult and stressful I am able to turn on my Ipod and drown out all of that. Music has been able to help me through the toughest times and motivate me. I am also able to use music as a good study mechanism because it I listen to my Ipod as I read or look over my notes then I am able to think about that song and cross supply the notes that I were reading as I did it.
I found it interesting in class when we discussed how some people do not consider music as important although it is all around us. I think that EVERY person in their life has listened to music at one time or another and genuinely appreciated it. I love the fact that there are songs and genres of music that can speak to every person.
Some of my favorite quotes about music:
When words fail, music speaks
--Anonymous

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. --Plato

I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me-like food or water. --Ray Charles

A direction the class needs

I think that the class is going well so far. I think that in our class we have a couple of primary people that always comments on the discussion while others typically do not talk unless they are called on or really had something to say (me being one of those people). I consider myself to be more of a listener and everyday I leave the class feeling as though I have learned something new and insightful. As a senior in school I am more concerned with simply graduating than other classes, but everyday I look forward to coming to philosophy class and learning new concepts and ways of thinking. I have met and learned so much about people that I never would have met outside of this class.

Thankful for a Classmate

A classmate that I am thankful for would have to be Artem. I am thankful for him because in this class I have been able to learn several new concepts and ways of thinking from him. Through him I have discovered several characteristics that I have never seen in one person. I have found someone that is truly against the system and current world that we live in and for that I am truly in awe. I have gotten to see a personality that I would have never seen had I not taken this class and therefore I am grateful for this class and all of my fellow peers.

Who are Camus and Voltaire voting for?

I think that Voltaire would be voting for Barack Obama because he expects the democrats to bring more change than the republicans, when having to choose between the two major parties. However, I think that Voltaire would not completely agree with either the democrats or the republicans because he is very adamant about his opinions. I think that Voltaire would most likely go for the libertarians or another third party candidate that agreed with all of his opinions or instead form his own party. I think that Voltaire would not just consider himself limited to the two major political parties but would instead look at the other options.
            I think that Camus wouldn’t vote at all. I think that his outlook on life would shape the ideal that voting is essentially unnecessary seeing as how it won’t change anything. I think that Camus is more concerned about living life in a seemingly unnoticed manner. I think that he would not bother himself with the worries of who will be running our country but he would instead wonder why we consider ourselves a democracy when we choose one leader. Camus would not bother himself with the petty social norms of everyday life and simply go on with his life.

Our Stranger Meaning

Our stranger meaning... I don't know how to go about writing about this so I will simply explain what I think my life means. I think that my life has become pretty meaningless and robotic in a way. I go through the same rituals every day; I wake up at 5am, get ready for school and leave home at 6:45 the I make my way to Whitney young where I go to my locker in red house then to the tech center to work on college scholarships then I head off to my first class: guitar. Everything is routine and ultimately going to get me to my greater purpose in life but right now it everything done on my day-to-day basis seems mundane and unimportant. I would have to motivate myself to believe that I have a greater purpose in life and that is what will get me to complete my goals.

Candide's Punishments, Do They Fit the Crime?

No I do not think that Candide’s punishments fit the crime. He was thrown out of the castle he lived in because his family is not as noble as the baron’s family and therefore he shouldn’t be allowed to marry Cunegonde. I think that exiling Candide from the castle was meant to prove to everyone that the baron would not accept anyone else getting involved in his family. I think that most of the crimes given in this book were meant to teach a lesson to others that those crimes and anything of the sorts are not allowed in the society that they lived in at the time. Candide was unfortunate enough to be the example, so to speak, in order to show everyone that any act of disobedience can and will be punished to the extreme. So far in the novel Candide has constantly been punished extremely over little things that happened. Another punishment was the hanging of Pangloss in order to stop natural evil which was unnecessary and useless.

How do I know what I know?

Most people base their knowledge over how many years of schooling they have or what classes they have taken. While a good part of our knowledge is school based, what is the other part? Until now I never had to question how I know what I know. I never gave much thought to it because who questions what they already know. Now, since I’ve already had to take a hard look at my life so far then I might as well begin to wonder how I’ve gained the vast knowledge that I possess. Unfortunately explaining everything would take approximately 1.2 million days so I’m going to narrow it down. Religion. I am now a believer in blind faith and therefore I find it hard to believe that God is present. I consider myself a logical thinker in the fact that this world was not created by one man. One man did not give the world such great diversity and problems only to spend his days consoling lost souls, solving others problems and watching every person. As a child you are told what your religion is, there is no choice. The same happened with your parents most likely. You grow up reading the bible and going to worships your god and you learn not to question it because as a child God is seen as the almighty that no one dares to question. So who can really explain how they know what they know. To me “religion” is a word. The same as “death” and “life.” Why base our lives off of words.

The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living and the Modern Gadfly

Yes, I think that an unexamined life is not worth living although that is not considered a popular opinion by many. I think the reason for people not liking this expression ties into the paradox that “Americans love change, but hate to be changed.” And when you examine your own life you will realize that you do want to change things about yourself which can scare people. I think that people should be open to change of all kind whether or not it is good because change is constant and can rarely be stopped. I have examined my life and found some things that I did not like and tried to change them, but I believe that I still have a long way to go and a lot to learn in life. However, I do think that everyone is capable to self-examination, but so much resistance and animosity exists in today’s society that we are unwilling to do that. Most of our curiosity and questions are shown as we are young, but then we are taught how to “behave” and we lose that. In grade school we are sort of shown that the teachers know everything and we should not question them. Therefore we believe what they tell us, especially as children, and our teachers are made to be forms of role models to us and we are supposed to learn, respect and listen to them. So if they tell us that 2+2=4 then we believe it and we do not question why because according to them it makes sense. When children ask their parents certain questions then are either brushed aside or lied to. Therefore we grow up with unanswered questions that eventually lead us to forgetting about them or never wanting to ask them again in the anticipation that we will not get an answer. As most people probably believe I do not think that there can be another person quite like Socrates as his uniqueness and knowledge is immeasurable. I do think that as of today any one seen as even attempting to challenge the ideals and the elites in the world will be seen as crazy and will be ostracized. The only example that I could think of as a modern day gadfly would be Ron Paul in a way. I think this because he challenged the republicans and did not conform to how they wanted him to be. He never lost his own thoughts and views in his attempt to run for presidency. While he did not try the method that Socrates did I think he did make some sort of impact on the nation and garnered some supporters for his way of thinking.

Eulogy

Good Afternoon everyone, we are gathered here to celebrate the life of someone truly special. Aleta achieved many wonderful things in her life and I’m sure would’ve done plenty more. She was a member of the National Society of High School Scholars (NSHSS), she had her biography published in Who’s Who’s, and she maintained excellence grades at one of the top high schools in the country. The road wasn’t always easy for her as she faced her fair share of obstacles in her life, but she always found a way to handle any situation thrown at her with grace and a keen sense of humor. She planned to attend the University of Illinois at Chicago and planned to double major in Pharmacy and Marketing. At 17 years old she had the next ten years of her life planned out, she said that her main goal in life was to make her parents proud. She was the type of person that always saw the glass as half empty, which motivated her to ‘fill it up.’ She always told herself that she could do whatever she wanted and with that she decided to join the debate team, scholastic bowl and band in her first years of high school. She loved to help people; this is what motivated her in choosing to Pharmacy as her career. While in school she volunteered at her local hospital and was an important member of her 8^th grade graduating class as a member of student council. She will forever be missed and loved by her family, friends and everyone who’s life this young lady was able to touch.