Letter to the Prospective Philosophy Student

I honestly didn’t know what to really expect when I signed up for my Philosophy class. I guess I kind of expected it to be just like any another literature class; the only difference was that it would mostly consist of seniors. Well now I’ve obviously realized that in order to really enjoy a philosophy class you have to be ready to hear new and radical ideas. You should also be able to be an active participant in discussions which is something I definitely should have done more but I guess I’m more of a listener in class anyways since I feel more comfortable when I’m only with a small group of people. But overall I did like philosophy even though I still have like a lot of stuff to turn in but I will get to it…it’s just that procrastination makes you do dumb stuff like procrastinating and all. But yeah if you want to realize what life is and how other people see it then take philosophy! And have fun! J

Thoughts About Earlier Thinking

This topic is perfect for today because it’s my birthday and so I spent awhile thinking about the younger me I guess you could say. I thought about how much I’ve changed and how much a lot has changed and it’s like that Panic! At the Disco song that goes, “Things have changed for me and that’s okay” and well I don’t agree with the next verse that goes “I feel the same” well because I don’t feel the same; I’m not the same person I was when I was little. The way I think and see things now has changed a lot from when I started high school and I’m grateful that I’ve been able to open my eyes to all these new topics that I never gave much thought to before. Philosophy has helped me with this too. I mean I would have probably eventually gotten to thinking about things like the meaning and definition of sanity, society, status, morals, etc. but I’m glad I was given a class period a day to actually really think about it and form my own opinions on them even though I don’t really voice them a lot except to my close friends. One thing that I really started changing my mind on was friendship…like I was starting to really doubt what it was and exactly how to define who my friends really were. I try talking to people and I mean does constant communication really mean friendship? And a great example was today. Like I talk to so many people on a daily basis and I create this illusions I guess of what they mean to me and what label I should give them and it kind of started getting to the point where I jumbled up all these labels and I couldn’t differentiate who was who anymore if that makes any sense. It was kind of scary but more upsetting to me that I couldn’t really define what each person meant to me anymore because I started overanalyzing what everything was. I have to admit that today started out sticky and just not good but at the end of the day I can say I really did enjoy my day. The person that I was starting to doubt more and more everyday showed me that I needed to stop being an over thinker because I can honestly say I’ve had the same best friend for the past 7 years. Seven freaking years. That shows you that while the whole world may be falling down, some things can stay the same. I guess the point I’m trying to get to is that today I finally realized that everything is okay. Things get messy and things will always continue changing cause that’s the whole point of life and progress and time and everything and as long as I know that my family and best friends are there with me then I’ll be okay. This is super long and sorry if you actually took the time to read ALL of this because well to be honest I was finally just letting everything out which I think is what you wanted Mr. McCarthy even though it doesn’t make much sense…but oh well I tried at least.

Surrounded by Cuckoos, but I was the crazy one

If you’re surrounded by cuckoos but you’re considered to be the crazy one then that just means that normalcy is something based off the majority. I think we’ve discussed this in class because it seems familiar but pretty much our society’s standards of normal is whatever is being seen done by the majority of the people. Like if I were in some country where everyone eats meat and I decide that I don’t eat meat then people are going to look at me as if I were crazy because well I am since normalcy is something completely and totally subjective. So based off the title, you’re pretty much crazy if you go against what everyone else believes or whatever they’re doing. I’ve never really had this type of experience like I mean there’s been times where I’ve felt that I have a completely different belief from everyone else I was discussing it to and then it felt pretty awkward and weird for me but on the most part we agree to disagree and don’t resort to accusing each other being cuckoo or something. And sometimes being cuckoo is fine because being normal all the time does get boring. You just have to sometimes spice things up a little and get outside of the box because honestly if no one ever left the box then a lot of awesome discoveries and developments wouldn’t be part of our society today. If you research famous and legendary scientists, inventors, or philosophers you’ll be pretty amused at how many of them were considered as weirdos in their time.

Together

Being together is something good for the most part. A lot of times when people ask if two people are together, they’re usually referring to it in a romantic way. A lot of times though people don’t know when to balance things out with the person they’re together with and end up ruining all of the togetherness. Like for example, usually when a couple falls in love or they become infatuated, whichever term you like better, they seem to think that the best idea is stay together all the time because they feel that they are better together than not together. Then once they spend like a bajillion years together, well for high school couples it’s more like a couple of months if not weeks, they realize that they are tired of being together and decide they’d rather be alone. It seems to be that being alone is always like step one and together is step two and alone is once again step three/step one which I guess it could be either one cause it’s kind of like this circle. Oh wow like the circle of life! Yup, that’s exactly what I mean. So what I’m trying to say is usually things don’t end up together if they spend too much time together.

Alone

 Every time someone talks about being alone, they seem to always associate it with loneliness or sadness or something bad like that. Personally for me though, I think being alone is something good as long as it’s not on a daily basis cause then that does lead to loneliness. On the most part, whenever I want to be alone it’s because I just went through something super exhausting whether it be something physical, mental, or emotional. It’s also kind of nice to be alone when you’re tired of everything…not in some sort of emo way though, more in a just like want to take a break from the world kind of way. Being alone also gives me some time to just think some things over that I would have never given thought to if it weren’t for me being by myself. Thinking and reflecting is something everyone should spend some time doing in their lives because it gives their actions and I guess overall life some sort of meaning. Many people don’t realize how important it is to just take a breather every once in a while and let in everything that just happened, instead they just go on running through their whole lives without giving many important things a second thought.