The Second, First Class

     While The Stranger is a great, thought provoking book that is a fantastic door to begin looking at existentialistic thought and concepts, it was not what stood out the most to me during our class. I have been in many settings where you have a large group of people all trying to engage on one topic, and most of the time that goes well for a short while before people begin to wander and break the atmosphere. This reminded me more of a music clinic, where you have a large group of musicians coming together in a small room where the only “disturbance” is a well stated and respectful disagreement arises on the best approach to master a technique. Where so much of the group is engaged and curious how one thought may lead off the next or how someone will react when their view is challenged with a question; how someone questioning someone else’s view that you thought had no connection to your own suddenly breaks that notion by making you question your own. Where it is a collective thought as opposed to a forum for one to wait until they have their turn to speak.

     I think what makes this scenario so interesting and refreshing is that it can really only come when people begin to let go of their ego. To allow empathetic concepts to take over to a degree, or as completely as perceivably possible. For this to be our first true class, and so many people that are new to the concepts, many even new to “adulthood” or being on their own, and to be able to fill almost 3 hours with over one hundred people with a very engaged, interested and positive atmosphere with a lot of great input, it made me very happy to be a part of the class. I am still quite surprised at just how many people volunteered the input right from the beginning and how it grew even more by the end of the class. That has definitely never been the typical situation I have found. There were many strong opinions of the content, which often leads to a sorting of the herd, where only the loudest and most forceful are left standing or even interested at the end. When that wasn’t the case, and people willingly took a back seat to listen to other views and give a moment to actually consider those views as well. For that to happen even when there were disagreements about a concept or theory, and a couple “baby” closers thrown out there, was nice.

      However, if I had to point out a specific time when I thought the veil was about to be pulled and Gamera would be the blushing bride to bring this party to its end, I would have to say the path of evolution. In these discussions, I have known three almost instant killers of atmosphere, respect and continued interest: politics, evolution and religion. After it continued to travel the route of disagreement beyond its initially intended point and became a matter of facts and literal meaning denouncing the traction of the point (whether valid or not), some of the wind began to leave my sails. That was certainly not the case on this voyage though, reason prevailed and the discussion was able to find a medium that at least left that yard and got back to other ways to express the intent so the group could understand collectively (though not in full agreement, obviously) and continue the questions and analysis.

     For all of these things, I would really just like to thank the class for apparently being in this class to broaden your views and have a genuine interest in the concepts presented. For being willing to throw your views out there, even if it was just a start and your weren’t entirely sure where to go once you started but still spoke up and continued to so you could find the places that worked for your present mentality.  I really hope this is a true precursor to the rest of our semester together. I apologize if this is not easy to build off of exactly, however, this is what has stuck with me over the last two days and more than anything is what I took from the class. Are there any others in the same boat as I am in? Anyone who maybe disagrees and felt a greater detachment from “the group” instead?

God Is Dead

Is Existentialism Important?

     Existentialism is often associated with a few things: new age spiritualism, pretentious college kids, pretentious intellectuals, and most often outright confusion. In my experience, it is generally passed of under a negative connotation and disregarded as anything worthwhile. It is met with a similar reaction as telling someone you have a degree in philosophy. This begs a question of, why?

Could it be the “self” reflection that comes from the questions posed by Hume? The anti-theistic concepts of Nietzsche, Sartre, or Theodorus the Atheist? Perhaps it is something more simplistic, like indifference. I could very easily presume answers to these questions and make a compelling argument as to why I am “correct”, which in turn would negate the entire purpose of the actual question asked. Instead, I will simply ask the reader to apply empathy to a scenario of my past, something that lead to my journey into existentialistic thought, life concepts, self bullshitting, you decide where my past takes you.

     I came from a catholic family, and from a very early age, the concept of god didn’t make a lot of sense to me. However, I quickly learned in church and CCD that questions got me in trouble. So, I simply asked them to myself silently and just went through the motions to be able to leave on time. This changed in November of 1989 when a tornado hit East Coldenham Elementary School in Newburgh, NY. I was in 1^st grade and we had mixed lunch (1^st – 5^th grade) which was split into 2 “periods”, so roughly half of the school was in the cafeteria (including myself). There was a real bad thunderstorm and incredible wind, which was particularly bad but not exactly uncommon for the north east. What was odd however was when it went dead silent and still with an insanely dense feeling of air pressure all around us, and a single loud “creek”. The creek was the sound of the rather large brick wall that supported the cathedral ceiling and very large columned windows falling. It started fairly slow and then quickly became an explosion of rubble and glass shrapnel, which I could only describe as similar to depictions of the shrapnel slicing through soldiers during the storm on Normandy. I survived, as you may assume from reading this blog; however, my first friend and 6 others were killed while 19 other were severely injured. Unfortunately, those numbers only accommodate a notion of physical injury, as the mental trauma lead to a high suicide and drug addiction rate for the rest who made it out “unscathed”. Many of us in the “unscathed” margin that did not acquire any form of dependency or commit suicide wound up with other issues; for me, ‘Post Traumatic Stress Disorder’ which lead to nightmares, almost crippling anxiety in increment weather and a few seizures 3 years later. 

     You may anticipate that we received psychiatric evaluations and help from the school, and you would be very mildly correct. We were given a few 5 – 10 minute exams at the school and a few “counseling sessions” that felt more like an adult telling us we were “fine”. Some of the kids had good healthcare and were able to get some help, unfortunately, my family was poor and my father lost his job shortly after this, so I did not have access to insurance. This lead to a lot of depression and tension in my home, I had 2 older brothers, both of which were out of the house as often as possible, my mother worked as much as she could to accommodate the loss of income, and my father and I had a terrible relationship as he was heavily depressed and reactive in a verbally, and occasionally physically abusive manner. As you may imagine, we had a high rate of moving from house to house. Roughly 1 house per school year. This left me to deal with most of my problems on my own at a time when the library was our internet.

      At this point, be empathetic. Put yourself in this position and consider how the events and situations would affect/effect you? How might you feel? What choices do you think you would have made? Ultimately, what questions might you have asked of yourself, to others, to god(s)?