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A man has to learn that he cannot command things, but that he can command himself; that he cannot coerce the wills of others, but that he can mold and master his own will: and things serve him who serves Truth; people seek guidance of him who is master of himself.
James Allen

You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you. – James Allen

Reflection.

I need to update. I hate getting on here and watching myself type out those words. I would like to practice self awareness, mindfulness, more often. My mind is a vegetable. Will return tomorrow with more interesting things to say. Procrastination at an all time high.

Review of Channel One, the Anti-Commercial Principle, and the Discontinuous Ethos By Harry Brighouse

            In his essay Channel One, the Anti-Commercial Principle, and the Discontinuous Ethos, Harry Brighouse addresses the issue of commercialization in schools. Contrary to popular discontent, Brighouse argues that it is not corporations, but school administrators that are doing something wrong when they allow commercialization into schools. From this premise he constructs supporting argumentation that calls the school ethos into question.

Brighouse explains that the Anti-Commercialization Principle is more deeply rooted in the principle that the ethos of the schools should be discontinuous from mainstream culture and home in order to promote the capacity for student autonomy. The Anti-Commercialization Principle resides in idea that students have a vested interest in becoming autonomous, self governing persons. Schools exist to foster students academic learning in a discontinuous environment, free from prevailing influences of mainstream culture and the home. Only under discontinuity can alternative ways of life be objectively examined and internally endorsed by students. This autonomy, necessary for identifying and practicing ways of life, is undermined by the commercialization of a school by invading the discontinuity offered by schools.

Brighouse repudiates the various arguments in favor of the bargain trade off by highlighting the politicization of funding that occurs when budget cut off advocates rely on corporations to fill certain resource needs, which leads to further promotion of commercialization. Brighouse also dismisses the notion that any cost-benefit analyses can be derived that would justify the commercial bargains due to the lack of the calculability of value factors like education forgone. Such factors cannot be feasible calculated since every moment in the classroom forgone is different than the next. In his last Analysis, Brighouse examines whether watching commercials contains a distinctive cost. He concludes that even the best most sound advertisements are inherently flawed and have no legitimate educational purpose. This is due to the very nature of advertisements that seeks to bypass rational thought in order to appeal to the desires and appetite.

Brighouse refrains from saying that commercial bargains can never be justified because such a prohibitive claims could never be legally framed. Additionally, this would cause us to overlook the general attitude of school administrations and the ethos of the school.  Lastly we says that while it is highly unlikely commercialization is ever permissible, there are extreme circumstances facing seriously underfunded schools that could possible benefit.

In order to understand the anti-commercialization principle, one needs to understand the purpose of education in the first place. According to Brighouse, school is a place where students seek refuge from prevailing influences in their lives in order to develop an autonomy that is required for raising a critical awareness. This critical awareness is essential for looking at influences objectively. Only when this happens are students able to make decisions as humans about their reality.

Generally speaking, social structures within a culture and society are concentrically reflected at all levels of relationships. The  values and beliefs within these structures are likewise reflected at each level, starting with the family and working its way up to the community, state, and federal level. InAmerica, patriarchal domination, consumerism, and notions of individualism are just some of the values that characterize these structures. While ideally school is a place to seek refuge from these structures, it is, dare say, impossible to separate school from its culture influences altogether. With this knowledge, then, administrators and citizens need to make decisions which influence and values it allows a school to share.

Since consumerism is a trademark of the American culture, and a reason for our burgeoning economic success, it is without wonder that the topic of commercialization is brought up. Commercialization is the out springing of this consumerism. However, it is in my opinion that consumerism is an ideal that is most damaging to our humanity. I posit that by allowing the commercialization into schools, we are essentially dehumanizing students by robbing them of the autonomous freedom necessary to raise a critical awareness.

The effect of losing this critical awareness is a student who passively accepts values and beliefs from trusted sources rather than objectively deriving them from their own experience. Of all the trusted sources of information—parents, media, news, teachers, government, and even peers—it is the teacher’s job to provide the student with the tools to seek beyond biases and objectively deduce their own values, and it is the classroom is where this happens. Despite any perceived benefits and tradeoffs, by allowing the commercialization of school, we are perpetuating the values and beliefs of our overall culture that consumerism and, most of all, the passive ingestion of pre-cognized information is healthy.

In addition to this violation to the process of raising a critical awareness, I argue that consumerism is not inherently healthy.  Materialism robs people of their autonomy and freedom by emphasizing the value of materialism and sends the message of the importance of ‘having’ which separates people as the ‘have’s’ and ‘have not’s’. This message devalues the unity of human relationships and casts a direct conflict to the autonomy and freedom of humanity.

As humans, we should see our fellow man not as what he has, but what he is. In this way we learn from each other and exercise our freedom to explore and transform dilemmas together. It is important for classrooms to be totally free of any prevailing cultural influence to the best of the school administrations ability. This means making sacrifices to technology and ‘tools’ that seemingly make life easier, but in reality sacrifice our humanity and critical awareness.

critical theory & cybernetics

interesting. will study.

Experiencing the Death of the Other is an experience that causes a massive reversal. The mind is not accustomed to fathom the permanence of death and the absence it introduces. Life and death are opposites that parallel white and black, full and empty, positive and negative, on and off. While we can objectively observe each of these phenomena and develop a metaphor delineating the nature of death, we can never experience death. Death is the end of experience, whereas life is the subjection to inescapable experience. What is death? When contemplating this question, our mind immediately grows stiff and our reason begins to voluntarily suspend.

The first real experience with death is when we encounter the Other. The clash of the subject object relationship creates a just relationship. While we desire to overcome this objectification, we simultaneously maintain a respect for the humanity that is mutually shared. When the Other dies, a piece of our humanity that is seen in him dies. This causes a crisis to our justification for being. We are helpless to objectify the Other and almost wish to be the subject of the Other again.

My first experience with death was when I was thirteen years old and my best friend committed suicide. The notion of Death pierced through the rational consciousness, forcing my puerile mind into an original reaction formation as an attempt to defend life through disbelief. His death was a threat to my life. It forced my mind to reestablish itself as living by considering what it meant to die

If one never contemplates death, one never confronts the reality of void. To live is to grow, flourish, think, reflect, act, feel, etc. These roughly encapsulate the metaphysics that the mental life contains. In this context life has forward momentum which makes room for hope. Hope is where our imaginative fantasies spawn to fill in the cracks of desperation, apprehension and angst that form when death appears.

Contemplating the consequences of death is analogous to holding your breath. We can willfully hold our breath until our bodies natural need for oxygen causes us to slip into unconsciousness. It is then our bodies natural processes take over to restore our condition. In the same way, death can only be contemplated for so long until our reason is suspended and is overrun by the innate processes that keep us living. It runs so contrary to human thought that our mind eventually manufactures delusions of fantastical after-lives in order to resume the ‘life’ is was designed to survive. The question of death is never resolved, however, but perpetually postponed. Currently, death is not something we need to confront on a regular basis. As long as the bodies are out of sight, we will never be forced to consider this void. Space is not the final frontier. Death is.

Thoughts are the material in which we construct the working frameworks of the mind. It is through thoughts that we maintain a state of being. But what are thoughts? Philosophers since antiquity have attributed language, or the logos, as the material of thought. Heidegger said “Language is the house of Being. In its home man dwells. Those who think and those who create with words are the guardians of this home.” Surely there is much more to thoughts that language.

Language is simply a vehicle for expression. While we think in thoughts, we have been habituated from birth to utilize language in order to express our thoughts containing needs and desires. As a child we had thoughts but could not communicate. Children must develop language in order to adapt socially for survival. If man were not social, what need would there be for language? Language would be a nonexistent concept since communication would be nonexistent. Would we be animals? The social component is what gave rise to language. From an evolutionary position, this capacity for language became a necessity for survival, thus gradually developing into the sophisticated language capacities we use today. Is there an a priori that guides language? It seems that this a priori is a formal relation in which thoughts exist. If we objectively look at words, we see that they offer no direction, no rhyme or reasonable order. These relations are cultural inheritances.

Are thoughts reducible? Even thoughts are reducible to sensations, drives and feelings. These sensations are purely subjective, and one in the same with the mind, fully constituting your state of being. It is only when these feelings can be objectified and stratified that we can functionally gain control of our internal world. The objectification of sensations is what leads to the rise of language. As we become conditioned to the various sensations from varying standpoints we form distinctions.

Thoughts are simply markers, or words, we use to distinguish sensations. The interrelation of these markers prompts the creation of new sensations and leads to the fabrication of new markers. This phenomenon is what Derrida wrote on in his essay On Positions.

Before I start, I want to openly confess my love for the nude. Yes. Clothes are over rated. And, if it wasn’t such a social stigma riddled with culpable reservations, or in some cases just illegal, I would divest myself without scruple, or at least whenever the urge commenced to flower. My room temperature hangs perpetually in the 80’s so that when chance would have these urges overcome me, there is not a moments hesitation as to what to do. After showers I find myself too lazy to get dressed so I simply lounge about languidly in my towel. Nude is my preferred state of being. Its liberating and, as long as the conditions are opportune, very comfortable. I’m sensitive to the cold… which is why I think winters best bear earthly semblance to purgatory, in all its excruciatingly dull and pallid glory.

This brings me to another point. I’m reading an essay written by Derrida called “Animal Philosophy”. The essay begins by introducing an anecdote where Derrida encounters the gaze of his cat whilst in the nude. This invoked feelings of shame in Derrida. But why? Animals cannot be nude. Nude is a ‘technic’, a construction revolving around the feelings of shame. These feelings are due to our vulnerability to objectification by the alterity– or otherness. But where doest this shame originate? How is it justified? Certainly the cat feels no shame, for it is not in the nude. (cont later)

Regarding my continental philosophy essay exam: I’m nervous about delving into the questions head first because the subjects of deconstructionism and reversals and the phenomenological method are a bit dispiriting. I’m not sure why I’m experiencing this anxiety really. Perhaps its because I’m a little behind on the readings, and catching up is like taking trying to hew solid steal before its been heated for malleability. The understanding is resistant to the forces of change so quickly. Swift reading will simply not extrapolate the opaque strata of text. No. It must be experienced. Vicariously. It is the only way to form ideas about questions like: Can we speak of morality after the failure morality? Of course, the question that Levinass’ poses is in regards to the face of alterity. The face of the Others. The face, only encountered with humans, is authoritative and loving, and commands a political justification, separate from primary ethic. It is wholly distinct from knowledge, is fundamental.

And so the story goes… I will write more later.

Review of Motivation by Ideal By J. David Velleman

            J. David’s essay Motivation by Ideal seeks to present an account of how ideals motivate people into action. In addition, he discusses how emulating rational ideals can lead us to conflicts and irrational action.

In the opening paragraph, Vellerman expounds on the traditional conception of moral motives stemming from a collective unified stream. Philosophers argue that to act contrary to this unified morality would lead to insane manifestations. He argues the need to explain the impulse of moral motive in the face of our obvious inclinations towards immorality.

Velleman’s main argument is that moral motivation can be isolated from other human motives because it is reinforced by the strength of an ideal, which people pretend to identify with to give them strength. Maintaining multiple ideals gives rise to irrational behavior due to divisions in motivation derived from the degree in which one identifies with an ideal.

The base of this argument is derived from Freud’s notion of the libido, or drive. It is this inner drive, when leaning on some specific motive, which motivates a person to achieve an ideal. The ideal itself is simply chosen by a person as a desired state of being. Behind this drive resides make beliefs, or fictional narratives, that serve to rationalize an action or circumstances as they relate to achieving this ideal. Velleman posits that behavior is make-believe and that we choose make-believe stories, or fictitious narratives and imaginings, in order to intelligibly justify an action towards an outcome.

Make-believe stories fueled by a drive and an imagining.  These beliefs function as instrumental motives for directing actions that lead us to a desired state.  Persons act and interpret actions within the context of these make beliefs, thereby living into the idea. As acts and circumstances are interpreted through make-belief, they serve to reinforce the reality of this belief. Eventually, the idea or desired state becomes reality as they continually emulate the ideal and therefore, ultimately embody that ideal so that it is no longer ‘mock-belief’. Essentially, imaginings allow us to intelligibly and reasonably justify our actions toward desires. We create and live into them through the force of our libido.

A person may defend their actions by emulating ideals that motivate and explain their actions. The justification: I am doing ‘this action’ because I am ‘this action’ relies on the Freudian drive theory to explain the ‘real’ reason for one’s energy and ability to perform an action. Velleman insists that actions do not lead us to end-outcomes, rather, they lead us to what we want.

The idea of creating fictitious beliefs to facilitate desires can also be generated by idealizing other people. This allows one to model behavior as a way to gradually adopt an accurate understanding story of an ideal.

However, he proposes that while it is rational to emulate and mirror ideals, it can lead us astray by leaving us susceptible to do irrational things.  Conflict occurs when competing desires and interests lead to the production of two stories, causing irrational action to occur.

Velleman posits that multiple personalities may be a result of the lines of distinction between ‘make-believe’ stories fading and the self conceptions operate without constraint as full blown delusions. ‘Getting carried away’ refers to the committal to a single story, temporarily forgetting the other story by devoting the mind to that particular fiction.  However, the notion of fully ‘buying into’ the imaginative narrative is the key to actualizing yourself because the fictitious story always leads to a natural conclusion.

Velleman’s account of ideals as motivation is provoking. At the heart of his thesis is an important idea that each person manifests according to one an adopted psychology. While this seems intuitive, there is incredible power behind this. Narratives are packaged experiences that provide content with specific context.  With words they form a plot that shapes and hews a perspective. The words in every narrative are unique to that specific context. Each word is distinct in place and time and kind. By changing ones narrative, one changes his psychology and effectively changes himself.

The worldview we maintain as we approach reality is simply a tapestry of interwoven narratives gathered from our personal experiences, as well as those we’ve adopted in order to supplement our existing worldview. I agree with Velleman that conflicts in narratives can lead to irrational behaviors. However, I think that personal growth is achieved when a narrative is manufactured that combines conflicting narratives. In this way a singularity is achieved that provides a better understanding of the world.

Busy. As usual. But I don’t need to write about it. Delineating my woes and weariness won’t improve my condition. Nor will it inspire my spirits or release the tension. It will exacerbate my tolerance, however, making it harder to endure.
ok I’ll stop now.

So. Brief update. Life has been busy. shoot. I said it. Its unavoidable. My mind is a flurry. My ADHD, or however you’d like to describe my desultory behaviors, has increased in severity. If one followed me for a day, they’d think I was a manic the way I switch tasks every 30 sec-5 min. Going from homework, to emails, to studying something else, to organizing this, to food, to cleaning, etc. I seriously need to get a handle on it. It all makes me dizzy… and inefficient. And I cannot afford inefficiency in my life.

Anyway.
I went to Mardi Gras. Anyone who hasn’t been there should go. its outrageous. So many parades… bars. Drinking. Debauchery. I had a threesome-ish. Borderline fivesome. Not sure how I feel about that. A few years ago I woulda felt guilty… probably wouldn’t have even went through with it. At this point in my life I have this mentality that involves working hard, making sacrifices now for rewards later, while allowing pleasurable indulgences whenever you can afford it. The catch is that these pleasures should not interfere or hinder your progress. That means, drugs are usually not a good idea. Ever, really. Unless in scintilla doses or on the rarest occasion. Partying for me is all good as long as its not habitual, or if it is, it does not violate progress. (Apart of progress is having respectable goals. High lofty and challenging. Something that requires you to dig and become something greater. Anything less is a complete disrespect for yourself)
Continue reading “Ménage à trois & Mardi Gras.”

“Boredom is the root of all evil – the despairing refusal to be oneself.”
— Søren Kierkegaard

“Idleness, we are accustomed to say, is the root of all evil. To prevent this evil, work is recommended…. Idleness as such is by no means a root of evil; on the contrary, it is truly a divine life, if one is not bored….”
— Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: A Fragment of Life)

–> soul <—

You become what you think about.

If you can fathom the power of that concept, all that is left for you to do is decide who you want to become: Then the world is yours.

Read the book: “As a Man Thinketh” by James Allen. I am not speaking lightly when I say that we think our life into being. If you control what you put into your head, and decide what you put out, you will be the master of your destiny, the captain of your fate. You are the sum of all your thoughts- all the influences you acknowledge, knowingly or unknowingly. We are creatures of habit, in thought and action. Take control of your thoughts and you will control your life. Weed out the bad habits, the negative thoughts that strangle the good you seek to do. Plant thoughts that will lead you to your ideal life. Use discipline dwell on your thoughts and goals and plans as often as possible. Soon your thoughts and actions will become habit, and habit will in turn lead to a renewed character and a new life with new ease. We are what we think about all day long.

Where do these thoughts come from? Read the books written by the most successful of people and glean the thoughts that they held captive in their minds. They write books and are always eager to share their secrets, and yet there are so few that listen.

I have so much to say on this topic because it changed my life. thoughts are so powerful. So quiet and fleeting, yet they hold the key to this world man has constructed. it all began with thoughts.

I wanna journal more!

Its late… i’ve been getting 4-5 hours of sleep a night.

I’m taking 20th century continental philosophy. Pretty sure my professor is a lil crazy… or genius. I haven’t figured out which one.

We’re studying ‘reversals’. Thats right. It doesn’t mean anything to anyone at first… then you begin reading excerpts from Heidegger, Sartre, Derrida, Nietzsche, Levinaas, and a lil glimmer of this ‘reversal’ makes sense. just a lil.

Why do I say he’s crazy? Well… I could type out his anecdotes about driving down rural roads… glancing at barns… seeing tiered roofs… and having epiphanies where he realizes that he is not… only that he is…. which leads to the world glowing, or illuminating, so to speak, with new depth. We are not objects, we are processes. These words do no accurately describe this phase. That is what we are studying.

alright… so that doesn’t make much sense. I know. But in class tuesday he had purple mother of pearl nail paint on. That’s right. I could barely pay attention to the lecture.

So anyway… what we’re discussing in class is this ‘reversal’ that occurs when we try approaching the essence of ‘things’. Not just by words, which are tainted by inherited meaning and this whole subject-object relationship. The question: “what is a thing?” is central to our discussion. He tried illustrating this reversal by introducing the story of Copernicus. Prior to his theory, man was the center of everything. In many ways, we still think we are. Its so natural. There is us, then there is a world which revolves around us. Makes sense to think that the planets and sun revolve around us. But Copernicus introduced the idea that we revolve around the sun. Now that was unheard of… totally out of everything in our reality of the time… it took a massive ‘reversal’, a violent overturning of hierarchal meanings, in order to come up with such a theory.

That was one example. We are exploring this ‘phase’ that occurs when the ‘reversal’ takes place… when we crawl out of our conscious and subconscious framework that we employ to make sense of the world. We are trapped by it… and only when we throw it away, and totally ‘reverse’ the nature of these things, can we explore ‘things’ and their essence or nature, if thats what you can call it. See… even when I say essence or nature I create a fabricated metaphor used to replace the real meaning of what I’m trying to convey. I cannot possible know the audiences understanding of essence or metaphor, and if I did, it would still be constrained to their experiences with the words.

We use words to describe other words. Language is inadequate at getting to the bottom of what a ‘thing’ is because it never grasps a thing. It only introduces more words with more meanings in order to clarify the ‘thing’.

Anyway… this is along the lines of what I’ve gathered so far. It took like 4 classes before I had a clue what the hell we were talking about. Mostly because when I asked what we were trying to get at, he would say ‘nothing’. And I was like… oh. He said… “what is ‘nothing’? When we say there is a ‘thing’, and there is ‘nothing’, what do mean by ‘nothing’? You cannot make progress at understanding ‘nothing’. There is no where to get to.”

anyway… that’s along the lines… I don’t speak as eloquently… or rhetorically as Dr. David Wood does… but oh well. I’ll share my commentary on these new ideas as they come to me… or as time permits.

so late. night.

My friend Leslie just received a phone call from Harvard Law School explaining that they have a spot for her. She got into Harvard Law.

That being said, she has a 3.9, speaks French fluently, studied abroad at Sciences Po in Paris, interned in Paris at the American embassy for two summers, was one of 25 finalist for the Rhodes Scholarship, as well as the Marshall Scholarship, etc. Not surprising I suppose.

I wanna go to Harvard Law School… *stomps feet*

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.

John Quincy Adams:

*********

I miss writing. I watched a seminar about this Chinese guy who overcame amazing feats. Feats involving no education from 14 years of age to his young adulthood… who went on to immigrate to America, get a Phd from MIT in laser physics and a MD from Harvard. He now is a world reknown eye surgeon whos developed ground breaking sight restoring transplants… for people with no eyeballs. His list of accomplishments is incredible (Dr. Ming Wang). He spoke on time management, time dilation, and using the most of the most precious and finite commodity that any lifetime possesses: time.

I want to become more of a person. I want to grow into my potential more fully. I want to focus on my goals, let my passions and drives take over, and blaze remarkable new successes for myself. No challenge is too great. With every challenge I shed the weight of weakness and allow success to become more apart of me.

I desire this. I want to change. I am dissatisfied with my lackadaisical attitude toward my current preoccupations. I need steadfast resolve that will lift my spirit with every waking moment and transport me into a perpetual moment of progress.

I sometimes forget to go to sleep. Other times I forget to wake up. But I always remember to dream.

Friend: on my way to become the oiled cog in the wheel of capitalism.

Me: Lol.. You make it sound like such a static and lifeless endeavor. Reimagine your role as an irreplaceable organism in an intricate ecosystem that depends on your contributions to thrive. But your not just any organism. You’re a super mutant that is constantly evolving to satisfy the evergrowing demands of the ecology as a whole. As you evolve, the system becomes increasingly dependent on your contributions, increasing your value as an organism, and compensating you with more demand. Your evolution is hinged on your efforts to grow and actualize yourself as an organism. You have the potential to play a vital role in the system as a whole. This is a much more dynamic outlook.

Friend: im going to tattoo that on my arm.

A cute girl with a shy laugh

Never forfeit understanding for security.

The purpose of education should teach us to teach ourselves.