HW 4: HW 2: Blogs Comments 2

Marco,

I liked how you picked out one idea from Banach's text and focused on just that. I liked your new definition better than Banach's in that our purpose in life can go far beyond our intended purpose. It makes perfect sense to me. A pair of scissors might have been made to cut things but who says you can't take the end of the scissors to hammer a nail (it would be hard but I'm just trying to make a point). "'Essence" precedes 'Existence' which precedes 'Essence' where the new essence doesn't have to match up with the first essence." You've took the two ideas, which both made sense separately and applied it into a world where both would make sense. (:

"Destiny to me is a very flawed idea, the notion that things are all planned out encourages people to float through life and let things happen, but the reality is that people make things happen, and destiny has nothing to do with it." I agree with this. This accentuates the existence precedes essence notion more. For humans, we really have no idea of figuring out what our preconceived destiny is and if it even exists. That's why it's more important to create our own destiny, and come up with our own essence. Although many people confuse their own destiny with the one they come up with on their own. The phrase "I was born to sing" or "humans were born to save the earth" are made up. It's a belief. The thing that made us did not tell us what to do or how to act therefore we have complete freedom to decide our own destiny.

Your post really cleared up a lot of my own confusions that I had of the text. I agree with all of your ideas. Thanks for the post. I enjoyed it a lot.

Yazmin,

I found your post interesting. The way you perceive your personality as the definition of who you are internally brings me back to Banach's idea where he talks about how many use the fact that "I am my body, or my brain, or my personality, or my hormones" as an excuse to limit the things they do. He says that "in each of these cases, I am deceiving myself" and that we are more than just these, which leads me to wonder what does he mean by more. Because like you, I always thought of ourselves as our personality. And that what we are in our minds are projected through our personality thus mind=personality. But apparently Banach disagrees with this notion. I found it true that if we don't stay true to our own personalities that we are being fakes but Banach is saying that being our personalities is self-deception. I don't know what he's actually asking us to be.

"If I can be whoever I want to be, does that mean I don't want to be me, meaning that I'm not authentic?" I think it just means that you have the freedom to decide what role you want to put on and it depends on what you mean by "me." Is that "me" your personality, or your mind?

Your second paragraph reminded me of what I wrote in my post. Like do people have sudden revelations of who they are or is it something that takes a whole lifetime to figure out or if it's even possible to find out at all. When you say "some people never even know who they are," it makes me wonder if I'll be one of those people. It's scary to know that there's a chance that you will never be able to find who you are and what your purpose is in life. And matter of fact, what is the definition of "who you are?" If it's not your body, your brain, your personality, or your hormones as Banach poses, then how are we supposed to define ourselves? How would we describe ourselves if we're not allowed to say we're girls, or doctors, or mothers, or someone who is perky?

Your post really made me think a lot and really clarified a lot of my thoughts. Thanks for the post. It was really relatable.