Meaning of Life

Life is something many would think they can relate with, but to many the meaning of life is different. Nelson Mandela, the first black president of South Africa, says that in his life, "Only through hardship, sacrifice, and militant action can freedom be won. The struggle is my life. I will continue fight to fight for freedom until the end of my days". I agree with Nelson Mandela's view of his meaning to life because being an anti-apartheid activist and revolutionary, freedom for dark colored South Africans was something he felt like he was born to fight for. Fortunately, Nelson Mandela continued to live by his meaning of life and continue to fight for freedom and equality in South Africa, and in 1994 the apartheid era ended in South Africa and equality was achieved.

For me my meaning of life is to live everyday and every moment with no regrets and to be happy. My philosophy of life is that there is no point in living everyday moping about how you could have done this or that. I like to live my life with no regrets because if I live a life full of regrets then I would never be pleased even until the day I died. I also believe that we should live a happy life. Similar to what I said above, I feel that we should not have to feel remorse or sadness that we didn't complete everything we wanted to in our lives. By "yolo'ing" life we live happier and healthier, which to me is the meaning of living.

Classmate I guess I'm thankful for

Thanksgiving is a holiday that most of us take advantage of as a time to shop and travel. Most people never think about the true meaning of Thanksgiving. Ever since the time of Pocahontas, people in America has celebrated Thanksgiving as a holiday to give thanks to a great year of harvest. Over time however, we have adapted Thanksgiving as a holiday that allows us to buy discounted electronics, toys, and clothes. Luckily we were given this topic for our blog post to express our thanks to our classmates. Although I appreciate everyone in our class, I would like to write about the one and only, Nate Cronin's Sister.

Throughout high school, Jessie's twin brother and I have become great friends. Sharing the love of baseball and sports we became close enough where we'd go over each others houses. It was through Nate that Jessie and I first became friends. I didn't believe Jessie and Nate were twins at first because she is much smarter and more athletic than him. Mostly through high school, Jessie and I would say the occasional "Hi", but it was not until this year we got to become closer friends and even lunch buddies.

I am very thankful that Jessie and I have become such great friends because she is the one person in our class that I can rely on to complain about assignments with and also ask about homework. It is actually because of her I am writing this blog post right now. Jessie is also one of the most relatable people to me in our class because we both share a competitive and athletic background. We talked about the possibility of her swimming at the same college as me and even being training buddies. But no matter where she goes I am sure she will be very successful because she's one of the smartest people I know. I have been lucky that I got to be in the same class as Jessie Cronin this year and couldn't be happier to have been able to be such great friends with her.

Into the Wild- Alone

Chris McCandless had it all. He was raised by a supporting and wealthy family, and also obtained an education from one of the country's finest institutions. However, all of that wasn't what Chris wanted. Chris wanted to be alone and away from to commotion of an urban society. He wanted to be free from being ruled and live life in the wild. His decision to leave his family and reach his own nirvana is similar to what Siddhartha goes through in the book "Siddhartha" by Hermann Hesse. In the book, Siddhartha is also raised by a supporting and educated family. He lived through no struggles but yet he decided to leave his family in order to reach enlightenment. Like Chris, Siddhartha leaves behind a struggle free lifestyle and wanders off on his own, seeking minimal to no help from others. At the end, Siddhartha and Chris reach their enlightenment, however due to the uncontrollable conditions of the Alaskan frontier, Chris struggles to survive on his own and realizes being alone takes away the feeling of love.

In my opinion the idea of being alone is dumb. Even Chris realizes he made a mistake when he is dying without anyone there to help him and love him. I think reaching enlightenment is good, but is the sacrifice that is caused from achieving it worth it? To me it is not because we all only live once, so why should we sacrifice so much of our living lives to reach something that may be impossible to achieve in a lifetime. Although the book Siddhartha says that Siddhartha reaches enlightenment at the end, that book is fiction. When someone tried to achieve enlightenment on their own in real life the outcome wasn't as great.

We still haven't figure this out yet!

When I first read this prompt I was quite stunned by it because it is such a vague question. What I drew from it is just two things that I thought humans have not figured out yet. The two are, How was the World actually created? and What happens when you die.

These two questions are often asked because they are two things that drive the curiosity of humans. Ever since I was a child, I always wondered how the Earth was created, was it actually created by a God-like power or was it created based from everything randomly happening perfectly. The answer to this question may never be solved but do we actually want to know the true beginning of Earth? Everything in the world is already perfect how it is, there are different groups that are formed believing in their ways of how the world was created so why should we change it? The same goes for the second question people always wonder, What happens when you die? These questions are two that we still haven't figured out yet, but does figuring them out actually bring happiness to us? I think there is a reason why these haven't been figured out yet because if it was figured out, how could we express our imagination and thoughts as humans? Without these questions being solved, humanity keeps a curious mind, and with the questions being answered we lose the purpose of living and will just go through life as being born and dying.

How Do I Know What I Know?

How do I know what I know? That is a question I've never thought of asking myself. Sometimes the simplest things we take for granted and don't ever take a second to think about how we know how to do it. For example, walking, how do we know how to walk? We first learned how to walk at a young enough age where verbal instructions couldn't be fully comprehended, so therefore how do we know how to correctly walk? I think the answers to these questions are found within us.

Lets say walking for example, how did we learn how to walk if we didn't even know how to talk? I believe that we learned how to walk because we learn this task visually, as a child we just simply followed what our parents were doing, which was walking on two feet. The same goes for anything we learn, we know things based upon other's behaviors. Another example is learning, how do I know what I'm being taught is right? I truly don't know if what I'm learning is right but if everyone else agrees upon the same conclusion than it must be right.

As humans, I think how we know things is based on what we learn from others. The validity of knowledge is verified based on the more people that believe in the same thing. Humans are biologically created to follow what other humans do, and how we know things is simply by following what others think or do.

The Garden State

When I think of Garden State, I think of the nickname given to the state of New Jersey. However, in the story of Candide, the Garden State for them was the one community Candide and the rest of his pals finally decided to settle down in. As they wandered into yet another community in the story, the lifestyle of working hard on a farm and living a safe, distraction free life attracted Candide and his friends.

The Garden, unlike the many other communities Candide encountered was sort of a "getaway" from reality. Although one might argue that Eldurado was also a "getaway" from society and that it was safe from intruders, the idea of not being allowed to leave restricted them from their freedom. In the garden state, however, Candide and them would be free to do whatever they wished without a government enforcing upon them. Their livelihood would result in the hard work they conduct daily on their farm.

Candide's Punshment. Do they fit the crime?

In Candide, poor Candide suffers from punishments that hurts him physically and emotionally. His first "crime" was nothing more than a kiss to his love Cunegonde. One might say a person that cannot trace his bloodline should not have affection and a relationship with royalty, but Candide and Cunegonde had mutual feelings towards one another. Yet, Candide was punished for the kiss and was kicked out of Westphilia. In this instance the punishment does not fit the crime.

However, Candide later becomes a murderer, killing the Grand Inquisitor and Don Issachar. Although he killed Don Issachar due to self defense, he later killed the Grand Inquisitor just to prevent future problems. Later on, it was discovered and he was forced to flee without Cunegonde. Not being with her yet again was another punishment that was served to Candide. Although this time I believe the punishment was fitting of the crime.

Candide and Pangloss were also punished for supposedly causing the storm that killed most of the people in one of the towns. Pangloss was hanged, and Candide had to partake in an auto-de-fe. This punishment did not fit the "crime".

Through Candide, Candide faces many road bumps, he constantly loses the woman he loves, and he also is punished for many things. I think Candide's punishment for certain crimes were fit, and to some were not. It all just depends which of the many alleged crimes we are focusing on.

The Modern Gadfly

Back in the old days, Socrates was known to be someone that questioned everything about anything and he would constantly disrupt the status quo. He would question, ethics, religion, and nature. Now in the present, we take advantage of knowledge gained from these gadflies and we don't ask questions ourselves. So who may represent a modern gadfly? My best example would be to use myself.

I am the modern gadfly, if you think of Jonathan Eng, most of the time you would think of me as an annoying guy questioning any aspect of life.

Having born in a Chinese family, I have been raised in a way that is different from a traditional American family. I was never exposed to religion, as opposed to most who are every Sunday, and the way I viewed the world is completely different from a lot of my peers. I remember Sophomore year I followed some of my friends to an after school church sponsored program, where half the time was spent playing games, while the other half of the time was spent learning about Christianity. During the half spent learning I was exposed to an entirely different idea of how the world was created. Learning about how God said "let there be light" was entirely different from what I've always known as the big bang creating our planet. Since I was never exposed to this belief, I started to ask and question,  "how could this happen if....." or "then how could that be true if...". I was a Gadfly during those times, because I would question everything I was learning because I was not accustomed to it. I believe I stirred up things in which I questioned someone else's opinion, annoying them in the process.

A social gadfly such as Socrates and myself, is someone who questions life, while annoying others in the process by poking holes through their beliefs. I believe that questioning everything is beneficial in life because no one person in life is ever 100% right about everything, and questioning everything and every point of view is the best way for a person to learn and develop their own beliefs of the world.

The Unexamined life is not worth living?

When Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living, I couldn't agree more. I do believe that a person should take the time out of the day to examine themselves and to know themselves better, because the better we know ourselves the better we become. If I constantly live a life that is dull and just let all the motions move, can you even call that life? In order to live a full life I believe that one must constantly learn from themselves.

I apologize for always talking about baseball, but for example baseball: In a typical day I analyze everything that goes on in the game of baseball. It may be my swing, the pitcher, or maybe even the weather. In order to learn from prior life experiences, in this case past baseball games, I must examine the past experience I've had. Examining and learning from past experience is the only way humans can become better in life. If I was to play the game of baseball without examining all the aspects, I would not be successful at all because I would not learn from my failures. This can easily be tied back into life, if a person does not take time to examine themselves and learn from prior experiences, what really is their life then? There wouldn't be a light at the end of the tunnel for them to strive for.

Although Socrates says its "not worth living" these words sound very harsh. But remember, Socrates' quote was in Latin or Greek and that quote could have been translated in a harsher manner, therefore if you believe that the quote is harsh please examine yourself.

Me

Hello, my name is Jonathan Eng. Welcome to my blog. Today is September 4th, 2014 and it is also the day I have gained the rights to buy lottery tickets and other things 18 year olds can buy. I am excited to be 18, yet I'm saddened to think about all the crazy things I missed out on as a "child". This year I will be a senior at Whitney M. Young High School and I am excited to say that I will be attending New York University for the next 4 years to play baseball as well as educate myself in their Business School. Baseball is a huge factor in my life, most of my time away from school is spent playing and practicing the game. Besides baseball I do enjoy other things such as, hanging out with my friends, watching TV, or yelling at my neighbor when he takes my parking spot. My life is pretty simple and I try not to create and complications, I just like to enjoy myself and have fun. There are still many goals that I have set for myself in high school that I do hope to achieve before the year ends. These goals include, winning a city championship, going to the Dinner of Champions, finishing high school strong and with distinction, win re-election for Class Secretary, and to make the best out of senior year. Although many of these goals might be left unfulfilled, I just hope that I can leave Whitney Young with no regrets,