Entering this history class, I have learned a lot that I never expected to learn. I do not see this course of “Life Doesn’t Have to be Meaningless” as like a regular history class that I used to have in SOF looking at textbooks and learn what people back then are doing. It is an inside out class that will really make you be aware and relate yourself to the outside world instead of trying to connect yourself back to the history. I never thought life is meaningless overall at this point of my life, but as kept learning in class, it helped me to look at my life in many different angles which caused me to think life is even more meaningful. Earlier in the class, I said “People are all liars that they are lying to themselves that they are living a good and meaningful life when they are actually escaping the real world and living in their own hallucinatory world.” I think this arguement is too extreme, because not everybody is escaping from reality. I have found that my perspective of looking at how to live a good and meaningful life is still evolving as i learn on. Throughout the course, we looked at life through dominant corporate culture and folk culture by doing interviews of people on street, our parents, looking at films, magazines, music video…etc and related back to our life. Then we focus on holidays that most Americans celebrated and figuring out what is really behind these holidays that affected our life. After that, we look at our life through units of elders, animals, health, food, and collapse. In the beginning of the year, I thought that from learning in this class, my perspective of looking at my own life will change and I will value different things in my life that is consider meaningful. But now, I realized that my aspects of a meaningful life has not change that much as I thought it would be, because I will make a similar video as the one I made in the beginning of the year if I were asked to make a new one.
From the dominant corporate and folk culture, what both value the most is happiness. I still believe that everybody survive in this world are consuming happiness. Looking at life in the dominant corporate culture’s perspective, it enhances the idea of center attention and vanity of human beings. Such as the advertisement, movies, or music videos, it sends out the message of to be superiors and dress/look the best in crowds. Up to this point of my life, I do not think I value these aspects in my life because I never see being the center of attention as one of the meaningful aspects. However, the marginal messages from the dominant corporate culture are the ones that I sort of follow sometimes. Such as be successful, and make a different. I find this as part of my meaningful life because I believe that people should keep making changes and improve in their lives by overcoming obstacles. Learning mistakes I made in my life experiences will help me approach to success by keep making things better. Not all the dominant corporate messages are unreliable, and sometimes there do have ones that are worth to listen as an advice. Simultaneously, being raised up in a folk culture has shaped who I am right now. Before being exposed to many different kinds of things from media, my parents and teachers are the ones who taught me moral, and what human should value in life. I do not find everything my parents or teachers said is worth to listen, but there do have something that I learned from the folk culture. Living a good and meaningful life, we should value our family and friends because they are important in our lives. They are the ones who shaped our identities and lives. Especially when we need support from others, they are the ones who will be by our side. My perspective of looking at dominant corporate and folk culture has not change from the beginning to the end of the year. I still value the same aspects of my life such as overcoming difficulties, approaching to success, family, friends, and happiness.
Moving on learning about different holidays in the United States, it also has not changed the way I look at my own life. Instead, I am being exposed to things that I never being aware of about these holidays such as the Christmas or Thanksgiving. Many of the holidays in the United States has to do with spending time with family and saying nice things to each other as an appreciation. Additionally, there are also things that are prohibited. While spending time with family, you are not allowed to share things that are sad because it will ruin the mood of a holiday. You are also not allowed to bring up how whites have killed the Indians during Thanksgiving. Many of these prohibited messages were not being exposed through media or the folk culture. However, in this class, I am able to see what is going on in different kinds of holidays and how does that affect our lives. Though no major changes in my life, it did caused me to start being aware and not just looking at things that’s on the surface.
Learning about elders is also an interesting unit but did not really change my way of looking at lives. By reading my earlier post about reactions towards old people, I said, “I don't feel we have a distance between each other and I always talk to them as friends. Like my grandpa, although he is slow on computers, I chat with my grandpa through webcam on the internet. Even though it is hard to talk with the old people since they are elders and we should respect them, we still ask them about their health and life.” My reactions towards old people did not change and so far none of the old people in my family are being sent to the senior center. I do appreciate their earlier contributions to the next generation for us to live and have a better life. Perhaps I do not talk to them as often as to my parents or friends, but I think I do values elders in my life. I don’t find annoy by listening to them and I appreciate their advice from their own life experience. It is possible that their advice might not always help, but I guess old people remind us their mistakes are to avoid us making the same mistakes as they do. Therefore, I do not mind when old people are sharing their life experiences with me. One question we asked a lot during this unit is that what is the point for old people to still be alive? My answer to this question would be that because they value their family, and they do want to see their next generations to be living happily. Old people do values things in their life that they find it meaningful, and like Morrie, he has lived his life all the way with suffer in his last days. People gets old does not mean there is no meaning for them to live. As for me, I think old people are important in my life, because they are the ones who has contribute to the society in order to make us live right now.
Finally, the animal unit is one of the topics that did change my perspective of living a good and meaningful life. Before learning about “animals”, I have no idea how this topic will connect to life. But when I start learning about this unit, it changes the way I look at myself. I have accepted that I am actually just an animal like the others. I am not anybody different from them and therefore I should not expect someone will look after me because I am special. Because of the Genesis I, evolution, spending 95% of the time only with the same animals(human), humanizing pets, believe in souls and spirits, we has come to believe that we are superiors and we are special. We think we deserve to take over the other animals and we think that they do not think, therefore, they are like objects while we have feelings. In this unit, I learned that by accepting myself as an animal, I will not be thinking that I am more important than the others. I think this concept is extremely important for me as living a good and meaningful life because it really change my life as seeing every living thing as animals.
When we are learning about health, although physical, social, spiritual, and mental healthy also interacts with us a lot in our lives and all of them are related, I think emotional and moral health are the ones that we have to deal with the most and seems most resonant. People have emotions and we all have feelings towards our surroundings every moment. By learning about the existential therapy, it really has change my way of looking at my own life. At first, I always think making decisions are difficult and hard to make because it will ruin my life. But now, from studying the therapy, it actually makes me feel more comfortable of making choices. I know that as long as I am willing to take full responsibilities of the consequences for making that decisions, making any choices is not that complicated. In addition, it also demonstrates the idea of why people exist in this world. When people are feeling depress and having the desire to suicide, I think this therapy really can test what is the point of living. If the person refuses to commit suicide, it reveals the truth that he/she still wants to live for a reason. So that person will move on their life by following that reason as a goal of living. Moral health is also interesting because we often face many dilemmas in our life deciding what is right or wrong. By dividing moral health into different levels, even though is hard to choose, it categorize the choice into a category of explanation. Learning both moral and emotional health, it did not only deepen my knowledge of health, it also affects my way of living. It builds up more confident for me to make decisions in terms of right or wrong, and direct me to stay in positive emotions for most of the time.
From the dominant corporate and folk culture, what both value the most is happiness. I still believe that everybody survive in this world are consuming happiness. Looking at life in the dominant corporate culture’s perspective, it enhances the idea of center attention and vanity of human beings. Such as the advertisement, movies, or music videos, it sends out the message of to be superiors and dress/look the best in crowds. Up to this point of my life, I do not think I value these aspects in my life because I never see being the center of attention as one of the meaningful aspects. However, the marginal messages from the dominant corporate culture are the ones that I sort of follow sometimes. Such as be successful, and make a different. I find this as part of my meaningful life because I believe that people should keep making changes and improve in their lives by overcoming obstacles. Learning mistakes I made in my life experiences will help me approach to success by keep making things better. Not all the dominant corporate messages are unreliable, and sometimes there do have ones that are worth to listen as an advice. Simultaneously, being raised up in a folk culture has shaped who I am right now. Before being exposed to many different kinds of things from media, my parents and teachers are the ones who taught me moral, and what human should value in life. I do not find everything my parents or teachers said is worth to listen, but there do have something that I learned from the folk culture. Living a good and meaningful life, we should value our family and friends because they are important in our lives. They are the ones who shaped our identities and lives. Especially when we need support from others, they are the ones who will be by our side. My perspective of looking at dominant corporate and folk culture has not change from the beginning to the end of the year. I still value the same aspects of my life such as overcoming difficulties, approaching to success, family, friends, and happiness.
Moving on learning about different holidays in the United States, it also has not changed the way I look at my own life. Instead, I am being exposed to things that I never being aware of about these holidays such as the Christmas or Thanksgiving. Many of the holidays in the United States has to do with spending time with family and saying nice things to each other as an appreciation. Additionally, there are also things that are prohibited. While spending time with family, you are not allowed to share things that are sad because it will ruin the mood of a holiday. You are also not allowed to bring up how whites have killed the Indians during Thanksgiving. Many of these prohibited messages were not being exposed through media or the folk culture. However, in this class, I am able to see what is going on in different kinds of holidays and how does that affect our lives. Though no major changes in my life, it did caused me to start being aware and not just looking at things that’s on the surface.
Learning about elders is also an interesting unit but did not really change my way of looking at lives. By reading my earlier post about reactions towards old people, I said, “I don't feel we have a distance between each other and I always talk to them as friends. Like my grandpa, although he is slow on computers, I chat with my grandpa through webcam on the internet. Even though it is hard to talk with the old people since they are elders and we should respect them, we still ask them about their health and life.” My reactions towards old people did not change and so far none of the old people in my family are being sent to the senior center. I do appreciate their earlier contributions to the next generation for us to live and have a better life. Perhaps I do not talk to them as often as to my parents or friends, but I think I do values elders in my life. I don’t find annoy by listening to them and I appreciate their advice from their own life experience. It is possible that their advice might not always help, but I guess old people remind us their mistakes are to avoid us making the same mistakes as they do. Therefore, I do not mind when old people are sharing their life experiences with me. One question we asked a lot during this unit is that what is the point for old people to still be alive? My answer to this question would be that because they value their family, and they do want to see their next generations to be living happily. Old people do values things in their life that they find it meaningful, and like Morrie, he has lived his life all the way with suffer in his last days. People gets old does not mean there is no meaning for them to live. As for me, I think old people are important in my life, because they are the ones who has contribute to the society in order to make us live right now.
Finally, the animal unit is one of the topics that did change my perspective of living a good and meaningful life. Before learning about “animals”, I have no idea how this topic will connect to life. But when I start learning about this unit, it changes the way I look at myself. I have accepted that I am actually just an animal like the others. I am not anybody different from them and therefore I should not expect someone will look after me because I am special. Because of the Genesis I, evolution, spending 95% of the time only with the same animals(human), humanizing pets, believe in souls and spirits, we has come to believe that we are superiors and we are special. We think we deserve to take over the other animals and we think that they do not think, therefore, they are like objects while we have feelings. In this unit, I learned that by accepting myself as an animal, I will not be thinking that I am more important than the others. I think this concept is extremely important for me as living a good and meaningful life because it really change my life as seeing every living thing as animals.
When we are learning about health, although physical, social, spiritual, and mental healthy also interacts with us a lot in our lives and all of them are related, I think emotional and moral health are the ones that we have to deal with the most and seems most resonant. People have emotions and we all have feelings towards our surroundings every moment. By learning about the existential therapy, it really has change my way of looking at my own life. At first, I always think making decisions are difficult and hard to make because it will ruin my life. But now, from studying the therapy, it actually makes me feel more comfortable of making choices. I know that as long as I am willing to take full responsibilities of the consequences for making that decisions, making any choices is not that complicated. In addition, it also demonstrates the idea of why people exist in this world. When people are feeling depress and having the desire to suicide, I think this therapy really can test what is the point of living. If the person refuses to commit suicide, it reveals the truth that he/she still wants to live for a reason. So that person will move on their life by following that reason as a goal of living. Moral health is also interesting because we often face many dilemmas in our life deciding what is right or wrong. By dividing moral health into different levels, even though is hard to choose, it categorize the choice into a category of explanation. Learning both moral and emotional health, it did not only deepen my knowledge of health, it also affects my way of living. It builds up more confident for me to make decisions in terms of right or wrong, and direct me to stay in positive emotions for most of the time.
The food unit is another topic that really did changes my life because I never pay attention to what I eat. Not only being exposed to animal cruelty, I also learned to pay close attention to what I am eating with appreciation. I often just eat the food as taking things for granted, and my attitude towards the food is just something that will keep me alive. But when I learn how to focus on my own diet and learning about industrial food at the same time, I start to be aware of what I am putting into my mouth. In addition, making our own food is definitely more delicious than buying food from outside. Simply is because we make it with my own hands so we appreciated more. Reading Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma has taught me the connection of food. I never know that most of the food is actually from corn. Also, I realized that we do rely on a lot of the advertisement and advice from the scientist or doctor to decide what to eat. As Pollan’s argument about food was that that we do not have a food culture in our society like those French or Italians, and we are so anxious about what to eat. I never thought of people will worry about what they should eat instead of just eating it to feed themselves. More incredible was that people do not know where the food they eat came from. By learning this food unit, did not really change what I eat but makes me being more aware of what I am eating. More important, I appreciate what I am eating more.
Follow by the previous food unit that all the food is industrial produced by oil/fossil fuel. Our society depends on oil to make everything work including economic. As I learned from the articles, oils will not just run out, but it required more energy to get it. Energy is something that money cannot buy and it just starts to decline when half of the oil is being used which called “Peak Oil”. A lot of the people predicted the collapse will come but nobody really know when. What happened in Easter Island has been a metaphor of how it will be to us. Although it might not be a perfect metaphor, but at least I am pretty sure it will collapse because of the reasonable predictions I read from one of the article. Whether to question the collapse is inevitable or avoidable, I think what is more important is to be aware of this issue. If is to go back to the major question, what is a meaningful life. I think collapse is definitely one of the meaningful movements because we experience something new. A lot of us do not really suffer pain compared to our ancestors and I think collapse will be one of the things that we might possibly have to get through. As we are living very safe without any panic, I think collapse will change our way of looking at meaningful life and what we really values. Thus, is better to know and be aware of what is going on around us instead of not knowing anything around the place that we are living in.
Overall in the course “Life doesn’t have to be Meaningless, my perspective of how to live a good and meaningful life has not really change. I still see that everything has a meaning to it when you give it to it. But it did keep me thinking about all different kinds of aspects in life. I no longer see things on the surface, but trying to look at them in more perspective. Although my perspective of living a good and meaningful life has not that many difference, but I start to be more aware of all the topics that we went over. In my first post for this class, I said, "To be meaningful is to learn or know something that I never know, so it will stays in my heart. The things that I will remember even though it has past for years, that is meaningful." What I stated earlier is how I still think about how to live a good and meaningful life. This is not like little kids losing their innocence for being exposed to the adulthood. But it is to show how myself has grown in a year, 5 years...etc. What I find it very meaningful in this class is that I am being exposed to new things every single day, like opening boxes of gifts with surprise. Knowing these things I mentioned above, it is not just something for a class. But it is something that actually affect my way of looking at life and something that I will take with me in life. My understanding of these aspects of life will keep evolving, and it will stay in my heart throughout my whole life.
