Meaning of Life

John Lennon said, "When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life."

When I first heard this quote by John Lennon I was touched. I like going on the internet and reading what famous people said. Anyways, this helped me fully understand on the thought process in Lennon's mind; like he was only five years old and he had a basic, yet powerful understanding of life. Being happy is different than being content. Being content, to me, is tolerating something and if you have to tolerate anything then you aren't happy. Being happy, to me, is hard to explain. To be happy is being happy, you know? Life is happiness. Life is hard to explain, thus making happiness equally as hard to explain.

The meaning of life, to me, is... well, I have no idea. I would really have to think about it. I know happiness plays a key role to the meaning of life, but I also know that there is more to it. Now that I think about it, many people nowadays say things like "Oh blah and blah is life," referring to 'life' as a sense of whole and completeness. Like saying 'blah and blah' is a good thing. At least that's what I think. But um now that I had the time to really had the chance to think it through, I came up with this: Life is being happy. Life is being sad. Life is anything you want it to be. 

Thankful for Classmate

Where to start... I am thankful for Sarah Sanchez. I met Sarah in October of Freshmen year. I had overheard her talking about a class that I was taking and finally found my chance to stir up conversation with her. I wasn't too keen on talking to girls back then so school usually helped me out. We began talking more and one thing led to another and now we're inseparable.

I'm thankful that she continued talking to me because she always seemed to push me, whether it be studying to get good grades or helping me make friends, Sarah seemed to have a skill that I never had: being social. I used to be a 'keep-to-myself' kind of guy and Sarah changed that. Sarah was also filled with persistence. She never gave up. She struggled in math and I would offer to tutor her and she was never hesitant for help. She accepted her obstacles, something I never had the courage to do. I would help her with that and she would continue on. She aced all of her classes and continues to do so.

I'm thankful because she is a great friend who is always there for me. I know that we might part and go our different ways, but I plan to keep in touch with her. Anyways, thank you Sarah. Thank you for everything.

Alone

In the movie, "Into the Wild,"  it was Chris's intentions to get away, to go and be alone. In the book,  "Siddhartha,"  Siddhartha seeked for experiences and he wanted to do it alone.

I like to be alone, but not as much as I love to be around people. Sure, there are a lot of people I wouldn't want to be around for a long period of time, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't mind them being around. Like, I like to think I'm a pretty cool and chill person, so I'm bearable to other people; plus I can tolerate others very well.

When I'm alone, I find myself trying to communicate to friends and if they don't reply then I go to my friends that I would barely talk to, you know,  the ones who only talk to you when they need something. Except ironically I'd be needing something: somebody to talk to. Yeah, but they don't know that.

If I choose to be alone and to not talk to people, I turn to music. I listen to all kinds of music and like to spread around different genres. I was a huge fan of the Beatles for a long long time, but I mean who wasn't? Right now I listen to this soundtrack from the movie "Guardians of the Galaxy."  It has a good collection of songs. For example:  "Hooked On A Feeling," "Fell In Love," "Ooh Child," and many more good 80s music. The only song that gets to my nerves is "Cherry Bomb." I can't take the Runaway lead singers signing. I mean honestly,  she was literally just screaming into the microphone. But that was the trend back then I guess.

I guess I can fully say that when I'm alone I begin to think. And not think like 2+2 think,  but think like 'what is life' think. It's a good feeling, especially knowing that I dont have to share my thoughts with other people, except of course the people reading this right now... consider yourself lucky.

Anyways, in the movie, Chris wrote in his journal that happiness is only real or true when it is shared. I hadn't really thought about that except when I saw this. I thought about the times when I was genuinely happy and there were always people around so I'm going to have to agree with Chris's theory. Mainly because I dont like go be alone.

 

What should we have figure out by now?

We should already have batteries that last forever, and they can't be those rechargeable ones. These batteries should last forever.

We should have gotten the idea of peace spread throughout the world already. Peace and war are two topics that nobody really talks about anymore and that is mainly because war tops peace nowadays. I think that if peace overcame war, these two topics wouldn't be much of a big deal anyways.

We should have found a cure for cancer already. There are all of these scientists and doctors looking for a cure and all of these foundations that are asking for money, yet there is no cure. There are only things to slow down the process of cancer.
Along with this idea of cures, HIV and AIDs should be cured already. I mean Magic Johnson got a cure, why can't any ordinary person receive it.

There are many things that we as people still haven't figured out. These are the only things that came to my mind.

Knowledge

How do I know what I know? Where does my knowledge come from? How did my knowledge affect me? When did this knowledge show up? Why did it show up?

The religious beliefs that my parents practiced is the one that was passed down to me: Catholicism. Being raised in Hispanic neighborhoods made me feel like catholicism was the only religion. It was only until I was twelve that I realized there were more religions and that not all people believed in the god that I believed in. I kind of shrugged religion to the side for a while. All of my knowledge went directly towards school, mainly math.

Math became pretty important in my life when I was younger.  I always thought I had a thing with numbers. I played sudoku well and was usually good with cards. Math came easily to me. With this physics was introduced to me. This belief of physics led me to science which is a contradiction to everything that I was raised by. Science questioned religion and now I'm half way in belief. I believe in Catholicism and in science.

My parents also introduced me to moral choices. They taught me how to be respectful, yet know when to stand up for myself. As I get older they still shape my knowledge, although I have been rebellious lately because of friends. So all in all, it was my friends who showed me the knowledge of rebellion. Of course people have never liked being held down anyways, so I guess I thank my friends for showing me this rebellious idea.

Knowledge to me usually comes to me as I mature as a person. New knowledge arises every day. As the saying goes: you learn something new everyday.

The Garden State

The Garden State, from what I understood, was the state in which people  worked to get stuff out of their minds. For example, in Candide, the candide and his friends tended their garden, so with all of that work on their minds, they had nothing to worthfully think about. Outside of their little garden were all of these problems that these characters didnt wanna face, when they all knew that they could make a difference in the world because of all the wealth that they had.

I could relate this to people of today. We hear about all of these problems going on in the world (war, disease, murders, etc.), yet we find a way to block all of that by living out every day lives, either working or substituting work with entertainment. Some of us ay sports, some watch movies, in the end we all find out own little garden.

Justifiable

Were Candide's punishments justified? Did he deserve everything that happened to him? Getting exiled from his own family's castle, his house, was kinda hardcore. I mean it wouldve been ideal in that time if Candide and Cunegonde got together, considering that they were related and in those times they liked to keep everything within the family. The fact that Candide was almost killed several times for just being himself at the wrong place and wrong time shows that his punishments are ridiculous.

I think that his punishments were absurd, but a punishment is a punishment. Honestly, his punishments were odd, as if everything was backwards. He gets exiled for getting with a girl. The only punishment that's on an ok level was the fact that his loved one dies after he killed many people. But I mean she does come back to life, with a whole new and complete story of what "actually" happened.

This philosophy about how all is for the good has slightly fillled in with Candide's life. Candide is a good man, but sometimes bad things happen to good people. So I believe his punishments, no matter what it was, were justified.

The Modern Gadfly...

The gadfly in Greek mythology is identified as a tormentor to one of Zeus's side lover, Io, because Zeus's wife, Hera, was jealous. At first Zeus turned Io into a heifer, a young female cow, to hide her away from his wife. His wife finds out about this so she sends a gadfly to torment Io forever.

The gadfly, as told by Plato, is exactly what Socrates was. Plato referred to Socrates as a social gadfly because Socrates would bug the heck out of higher government officials. A gadfly, in Plato's words, is somebody who upsets the status quo by asking questions that may upset the higher power. Socrates was this person.

To me, based on these two perspectives, it seems as if a gadfly is anything that seems to annoy another party, usually a more powerful or inspirational party. For example, there's always that one student who just likes to bug the teacher and students about how he knows more than them. Then there are some students who follow this one student and laugh along or agree with him, which could be referred to as his little clique. Of course, this student wouldn't be anybody that I would want to be around, unless we shared some opinions.

Honestly, it's very difficult to express who can be considered a modern gadfly. It depends on your own point of view. Like we see Socrates as such a powerful thinker and all that jazz, but we never stopped and wondered about what the other people, the government, was feeling. Maybe they thought that Socrates was just an a-hole. Maybe Socrates's little group thought of him as an  idol and looked up to him or maybe they, too, thought that Socrates may have crossed the line a couple of time. We don't really know for sure what's truly going on. Maybe one of Socrates's student was a gadfly towards Socrates himself; that'd be a total ironic event haha.

The Un-Examined Life...

Socrates talks about how the life of any individual should be lived to the fullest. He says that the 'unexamined life is not worth living.' To me I believe it meant that every person should check themselves before they wreck themselves. Like honestly, you have to constantly be aware of what you're doing and how you're acting. Socrates believed that every person needed to have the right principles. By this I believe he meant that every person needed to live morally correct in order to live good lives. But when I take this in I question it: what is morally correct? What does it really mean to have right morals? 

Nowadays with all the wars going on I sit and wonder, why? The first signs of war occurred because of religion. The thing that bugs me is that most of these religions talk about peace and how killing is a sin, but god forbid that somebody doesn't believe in what you believe. Only then is it 'morally correct' to kill...?

Another example would be the U.S. and how they feel as if they have the right to just walk into any country that they think has too much violence, as if they can prevent violence. The U.S. may not be the most violent country, but there sure is violence around the country. To tie it back, the U.S. government should 'examine their life.' Their life is the country. The U.S. should examine the country and it's people because you can't just present peace in other countries when your own country has people killing each other. I'm really uptight about hypocrisy so I will bash on anything that seems remotely hypocritical. Unfortunately, the U.S. happens to be very hypocritical and I hate it because I really do like me country. 

So to summarize it all up, I feel like Socrates just wants everybody to really think about what they're doing with their lives. He wants us, as people, to realize that there's always something wrong and that we can always correct it. In a way I feel that if you examine your life, it's sort of like a second chance in which you can decide whether to be a 'good person' or a 'bad person.' 

About Me...

Hello, my name is Erick Gonzalez and I go to Whitney Young High School. Most of ny school friends call me Raisin, while some old friends call me Rick, and really close friends just call me Erick. I go by anything, so feel free to call me any of those three. I always enjoyed going to school because I got to see my friends and learning always made me feel good. My strongest subject is math and my weakest subject was any social science class, thus leaving english as kind of my "ok" subject. When I was younger I had about four or five good friends, and then I had school friends (a lot), but I really just enjoyed being by myself. I used to play sudoku when I got bored, which led me to win some little tournament in my elementary school. I was relatively good in chess when I was about twelve, but right now I may be horrible at it. I was always good with card games, especially speed. I don't like change, so don't ask me what I want to major in just yet or which college I want to go to. I love playing soccer. I've been playing since I was 6. My dad taught me how to play and numerous other coaches synced some stuff into my brain about the game as well. I was originally right footed, but ny dad was left footed and I strived to play like him, so I practiced day and night in my backyard to use my left leg. Of course, my dad kept telling me to try abs use both legs because 2 is better than one. So today most people would think I'm a lefty, which is true because I prefer hitting it with my left, but I can use both of my feet exactly the same. I love watching movies. Movies is what gets my whole family together. The first movie I ever saw was Space Jam, with the Looney tunes cartoons and Michael Jordan. My parents took me to theaters to watch it when I want even a year old. Movies hero nee escape reality. Some people have music, I have movies. I also love super heroes. So the fact that super hero movies are the new thing right now, it gets me psyched out even thinking about it. My favorite super hero would have to be Spider-Man from the Marvel universe and Batman from the DC universe. I believe that's all I can think about myself for now.