Mersault

Mersault makes me feel like when we have realized that life is worth nothing we live our lives according to what happens instead of how we want to live it. Mersault does not put any extra effort into his life, everything is the same for him and he likes knowing that his life is not going to change anymore than it is going currently. Mersault is a “stranger” because to us his lack of emotion makes it hard for us to understand him. I do think that we can make ourselves “strangers” when we do things to separate ourselves from other people. I separate myself from people sometimes because I believe that no one understands me and the only person that can truly understand my thinking is me. I like to be alone sometimes when I am reflecting on things that are occurring in my life, and that does make me a stranger because instead of having those thoughts in my head I can share them with someone else. What can make someone a “stranger” is their inability to express their thoughts in a way that is understandable to everyone else. I know that things I understand may not be as easy for me as it is for someone else to understand. This does not make us more or any less human than anyone else because life is about making mistakes and learning from them.

Mersault has changed so much since the beginning of the book, partly due to the many people that have influenced his life. In the very beginning of the book Mersault was very detached and many people thought that was insensitive, because he was living a normal life and his mother had just passed away. Mersault is misunderstood because his view of life is very different. Mersault believes that "since we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and how don't matter." Mersault's outlook on life is very different from mine because I believe that there is meaning in life, while Mersault believes that we're all going to die so there is no point in living life when it will not matter in the end. Mersault does care in a way because in class we discussed that you can actually care about something, not trying to care about it but you do because you are thinking about it.

Going to jail allowed Mersault to recognize how he took advantage of his freedom. While Mersault was in jail for the first couple of days he had nothing to do but he spent most of his time observing the things in his room. Mersault had a lot of time to think about his life and he began to remember things that had long been forgotten. I believe that during this time Mersault missed having freedom because while in jail his freedom was taken away and before he was sent to jail he did not live his life as he wanted to. Mersault is regretful of taking advantage of the opportunities and sitting in jail waiting for his sentence makes him live each day for what it really is, an opportunity.

Who is this Guy?

My impression of Mersault has always been that he is misunderstood. Mersault does things on an impulse and after reality sets in he realizes that something is missing from his life. When Mersault first found out about his mother’s death he was detached because they were never close, however the next day he missed his mother. Mersault believed that his house was “just the right size when Maman was there”. After realizing that his mother was actually gone, Mersault realized what it was like when she was not there anymore. I think that there is some of Mersault in everyone because everyone detaches themselves sometimes and it may take a while for us to comprehend something that just happened.

We are trapped within our own minds because we can’t control our thoughts but we can control how we perceive these images. When we went to Madison Square Park to observe people I noticed that their actions were based on their thoughts. There was one guy dancing in line and he was trapped within his mind and the music he was listening to. The man’s actions reflected his thoughts, which were grooving to the music. Everyone has something different going on in their mind and until we are able to understand it we cannot judge people because their thoughts are not like our own.

Mersault makes me feel like when we have realized that life is worth nothing we live our lives according to what happens instead of how we want to live it. Mersault does not put any extra effort into his life, everything is the same for him and he likes knowing that his life is not going to change anymore than it is going currently. Mersault is a “stranger” because to us his lack of emotion makes it hard for us to understand him. I do think that we can make ourselves “strangers” when we do things to separate ourselves from other people. I separate myself from people sometimes because I believe that no one understands me and the only person that can truly understand my thinking is me. I like to be alone sometimes when I am reflecting on things that are occurring in my life, and that does make me a stranger because instead of having those thoughts in my head I can share them with someone else. What can make someone a “stranger” is their inability to express their thoughts in a way that is understandable to everyone else. I know that things I understand may not be as easy for me as it is for someone else to understand. This does not make us more or any less human than anyone else because life is about making mistakes and learning from them.

Do we live in a world that is meaningful and makes sense?

I ♥ Huckabees represented the many different things we learned through Banach’s lecture. Albert was a guy that hired some detectives to find meaning in his life and through all the difficult situations he faced he seemed to realize that life is meaningless. Through this movie I realized that the way you view life can influence your values and ideas about how you should live your life. As Tommy said, “Once you realize the universe sucks, you got nothing left to lose.” I disagree with this statement because there is absurdity in life but there are things we must go though that makes us stronger. If we give up every time things get rough, what does that prove? Nothing, we realize that times may be hard but our lives can change day by day, how we handle our lives is totally up to us.

I remember the scene when Albert is trying to make sense of all the coincidences that occurred but he is only seeing the negative in those situations. Everything happens for a reason and those negative situations that happened to Albert occurred to make him realize something that he never recognized before. The situations we experience may help or hurt us depending on how much our lives change after our experiences. I love living life and making mistakes because everyone makes mistakes but I will never make the same mistake twice. I know how to move forward by using my past experiences to guide me in my life.

Bernard and his lady friend were trying to find meaning in Albert’s life and one way they used to allow him to see that everything is connected was through the blanket method. As Bernard said, “Everything is the same, even if it’s different.” This statement confuses me for two reasons. First, everything we experience is not the same for someone else but it may connect, however that does not mean that we are the same. For example if one girl was orphaned and lost her parents, and another girl has all the wealth anyone could want but she is not happy, how then are these two girls the same? The orphaned girl lost her parents and the rich girl has parents but they never pay attention to her and their connection is a loss of love. However, there are some things that are not connected like people’s inner thoughts. Our inner thoughts truly come from us and since no two people are alike there are no two people who think exactly the same way. In some ways our situations can connect but our personalities cannot. Our thoughts come from the way we perceive images and if we have a negative perception of life, we will see the negative in everything we do, but if you view things more positively you will view life as it comes to you. The way you live your life is up to you.

Response to Yurelis

I like how you mentioned that human happiness is being able to live "free of regrets and faults." I do think that the bad decisions people make can limit our freedom but we need to know how to move past our mistakes and forward to a place of no regrets. Although I always think people will have regrets about some things we should be able to know what we want out of life and don't stop until we find it.

Partner Responses to Parts 3&4 of Banach lecture

Response to Nikki:

I wrote about how we are free to some extent in my response as well. I liked the idea you talked about with “treat others how you want to be treated.” This saying is true because our freedom will also be limited if we do not handle situations with the patience and time they deserve. Treating others has a lot to do with your personal freedom because karma will come back to you every time you do something wrong and you will not be able to live your life freely. We do bad things all the time and we never think about the consequences.

Final Post for Banach lecture

The final part of Banach’s lecture reflects on the views of happiness and freedom. According to Banach “we must choose courses of action that we would wish all humans to take.” In this section David Banach introduces the idea that in order to be happy we must make decisions that we would want everyone else to make. I agree and disagree with this statement. I agree because I know that if I am successful I would want people to make the same decisions that I made because they worked for me. However, referring to ideas throughout this lecture about independence everyone is not the same, and no two people have the same personality. A decision that we make may benefit us individually in our own situations but you can not expect everyone to make the same decisions as everyone else. I do not think that human happiness comes from doing things that other people want us to do because we will end up pleasing those people and choosing courses of action they see fit in the situation. I believe that human happiness is hard to come by because people spend so much time bringing themselves down and having bad faith that they never understand what happiness is. I do believe that when you find happiness it will be great because happiness consists of doing things you really love.

Freedom is a very big topic because freedom is limited in some ways, and some would say: “If we have limits we are not free” but I do think that some of the limits help to keep us sane. If we were free to do whatever we wanted “Can I freely choose to be a murderer, a thief, or an exploiter of humanity?” If our freedom has limits the answer to this question would be no, because there are higher powers that give us guidance in our lives such as: the government, religion, work, and home, but we can choose not to follow their guidance and do what we want. Freedom should come with limits because there are things people may take advantage of if they are not limited to what they can and can not do. We are free because we have control of the smallest decisions we make but the larger and more difficult situations require guidance from people more knowledgeable.

HW #4 Response#3

Response to Nikki:
I agree and disagree with your opinions of freedom. I agree that while we are free there is a limit to the things we can do but our freedom is not the only thing that can limit us. We are free but we are under the authority of the government, religion, parents, work, and school, but we do choose what we want to do. We get guidance from these sources but the final decision to be made can come completely from us. We are not free to become Barack Obama right now, nor is a man free to just become a woman at that moment. Although our freedom is limited it is not humanly possible to become someone else within the next couple of seconds and a man can not become a woman, just like that. Our freedom is limited but we can also contribute to the loss of our freedom as well as change it.

Response to Yurelis:
I agree that we are born on this earth and we have the freedom to choose our paths in life. We have the choice to make our own decisions and the only way to figure out where you fit in this world is to figure out what you need to do to be successful. I do believe that everyone has a talent and it is up to us to show people the talent we were born with. I do believe that our lives can change on one day because one life altering decision can change your whole life but the way you live your life is what makes it unique to you.

Homework #2 Response #1

Response to Nikki:
I liked how you brought up another point about feeling alone in the world, because I did not think about it that way. I always knew that people have different emotions and while you may see something from their outer appearance, you are not feeling what they are experiencing. However, there are different ways to make someone understand how you are feeling. Talking to different people is one of them, there are people that are closed off and their emotions are being kept bottled up and having no one to talk to can be a real pain. I do agree that some parts of this lecture are untrue however; people can choose what they make of their lives.


Response to Yurelis:
I completely agree with you. Nikki also mentioned that we are not alone in this world because you can talk to people when you are feeling down, that's what friends are for. I also agree that Freedom is in your hands because having absolute individuality means being able to make your own decisions and learning from the mistakes you make is important to your growth as a person. I also know that we can't feel what people are feeling on the inside because we are all very different people, but people can see emotions from our appearance.

HW 3: Blog Post #2

In part 2 of the Existentialist View of Human freedom, Banach questions the impact that our views of human nature can have on our views of human existence. Human freedom provides humans with opportunities, however freedom consists of many different things. Freedom can mean fulfillment, accomplishments, and individuality. Individuality does determine freedom because through our mind's eye we try to understand different situations.

If your freedom is not determined, "then, can I be free, when most of my external circumstances are determined by forces beyond my control." In life there are many things we can't control such as: "how we look, or who our parents are," but with time people may grow to love the things they have a negative view of. We have a choice in our lives to make sense of these situations and make the best decisions. Either someone can choose to love who they are on the inside as well as the outside, or they can lack confidence in their abilities, and we can love our parents and see them for who they are, or never try to understand them.

Our "radical individuality" represents a TV screen because we do have control of how much we see but how we interpret the image is simply up to us. We only observe situations through feelings, and emotions, like a TV. However, we can't change things such as gender, and race, but we can change our perspective. Like an artist we view a painting trying to understand how to fit the different pieces of the puzzle into our lives.

Our freedom is a "freedom of Synthesis", and we have the freedom to make something of ourselves if we choose to. I do agree that our freedom is in our hands because there are many influences in our lives and the way we understand and make sense of those things and people contributes to our individuality. The only way to understand freedom is through individuality. Individuality represents the person on the inside and in most circumstances certain situations may change you and make you stronger, or they may make you weak, but the person on the inside can change and we may never understand because the only person we can truly understand is ourselves.

Freedom is real because “absolute individuality isolates our real self from the determining influences of the outside world.” I agree and disagree because when you are around different people they will have an affect on who you are on the inside, and with some people this may cause a change in personality but for others they have influenced their life and their interests. I agree because our individuality should separate us from other people no matter the situations. Freedom is something that is taken for granted when people limit themselves and the things they are capable of.

David Banach's "The Ethics of Absolute Freedom"

In David Banach’s “The Ethics of Absolute Freedom,” our perception from the mind, body, and soul are questioned. Thinking about this writing assignment made me realize the importance of how we perceive things. As stated in the reading, “Our only access to the outside world being a television screen on one wall on which we (with our mind’s eye) perceive the images of other people, places, and things.” You see things that your mind uses to recognize different things, but you can not feel the impact of those people, places, and things because you are looking at the situation from the surface. We can always see emotions people may be trying to show but how we feel on the inside is very different and no one else can understand exactly how you feel.

David Banach’s lecture directed the readers towards the idea that we are all trapped within our own minds and we can not feel what other people are experiencing. However that may mean that we are too wrapped up in our lives to care about any one else and improving relationships and this is not true for most people. Meeting people is all about trying to understand emotions and breaking that barrier that seperates you from the person you are trying to get to know better. I do think we are capable of not just looking at images and never understanding them, I believe that we are able to look at images and situations to find a deeper meaning. As stated in the passage, “Thus, to be an absolute individual is to be trapped within ourselves, unable to perceive or contact anything but the images on our mental tv screen, and to be imperceptible ourselves to anyone outside of us.” I do not understand the point he is trying to make through this statement because I do not believe that the only way to be an absolute individual is to close yourself off from the rest of the world but in order to understand someone else you need to talk to them. However I can understand his point about absolute individuality but isolating yourself from everyone else does not help matters. The only way to be an absolute individual is to hang around different people and see what makes you tick and gain interests and dislikes based off of that because although people may act alike there are no two personalities that are the same. We all think differently on the inside than how other’s perceive us.