f l o o d

In for the Long Haul

i know i promised to start updating my blarg regularly again...well, i guess we all know how much my promises are worth now. but i figure when my front page goes blank because i haven't updated in so long, i should probably post something.

school started up for me last week. i had been dreading returning to class, but not as much as previous quarters because i had actually done well last quarter and i'm taking classes that i thought might actually be interesting...i was wrong. dead wrong. i'm taking english writing 1A (not because i thought it'd be neat, but because it's a required ge), phil 8 ethics (for some reason that i can't recall anymore i thought this would be enjoyable), and intro to film.

english is wickedly boring of course. it's a ton of reading, and even more writing, and the bane of my college existence thus far has been writing. just trying to do one paper per quarter for a class has nearly killed me in the past, we'll see how i handle 6 for this class. gah.

i thought film would be fun. i've liked every film class i've taken, and even though i had already taken a class similar to this at davis, i figured i'd still enjoy it because i always enjoy my film classes. nope. this prof is wickedly boring. i've never had a boring film prof before. all my previous film profs have been energetic and exciting. this one is totally monotone and the class goes by at a snail's pace. it's right after lunch for me on mondays and the class is 3 and a half hours long, so it's a constant struggle to keep my eyelids up. i loved my film class last quarter, which you guys could probably tell as most of the things i posted about in here were sparked by topics brought up in that class, but this class is just plain boring.

the one class that gets my mind going is my ethics class, but i don't particularly like my prof in this class either. maybe it's the constant swearing, or the anecdote he told the first day about not wanting to go to a sharks game that a friend invited him too. or maybe it's because i don't agree with most of the crap he says. it's not that his ideas on ethics are without basis, since he is merely repeating the theories of aristotle and more contemporary philosophers. but i just can't help viewing these human attempts at finding what it really means to be "good" to be lacking. it seems to me that the philosophical perspective is that there is a relative good for each individual, but it all must work together as a societal good as well. but all human action is aiming towards some good, and the key to a virtuous life is to find the greater good, or the greatest good, which according to aristotle is happiness. but to find what makes you truly happy, you need to discover what true happiness is. it all seems to go so roundabout and all i want to do is shout out, "HEY! THERE'S AN EASIER WAY!" i mean, why go through all this constant struggle to redefine your own notions of virtue when there is a supreme standard already set. and it's not even a standard we have to work for or strive to achieve. it's something that we gain only through sacrificing ourselves and letting the source of real virtue do all the hard work for us. but that's too simple for the world to understand.

to the world, being ethical is finding the better good for yourself; what is most benificial for the individual. i see that as only one level. the next level is to live not for your own benefit, but for others. but even this concept is stretching the limits of human understanding. we see those who would put the need of others over their own needs not merely as ethical people, but as saints and heros. it is so unthinkable that someone would live for the good of many instead of their own good is worth putting into legend for us. now when i say living for others, i don't mean trying to please others, but living for the benefit of other people. this is different than always trying to please other people, because trying to please others is something that comes out of pride, which falls back into living for yourself. when you live for others in the sense that you're always trying to make yourself acceptable and likeable to them, you're just trying to benefit yourself, not anyone else. to really live for others is to lay down your own needs for the needs of others.

beyond this is living for God. this is something so unthinkable to our society that the realm of ethics (except for religious philosophers) won't even touch on this. if we can't even fathom living for the benefit of people we can see and hear, how can we live for an entity that we have no physical evidence of? that is why we need to seek Him for ourselves. i think so many christians get caught up in seeing God as the God of a church or religion. they take Him as this distant deity that they only hear about and read about. so when it comes down to making decisions about Him, they can't push themselves beyond a certain point. no one would give their life for a story, but we would all be willing to sacrifice for our closest friend. and when we live for His good, we find that His will is the greatest good for us as individuals and for all people. isn't that so much easier than the way the world looks at things?

well, that was a whole lot of philosophical mumbo jumbo. i don't actually expect you guys to read any of that. it really didn't come out the way i wanted it to, but it's stuff that's been swirling around in my head for the last week and i figured i should get it out on paper...errr...or whatever. next time maybe i'll actually sort my thoughts before trying to write them out.

Posted by bwu at January 15, 2004 10:58 PM