Changing the Present to Change the Future

Friedrich Nietzsche says that the unexamined life is not worth living, the complete opposite of what every philosopher has said that we have read this semester. But Nietzsche takes a new stand on it and I think that I really agree with him. If you are always examining your life or planning for your life then you can’t really live your life and that is what he wants.

My whole life I have been thinking about the future. What I was going to do in High School, what I was going to major in at college, what college I was going to go to, how I was going to pay for it, I was living in a future that did not exist and examining my life to have every detail planned out. Well over the 5 year journey that I can call my college career, I can tell you that I never expected it to turn out like this. I started my journey thinking that I was going to major in Political Science, no Biology, no Dance, no History, as you can see there was already changes being made. I started off at a Junior college, which I would recommend to anyone. Then I began looking at what University I would go to, I was planning A&M, but that soon changed to Sam Houston State University. It was there that I met my best friend in the whole world, we have been through everything together and are still there for each other. I spent two years there and then decided to change schools to finish up, so I transferred to HBU. My two years here have been challenging, forgiving, amazing, and unplanned. I have me people here that I love to hang out with and I would have never met if I had stuck to my plan. I am graduating in just over 3 weeks and leaving behind a part of my life.

Everyone keeps asking me what I am planning on doing after graduation and I tell everyone the same thing…I have no idea. I am going to be traveling for a while and I am excited about that. Life right now is unplanned for after December 18, the only thing that is planned is a flight on December 27. But other than that what is in the cards for me, I don’t know and I am ok with that. School has taught me that there needs to be some planning in life but you must live room for flexibility. Things are always changing and they never stay the same.

I wanted to add a quote in here that I think Nietzsche would have agreed with… “You can’t change the past, so look forward or risk being left behind.” Nietzsche wants you to live life and enjoy it, not think about what you can do to change it or make it better. The past is gone, the future has not arrived yet, the present is here live in it or you truly will be left behind. If you get so stuck in the plans you make for the future then you do get stuck in the past, because it is a plan made it the past without future input. Live in the moment because you never know when it will be your last.

A Change to the Old Way

In Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, he begins by talking about all of the great philosophers that came before him. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and so on but he does something that none of the others do, he states that they were all wrong with their views of philosophy and of life. This one statement could have an impact that would change everything that we know about philosophy.

Nietzsche begins by saying “ In every age the wisest have passed the identical judgement on life: it is worthless…” (39) For all the philosophers that we have read up until this point they all believe that an unexamined life is not worth living, but for Nietzsche he is saying that if you need to put a reason or find a reason that makes life worth living then it is not worth living.  He goes on to quote Socrates about life, when he said that a long life is like a long sickness and death brings healing. But is this really the case with life, is it a sickness that we are looking to be healed from or is it the search for something else altogether.

As Christians we believe that this life is the short term part and that the life that we are looking forward to afterwards is our healing but is it our healing from this life or our healing from sin. When you accept Christ into your life you are healed there is no more healing, you are free from the burden of this life. Socrates believed that the only way you can do philosophy is to free yourself from the body and ignore bodily pleasures, well my thought would be if we are to really free ourselves from our bodies in order to find truth then why would God tell us when Jesus came back to Earth to set up his Earthly kingdom that he would raise our bodies even in death to met him in the air. If we are to live apart from our bodies then why would Christ put us back in them after he has come. I think that this is where I agree with Nietzsche, you can’t deny the desires of your body because you were created with in the image of God. But that is not to say that there are not restrictions on how you should react to them.

Nietzsche says that some of the things that they said were wrong are still wrong but for slightly different reasons. Lying is still wrong but because we are to be noble. We are not to plainly ignore ourselves because it would slowly eat away at who we are or who we are meant to be. He called it decadent, a word that is used normally to describe dessert but this time it would have a negative meaning. When he is using it he is meaning to decay, he is inferring to the decay of the spirit and morality.  So to deny ones self of who you are is to slowly let who you are fade away and disappear.

An Odd Occurrence

The difference between Berkeley and Descartes is very small but they are on opposite sides of the spectrum.  Berkeley knows that thoughts make you real and that the ideas that you have are real, but it is the idea of absolute existence that the two separate on. The movie the Matrix can be used to help describe Berkeley’s idea also as I used it to describe Descartes.

To refresh your memory, The Matrix is about the human race being enslaved by machines in order for the machines to have the energy to survive. Neo is a computer programmer by day and a hacker by night, knowing that there is something wrong with the world around him. Being offered the truth or to wake up with no memory of what is going on, he chooses to know the truth and see where it takes him. Neo then learns how to control the Matrix and defeat the computer programs that are in charge of maintaining the whole system.

Neo is faced with the choice of not only what is the truth but also if he wants to believe everything and in something. He is told that he is the One, the one that will save them all. So this idea that reality is not what he thought it is and that he is the one that will change it all, that there is something beyond all of it, is something that he struggles with for three movies.

He knows that there has to be something greater than him that is moving everything and is in control of everything. At the end of the third movie he meets the Father and the whole thing is explained to him and understanding comes to his mind. There is also this weird connection to Christianity that you can see through all of this, Neo must give his life in order to save everyone’s lives, those still living within the Matrix and those that are living out of the Matrix.  This is as Christ gave his life to save all humans, no matter what they have done or will do. It is for the greater good.  Although Neo has been told what he needs to do and what he will do, he still struggles with it and struggles with the world around him.

Through this you can see that there is nothing that is apart from the creator, the one who created the Matrix and ensures the survival of it and of the machines. Nothing is outside of his control in the Matrix and he can change it at will, just by an idea. Neo soon learns that he is part of the master plan, he cannot do anything about it or change it, and he must accept it.

Berkeley believes that reality is rooted in ideas, as long as you have ideas you are able to be involved in reality. Neo is actively involved with the world around him, both the real world and the world of the Matrix, his ideas are affecting both and his actions are affecting both.

Help From A Friend

At the beginning of Berkeley’s First Dialogue, Hylas is traveling through a garden thinking when Philonous meets up with him interrupting his thoughts. Hylas states that his thoughts are better when he has a friend to talk them over with. Someone, who he can ask questions of and can make sure that he is making sense and that so that friend can input his ideas when Hylas didn’t have information.

Sometimes when we are in need of someone to talk to, it is not always for their input but rather just to have someone that is willing to listen. That is what a friend is for when you are in search of some understanding, a need for talking it through. When you want someone who can just listen and nod their heads you find your own answer, the one that you know that was there from the beginning and you know is the right one. That is what a friend is there for and that to me is what Phionous is doing for Hylas at the beginning of the Dialogue. Once Hylas knows that he has a friend that is willing to listen he is able to go into what he was thinking and is able to just talk it out, that is the beauty of this friendship.

Once the Hylas knows that Phionous is there to listen and help him with the thoughts that he had the true conversation begins and they are able to have a very deep conversation.

In life friends are a very important thing to have, you have the friend that you can call and just talk to, the friend that you want to have around when you are sad because they can cheer you up, and then the friend that you want to sit down with and have a meaningful conversation. This is the friend that Phionous is for Hylas, a friend that will not judge him for what he is thinking or what he feels about the topic, he is a true friend. This is what people want a friend to be able to talk to about anything and not worry about them thinking less of them. A friend like this is a friend for life, someone who will stand by you, someone who will always want you to find your way, that is what a true friend is.

It is always important to have a friend to talk to no matter what event you are going through in life. Even if by the end of the conversation you are in disagreement you know that you will walk away with a friend and that is the most important part. A friend who is a friend through all walks of your life and is always there for you is the most important part of a friendship and what is always remembered about a friendship.

The Matrix and Descartes

The Matrix was a very popular movie, one that started a trilogy.  But if you look closely at the movie you will see that the ideas behind it are supported by Descartes.

The movie is about this computer programmer, Thomas Anderson, but by night he is a hacker known only as Neo. Neo has always questioned the world around him but the truth he is seeking is far beyond his imagination. After being contacted by Morpheus, a legendary computer hacker, he finds himself being targeted by the police. Morpheus then gives Neo the chance to learn the truth thus waking him up to the real world. Everything that he has ever known is a lie. He then learns the history of the real world, knowing that the waste land that earth has become is all due to the human race being captured by a race of machines which live off the energy of the human body and their minds are imprisoned in an artificial reality known as the Matrix. Neo must return to the Matrix to fight against the computer programs that are there to ensure the safety of the machines and the continuation of the Matrix.

This is similar to Descartes theory of the mind being imprisoned by a demon who is tricking you into believing everything that is around you. The thing that helped Neo know that something wasn’t right was the fact that he was thinking something was off that the world around him was not really there and that it was all in fact a dream., a dream that he could not wake up from and a dream that he did not remember entering. Once Neo enters into the real world he must slowly being to rebuild everything that he has known, the only thing that he knows for sure is the fact that everything that he has thought is the only thing that is real.  Descartes is the one that said, “I think therefore I am,” this is the idea that Neo is really holding on to.

The other similarity that you find between the Matrix and Descartes is when he says that a demon is trying to trick you into believing something is real when it is not, he is trying to get you to believe something is real when in reality it is not.  So when you find that one building stone is false instead of trying to go through and see which ones you know to be true, you destroy the whole house and begin by building a new foundation one that is based on reason and not the senses. This is what Neo does everything that he knew he knew from his sense and once the foundation was shaken he throw it all away and began again. Everything that he learns from then on is based on the reason from those around him and from his own reason. There are still things along the way that he simply must accept even though every ounce of his reason is telling him not to but there are some things in life that you must simply accept as truth and no amount of reason can really prove it.

A known Destination but an unknown Journey

In Descartes, “Meditations of First Philosophy” he does things a little different than the philosophers we have ready earlier.  He begins by asking the theologians at the Sorbonne university to support him. A little background on the reason why would be this, this is shortly after Galileo was put to death because his beliefs went against the Catholic Church and Descartes was trying to avoid a similar experience so he was telling them why he was writing it and why he wanted their support.

Descartes then goes on to explain to the reads why he is writing the book, this is different from the other philosophers because they didn’t want to tell you what to get out of their writings they wanted you to think along the way and figure it out for your self. Descartes tells you what he wants to do and it is in the meditations that he explains why he is doing it and the evidence he has to support it. Descartes wants to be able to prove that God and the soul exist through reason and without using the Bible. As believers we know that God exist and can use the Bible to better know the things that he scarified for us, but to nonbelievers it is a book of stories that doesn’t prove the existence of God. Descartes wants to be able to use reason to show that there is no doubt in the existence of God.

He starts in the first chapter by explain why he is doing this, he has found falsehood in a large amount of ideas so he wants to ensure that everything he believes in is true. He does the only thing he knows that he knows he can do and just throws it all out, wanting to build it back up with reason as his foundation and not his senses. So he begins to rebuild.

I love this idea that he tells the readers why he is writing this book and even tells the goals that he is hoping to achieve, this is very different from the other philosophers. I believe that this is a more effective way of writing because you know what to look for you see where he is coming from and where he is going, but it is still a journey along the way. Even though you know what he is working towards you do not know how he is going to get there.

The idea of throwing everything that you have learned your whole life out and starting again is something that everyone does or thinks about at some point in their life. Most of the time it is when you reach college and you are away from your parents, you have a chance to learn what you see as truth and a chance to learn who you are. There are many things in life that you will always question but Descartes theory on making them based on reason and not senses will help keep a strong foundation. Life is a journey not a destination, although you know what the destination is, that is what Descartes is showing us even though we know the destination the journey is still worth it.

The motion of Life

Thomas Aquinas in Summa Theologiae states that life is divided into two divisions; the active and the contemplative. Aquinas uses a man sitting and contemplating something as the example of this division, but I see it as combining the two.  No matter what a human is doing they are always in motion and never truly still while they are living.  A human even one that is sitting and thinking about life is still in motion because you could never sit still long enough to not be in motion.

In order for a living thing to exist it must be living, a concept that everyone would agree with. It has always been said that if you are not learning (thinking) then you are dead. I really see that point in this reading. As long as you are always learning then you are in motion and active in life.  The reason why so many people see life as always learning is because you are always coming into contact with new things that make you think or simply add to your knowledge.  You can never know everything our brains are simply not meant to care that much knowledge.

One of the arguments that Aquinas presents is the fact that intelligent and human life are separate, but are they really. As I stated above you must be learning through out life and continue learning even until death. Life is all about the things that you learn and the experiences that you have along the way, you learn from them.  Life is always a thing that stays in motion in the 23 years that I have been living I have never known life m=to be still. Sometimes it seems that life does when you think of something that just seemed to go in slow motion but it really doesn’t even slow down it is all in how our minds process it.  Some events are so tragic or impact us so much that our mind just slows down the event so that it can completely process it.

The word life implies motion, which is what I have been stating through out this whole post. Where life is continuously moving and never still. Where you are sitting down learning or running and thinking you are always in motion, even when you are sleeping. Life is a continuing adventure that has to always be moving and never still.  That is truly how I see things, even if you feel as if your life is quiet for a moment something is happening outside of it that will affect your life and have an impact on you.

There are many different ways that you can be in motion, your body is always moving because the human body was no meant to be still and then you mind always thinking or processing what you are feeling, touching, seeing, or simply thinking.  So life cannot be separated into two divisions because you can’t have one without the other, they move together in harmony. One affects the other and can be seen that way.

A Lesson Learned

There is always something in life that when you do it seems like the right choice but then once you have grown and you look back on that choice you see that it was the wrong thing to do. Life always seems to get away from people and they can’t seem to truly find their way back to who they want to be.  A poem that my cousin wrote truly states this concept.

Do you ever sit and wonder who you are? Do you wonder why you do the things that you do, is it destiny or fate, is it Gods work…or is it all YOU… Can you really help the way that you are, or the way that you feel…Is one lifetime really long enough to find all the answers, to discover who you really are deep down to the core. Can one person HONESTLY say “I know who I am” I mean how can you…each situation, each experience has to have some affect on you, has to change you in some way…does that change who you are. Sometimes I think I know who I am, I know the type of person that I am, or that I want to be. But things change, people change, they move, they die, they leave you…Sometimes you leave yourself. I’ve taken a few vacations from myself before…at times I often wonder if I left a piece of myself behind…like when we leave a favorite shirt at some hotel at some vacation spot and you know it is gone forever. I try to envision the future, try to see where I will be only 5 short years from now…I try not to look TOO far off…and you know what, I don’t even know where I will be then. I started off down this one particular road…. but there have been so many detours that I don’t even know where I am headed anymore, or even where it was that I got lost, my cell phone died, no charger, and no one to ask for directions. I just want to get back to the interstate of who I am, before I run out of gas…. The destination isn’t our life, it is the journey on our way there that is our LIFE. It is the things we see on the way, the people we meet, the things we try, learn, love, hate and grow from! Right now I am unsure as to my destination, but I am enjoying the journey that will take me there. And I am always looking for passengers!

St. Augustine wanted to bring anyone who read his story along on the journey of his life, not so that they could tell him how to live but so that they could live life with him. That is the point of this poem not to have someone tell you how to live but to walk with you. So that you can learn with them and maybe just maybe not repeat the mistake that you have made. The ability to continue on the journey and reach the end but to learn together on this journey that is an amazing gift. That is something that I have learned from Augustine, to write about your experiences can truly help someone else.

Learning from the past

St. Augustine writes about how God is in the world and the character of God. Augustine tells about the character of God and this view is how the world sees God today. Even when Augustine is trying to drawl nearer to God but there are things in his life that kept him from doing that. One example is the need to do something wrong in the world. Augustine shows us this when he is stealing just to steal. Augustine starts out the story telling us that he did not need to steal the fruit in order to survive but out of the desire to do evil. He stole something that he was not in need of, in fact he had plenty of what he took. He tells us that it was the actual act of thief that he desired and not the item that he was stealing. The fruit that he took he actually turned around ate very little of it and then gave it to the pigs, that shows that he wanted to do it for the act and not the items that he was taking. Augustine then goes on to tell God of the wickedness in his heart and why he did the act even knowing that it was wrong. (Book 2, Chapter 4) I truly see the point that Augustine is making; some times the choices we make are just like this. We some times know what we are doing is wrong but we continue down the road because of the joy we are getting while we are doing it. I feel like that most of the time in life, always second-guessing the choices that I have made. When it comes down to the end however I know that even with the wrong choices made and the good, they have all made me who I am. I believe that is what Augustine is trying to do through out his Confessions, not show us all the bad that he has done but rather show us that through the bad he realizes what he did and shows his weakness. It is through our weakness that God makes us strong and Augustine is showing us that. At the end of the story of him stealing fruit he tells God what was wrong with his heart and why he did it. Once you know the reasons behind an act it is easier to not repeat the mistakes of the past in the present. I see that a lot in history, our number one motto is learn from the past so that we are not doomed to repeat it I truly believe that is Augustine’s purpose in telling us this story, he is showing his weakness so that others might learn from him and not be a slave to their own desires. The act of doing something wrong may bring a moment of happiness but will it bring a lifetime of regret with it. Augustine lived his whole life with that story in his heart and the guilt of he choice with him. But if one person learned not to be a slave to his own desires, I believe Augustine would be happy with that.

The Excellence of Wisdom and Character

I have lived a life that most people often look at and wonder how it was that I was able to become the person that I have become. This is how I can agree with Aristotle on the excellence of intelligence and character. I grew up in a one parent house hold; my dad was never around except for brief periods that are so rare they are hardly worth mentioning. The people that I was around helped ground me in my wisdom of life and helped build my character, because how can you say that those who helped build your knowledge of the world had no impact on the character that you have. 

I was lucky enough to grow up in a Christian family, with strong values and they have impacted my knowledge of the world and who I am. Aristotle states “for the way we learn the things we should do, knowing how to do them, is by doing them” (1103a30). Growing up in a Christian environment, I learned the things that I should do by doing them with my family and them showing me how to do them. The values they placed on my life is something that I still carry with me and all ways will and will pass them on to my children. An example of this learned knowledge and impact on character is this story…..

 My grandfather built the levee that surrounds my hometown, as I have written before it was due to this levee that we did not have to evacuate when Hurricane Ike was heading towards Galveston Island and my hometown would also be taking a direct hit from Ike. This levee which was built before I was born was built with this one idea in mind, to protect the city from the storm surge and from the rain that fell. See what made this levee so unique is that the wall protecting us of the side of Galveston Bay was just a part of it. There is a gate that allows water to flow between the Bay and a lake when things are calm, but when rain is heading our way the gate is closed and the water that is normally found in this lake is pumped out into the bay by a series of 5 pumps. All the rain that falls in the city drains into this lake and then pumped back out to sea. Know that you know why it is so unique let me tell you something else. This is the first time that the strength of the Levee was tested but it with stood and there was no breach. My grandfather put all his knowledge and strength into building something that would last.

This is something that I saw time and time again from him, he put everything he had into what he was doing and did it to the best of his abilities. This was passed on to me, when I am faced with a project I put my whole heart into it, learning along the way what works and what doesn’t but knowing when I am done it is my best work. Sometimes the things you do last only for a while and affects only you, but sometimes the things you do can span generations and affect thousands of people. At the end of Book VI Aristotle states, “It is clear, then, from what has been said that it is not possible to possess excellence in the primary sense without wisdom, nor wise without excellence of character.” (1144b30) While my grandfather was teaching me to always strive to do my best he was building my character in expecting of myself nothing less than my best. You cannot have one without the other which is what really builds excellence within yourself.