subject: philosophy; symptomatology of.
time: 10:35am
music: still - brian mcknight
mood: academia


i've been reading a scarily large amount of good reads.

hey you stranger. i'm afraid we're losing the real virtues of living life passionately, our sense of taking responsibility for who we are, who we were, who we are meant to be, and the ability to make something of ourselves and feeling good about life.

existentialism is often discussed as if it is a philosophy of despair. but i reckon the truth is just the opposite. Sartre once interviewed said he never really felt a day of despair in his life. but one thing that comes out from reading these guys is not a sense of anguish about life so much as a real kind of exuberance of feeling on top of it. it is as if your life is yours to create. an empty canvas. i've read the postmodernists with some interest, even admiration. but when i read them, i always have this awful nagging feeling that something absolutely essential is getting left out. the more you discuss a person as a social construction or as a confluence of forces or as fragmented or marginalized, what you do is you open up a whole new world of excuses.

when Sartre talks about responsibility, he's not talking about something abstract. he's not talking about the kind of self or soul that theologians would argue about. it's something very concrete. it's you and i talking, making decisions, doing things and taking the consequences as they come. it might be true that there are six billion people in the world and counting. nevertheless, what you do makes a difference. it makes a difference, first of all, in material terms. makes a difference to other people and it sets an example. in short, i think the message here is that we should never simply write ourselves off and see ourselves as the victim of various forces. it's always our decision who we are.

for all those times i am blighted with incompetence at ascertaining my reality and dreams, much less reasons or cause, or effect or all rationale reasonings that leaves me with, as precise, or otherwise, unwavering grounds, lies an answer in the semiotics of philosophy. have a superr day yous. =)


and when you're gone, you take my breath with you, and i'm blue until you return. my thoughts mingle with the obstacles over the time until you return, and i reside every moment without you in a state of blissful agony. for the first time, i regard time as something i have time for...