Personal Philosophy Project Essential Questions:
What is the purpose of your existence?
What is happiness and what makes you happy?
What does it mean to live a meaningful life?
To what extent can literature shape your personal philosophy and happiness?
What is happiness and what makes you happy?
What does it mean to live a meaningful life?
To what extent can literature shape your personal philosophy and happiness?
Reflection:
New insights:
Over this project I’ve developed new insights on the environmental impact of humans. More specifically, I’ve developed my own environmental ethic. I found that my beliefs lay in the intrinsic value of nature as well as conservationism. Additionally, I developed insight into the coal industry through my energy production research project. I found a tension between the never ending need of coal and it’s detrimental effects. I end this project with many insights into my philosophical ethic as well. Most notably from Henry David Thoreau's writings on civil disobedience and to a lesser extent his essays on nature. I feel that one of my most relevant insights this year concerns civil disobedience. It was simply a subject that I had little understanding of prior to this year and the texts from Thoreau and Martin Luther King Jr. revealed to me the unique result of one’s ethics and moral boundaries colliding to form an argument. To this day I am captivated by the questions posed by those who practice civil disobedience. This year has not drastically changed my opinions or given me new insight into myself or human nature. Based on how I was raised I’ve always felt that I have a concrete sense of my feelings and, for me, this year just felt like assigning labels and definitions to those feelings. The same can be said for my lack of new insights into human nature as a whole.
Questions:
How do people justify dying with regrets? Why do they accept those excuses?
Can anyone find their true meaning or will it always be decided by socialization?
Why do people say,” You’ll understand when you’re older”?
What does it mean to live stress free”?
Over this project I’ve developed new insights on the environmental impact of humans. More specifically, I’ve developed my own environmental ethic. I found that my beliefs lay in the intrinsic value of nature as well as conservationism. Additionally, I developed insight into the coal industry through my energy production research project. I found a tension between the never ending need of coal and it’s detrimental effects. I end this project with many insights into my philosophical ethic as well. Most notably from Henry David Thoreau's writings on civil disobedience and to a lesser extent his essays on nature. I feel that one of my most relevant insights this year concerns civil disobedience. It was simply a subject that I had little understanding of prior to this year and the texts from Thoreau and Martin Luther King Jr. revealed to me the unique result of one’s ethics and moral boundaries colliding to form an argument. To this day I am captivated by the questions posed by those who practice civil disobedience. This year has not drastically changed my opinions or given me new insight into myself or human nature. Based on how I was raised I’ve always felt that I have a concrete sense of my feelings and, for me, this year just felt like assigning labels and definitions to those feelings. The same can be said for my lack of new insights into human nature as a whole.
Questions:
How do people justify dying with regrets? Why do they accept those excuses?
Can anyone find their true meaning or will it always be decided by socialization?
Why do people say,” You’ll understand when you’re older”?
What does it mean to live stress free”?
Artist Notes ( Written Piece):
Reflection
There is unity of the reflecting consciousness and the consciousness reflected upon, to the extent that the reflecting consciousness could not exist without the reflected consciousness.
The idea that this represents is that if I reflect on an action that reflection is taking place in my consciousness ( a separate entity). This means that there is an unbreakable connection between the action I am thinking about and my conscience where the reflection is happening. One could not exist without the other.
The choice of pink in the video is intentional, it is the first color I think of when considering reflection as a process.
This is how I view reflection, as a two part process. The first part being how I recall an action and the second part being my reflection on it. This first part is the closest thing to how the action was perceived by the reflecting consciousness, while the second part is one learning from one’s mistakes or praising your actions. Which is evaluating and solidifying how one’s reflection on an event happened by one’s reflected consciousness onto one’s reflecting consciousness. As one reflects multiple times, one’s reflecting consciousness changes, thereby affecting all future reflections of the reflecting and reflected consciousness.
The first part is your memory.
The second part is how you reflect.
Although there are many different ways to break down this quote I decided that this explanation best fit my personal philosophy.
In my opinion, a world without reflection would be preferable. A world where you make all the right choices and don’t have to reflect on your actions to better yourself. Unfortunately, this is not the world we live in as we are constantly reflecting on our lives. Reflection is what allows us to examine our being and strive to improve ourselves. As long as we have to reflect, I believe that we should experiment with the impact that the space around your reflecting consciousness has on how well you reflect.
How would your ability to reflect be changed if you were in a public space?
How would your ability to reflect be changed if you were in a comfortable private place?
Before I played the answers I received, I gave my personal philosophy on the environment in which one reflects. This was an on the spot synopsis of how I feel the space around you impacts how you reflect.
Henry David Thoreau describes a private comfortable space as:
“ My house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me.”
A space you feel comfortable in plays a large role in how you reflect and in turn reflection plays a large role in your life and the actions you take. There is unity of the reflecting consciousness and the consciousness reflected upon, to the extent that the reflecting consciousness could not exist without the reflected consciousness.
I ended with the Sartre quote as a way of literally reflecting my project and a way to leave the audience with a meaningful quote on reflection.
There is unity of the reflecting consciousness and the consciousness reflected upon, to the extent that the reflecting consciousness could not exist without the reflected consciousness.
The idea that this represents is that if I reflect on an action that reflection is taking place in my consciousness ( a separate entity). This means that there is an unbreakable connection between the action I am thinking about and my conscience where the reflection is happening. One could not exist without the other.
The choice of pink in the video is intentional, it is the first color I think of when considering reflection as a process.
This is how I view reflection, as a two part process. The first part being how I recall an action and the second part being my reflection on it. This first part is the closest thing to how the action was perceived by the reflecting consciousness, while the second part is one learning from one’s mistakes or praising your actions. Which is evaluating and solidifying how one’s reflection on an event happened by one’s reflected consciousness onto one’s reflecting consciousness. As one reflects multiple times, one’s reflecting consciousness changes, thereby affecting all future reflections of the reflecting and reflected consciousness.
The first part is your memory.
The second part is how you reflect.
Although there are many different ways to break down this quote I decided that this explanation best fit my personal philosophy.
In my opinion, a world without reflection would be preferable. A world where you make all the right choices and don’t have to reflect on your actions to better yourself. Unfortunately, this is not the world we live in as we are constantly reflecting on our lives. Reflection is what allows us to examine our being and strive to improve ourselves. As long as we have to reflect, I believe that we should experiment with the impact that the space around your reflecting consciousness has on how well you reflect.
How would your ability to reflect be changed if you were in a public space?
How would your ability to reflect be changed if you were in a comfortable private place?
Before I played the answers I received, I gave my personal philosophy on the environment in which one reflects. This was an on the spot synopsis of how I feel the space around you impacts how you reflect.
Henry David Thoreau describes a private comfortable space as:
“ My house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me.”
A space you feel comfortable in plays a large role in how you reflect and in turn reflection plays a large role in your life and the actions you take. There is unity of the reflecting consciousness and the consciousness reflected upon, to the extent that the reflecting consciousness could not exist without the reflected consciousness.
I ended with the Sartre quote as a way of literally reflecting my project and a way to leave the audience with a meaningful quote on reflection.