Our Stranger Meaning

The meaning of life, thats something. The meaning of my life? I'm trying to figure that out. What's meaningful to me? Well why didn't you ask that in the first place!

Music is important in my life. It's there for when I get lonely traveling. It bends to my will and bends to the mood I yearn for. Sad, mad, happy, excited, or even just relaxed. I've been getting over my "senioritis" with Michael Bublé and Frank Sinatra. It makes me want to attend an old style jazz club or a calming coffee house. Then again, it doesn't make me want to go back to school - so maybe it's not helping me get over it...

Animals are meaningful. They boost my mood. Animals are everywhere and I appreciate them. Every morning the crow says good morning to me and I say good morning too. Weird, I know. But I will never stereotype animals just as man has stereotyped each other and the animals.  They're intelligent creatures that most overlook. Some are solitary just like I. I connect most with the wolf. Protective and loving but sometimes solitary.

My sketchbook is meaningful to  me. It's where I write my philosophies and practice my art. Practicing really helps me get my hands moving, all that stuff about idle hands being a devils playground and whatnot. I don't believe that but all I'm thinking about is getting my thoughts out. Sure my friends are meaningful, but they arent there all the time.

Meaning takes on many forms. What defines the meaning is how youve grown up. What helps you cope.

Deserving?

Did Candide deserve the punishments he received?

Well as most philosophical questions are answered -- THAT'S A TOUGH ONE!

This one is a bit simpler. 

I believe that, in the beginning, Candide didn't necessarily deserve the punishment he received, as getting intimate was something that he learned from Pangloss as a blank slate. He didn't know that it would get him kicked out in the end and lead to quite a miserable life later on...

All through class we've been talking about "all that [he] has known" and that is true, but an excuse can only be used so many times. Killing the first person...well that may be crossing the line just a little bit. However, after killing the second and the third, that's where you should already be thinking to yourself "Oh no, what have I done, what am I going to do? I've slain these people" and have a sense of urgency and guilt. Not commit another murder as the people line up. Though another thought popped in to my head, guilt sometimes leads to more and more mistakes to cover up what you did in the first place. Sooner or later you just forget what started this whole mess and you're stuck in the mess you're currently in!

Though by now, Candide is being a little selfish. I'm sure many can vouch for the fact that if someone really wants to be with this other person they they will do everything to be together -- however in that day and age, perhaps it was better to leave Cunegonde with someone who can take care of her and isn't a fugitive.

This leads to that elusive question -- even though you want to be with the person so much that it may kill you, perhaps their thoughts are the same, if their needs are met and they are safer somewhere or with someone else, will you be selfish and be with the person in misery? Or will you leave him/her where their life can be better?

How do we know what we know?

How do we know what we know?

Well we don’t. All of what we know is based on what others have told us is right or wrong. But of course, most questions have a right and a wrong based on the person – a bit like morality.

I’m going to pick a hard topic. I’ve known words for most of my life; certain words go to certain objects, people, nouns, etc. But in reality, is there a right and a wrong word for all of these things we give a name? Up may be down, left may be right, however, they’re just words. Words that were made up some time ago by those who thought it was best for survival. These words have spread throughout the whole world and have made a variation of their own.

At the same time, a lot of the languages are similar based on their geography. The simplicity of it is, is that one can point to an object and the person will recognize it, however if I were to say “chair” they wouldn’t understand unless they knew English or a language that had a similar sound. In Chinese it would be the world equivalent to “space” or “spot”. This is one thing I’ve known all my life.

However there is another I want to bring up. I have known all my life, that I am alive. However, I once heard that…perhaps we are not alive (or just me), perhaps we are in our afterlife, living in this hell, or heaven – we just don’t know it. But of course, life and afterlife, similar aren’t they? Just living again. It all comes back to words, the words we play with. It just makes you think about the things or actions associated to the word, that is what makes one thing. Because we have learned what we know as left if I were to say that left is not left, left is actually right. We think it’s not possible because it’s the action connected to it.