My Honors 199 class kind of did that. It was basically a class on existentialism and my professor had a very open teaching style where it was based on student discussion or whatnot. Kind of life Mr. Jankowski's American Lit II class if you had him. Most existentialism philosophers that we read believed life to be devoid of meaning with no God, purpose, or a reason to live. As you may guess, this was slightly depressing--your life is a lie, it's all for nothing. In the end that could be all true if the whole afterlife/heaven turns out to be false, but wouldn't our impact on other human beings impact others, creating a never-ending line where we all influence each other by our actions, no matter how small? I'm still not sure about this, and am just rambling really, but that isn't why I brought that class up. My point is, it made me think more on a religious, belief, basis but I have never been truly interesting in that anyway so it did not greatly impact my life.
And then I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. I have no clue why this novel, out of the other influential, meaningful ones I have read, impacted me so much. Fuck, Catcher in the Rye, the novel for young adults read to "come of age" did nothing for me. Nothing. And then here comes Wallflower (I'll just say that from now on instead of the whole name). It wasn't even written very well, just a simple diary-entry form by a "freshman" in high school. Grammar mistakes, run-ons, random tangents; compared to Catcher in the Rye, it's not written well at all. But for some reason it impacted me more. I had tears in my eyes during the last ten pages, what the fuck?!?
So I bet you are wondering what is so fucking amazing about this book and I don't even fully know the answer. For some reason, this made me really see life and allow me to see flaws in myself and fix the flaws that is preventing me to become who I really am. Honesty is a huge 'theme' towards in the end. In order to be honest with yourself, you have to be honest with others. You can't be afraid to tell someone your feelings because that person may not like you- you should want people to like you based on who you really are and not what you want others to think you are. And I'm not sure I have been fully myself around others...hopefully nothing major, but little things like opinions or whatnot.
And then Wallflower discusses how our personalities are developed--are they given to us through God or our genetics, never to be altered? Or, can we take control of who we truly are? There's arguments for both sides, an answer was never given. But it did talk about how we cannot blame others for what we truly are. A whole massive blaming-line will form with each person's fault in their personality by another and so on and so forth.
Basically, a light bulb turned on. I finished the novel last night and I have already analyzed novels, movies, musicals. I listen to the musical Jekyll and Hyde today and thought about our personal good and evils and mine and societies and if evil is really bad and if good is the right way to go. I have listen to that music since the summer of 2006 and for some reason, despite listening to the soundtrack numerous times, it just clicked in my head after I read the book. And it wasn't even some great discovery. Here's some of the lyrics:
How do you tell evil from good?
Evil does well - good not so good!
Evil's the one that is free everywhere -Good is the one that they sell!
You must decide which is heaven -Which is hell!
It is right there in the lyrics and I only really understand what it is saying now. Daammmnn. And I'm pretty sure this isn't a one time deal. Earlier tonight, I saw the movie Clockwork Orange which questions ethics and what is ethic to society and whatnot and I started to think about it more than usual. The movie ended at 8:30 and if The Office didn't start at 9:00, I would still be thinking about it haha.
But it's just so weird. Everything makes more sense now and I can actually relate to it thanks to that one novel.
Anyway, I just needed to write this all out, put it down with words or whatnot. I finally started on the whole 'finding yourself' journey people take through college and it's pretty cool, and confusing. Sorry about the language, if been reading a ton of J.D. Salinger for a class and if you know anything about his writing, he swears a lot. I leave with a few (but not all) the quotes that brought on this whole process, all said by the wonderful Sam:
"Charlie, don't you get it? I can't feel that. It's sweet and everything, but it's like you're not even there sometimes. It's great that you can listen and be a shoulder to someone, but what about when someone doesn't need a shoulder. What if they need the arms or something like that? You can't just sit there and put everybody's lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love. You just can't. You have to do things."
“Like take their hands when the slow song comes up for a change. Or be the one who asks someone for a date. Or tell people what you need. Or what you want."
"If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don't want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it too. I want them to be able to do whatever they want around me.”
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Hmmm. I was scrolling through my feeds this evening and was like, "Hey! SwedishtheChef updated her Blog!" And then it's philosophy at that! yay!
So yeah. . . about the blog post. I should probably make this into my own blog post, particularly the second part, but oh well. I can't say I haven't read any one piece that has formed my philosophy. However, the philosophy class I am is talking about Mil and Utilitarianism. Which is basically the idea that something is "right" if it maximizes happiness and wrong if it causes pain or unhappiness.
The way I see it, one is only ever open to his or her closest friends. For me, the best way that I can describe friendships is a dartboard. In the center you have your closest friends, ones who you can tell basically anything to. The ones who you are completely honest to and have no fear that they will judge and will go out of their way to help you feel better. Most people, so I've read, only have between 1 and 3 of these people. Some only have zero, however, which is sad. Anyways, the second group of people, which also includes the first, I call friends, these are the people who are your cohorts, companions, and people you hang out with. I believe most people have around 5-10 of these. These buddies are there to hang out with and will help you out very often, even if it disadvantages them. Third group are acquaintances. These are, to put quite accurately although harshly, Facebook friends. After all, I have like over 150 of these people and I easily only talk to less than fifty of them. The last are strangers, people you don't know. Those guys and girls that walk past you while talking on their cellphones around campus and what not.
Where am I going with this? I'm not really sure myself. HOWEVER, I somewhat know where I am going with this. I think that we, as humans, tend to hide this honesty in front of others, particularly in the face of the strangers group. Introverts, do this more than others. Now, this is probably going against the book that you read, but there is a perceived cultural norm out that we as individuals must follow. There is, of course, some deviation allowed, however, for the most part, we are fearful of the thoughts of others. And, I would think, if everyone wasn't afraid of this, how would society be different. Would it be better or worse and by whose standards? No doubt humor would entirely be different. But, A question for another time, perhaps, because now I digress as I ramble onwards, while furiously typing on this keyboard.
Anyways, if you followed that long winded, poorly organized rambles, kudos to you. If you didn't - you fail - err um.. . .that's too bad. Now I move onto the next part. <_< Yes, there is a NEXT Part.
As far the personality goes. Personalities are defined when we are young, no doubt about that. However, they are also very hard to change. Middle School influenced my personality tremendously - made me distant, shy, aloof, distrustful, and aloof - I'm only now beginning to realize this and attempting to chisel away at this wall - It's hard and no doubt there are factors that are attempting to rebuild that wall. That's what I think on that, and with that said. I bid thee goodnight, for I am tired and typing this long-winded rant made me happy, because I came up with some answers while pondering such questions that I ponder while going on a rant that even I'm not sure where it's going. Right! As I said before, Goodnight!
This is amazing! Literature is so powerful! I wish you good luck on your journey!
I really disliked both Catcher and Wallflower. I think its just that genre of literature for me. It was interesting reading the part about you playing the violin. It almsost makes me want to go home and play a bit.
--oh sorry, I forgot the music section was in your latest post. oops.
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