Before talking about my personal philosophy, I am going to tell you a little bit about myself. I have lived in Durango, CO my entire life, I also have super cool parents. They have always supported my ideas and passions. They have never pushed a religion or philosophical belief system on me. They have always just set an example of how to be a very good person for me. My Dad got me to start skiing when I was two years old. In elementary school I wanted to play soccer and hockey, my parents happily supported me. When I was 10 I wanted to join the park/pipe ski team and my parents totally supported me. Skiing became all I did, I even wanted to be a professional skier for a little bit. I loved it so much. I love how earth is such an awesome playground. Skiing was all I ever thought about. At that point in time it had shaped a lot of my philosophy. I have rafted and camped with my Dad my whole life. The mountains, rivers and every other part of earth is super important to me. The importance of Mama Earth and all she offers is a big part of my philosophy, partly due to all the things I love to do outside. I hope my decisions throughout my life help keep Mama Earth healthy so that everyone can keep doing the things that make them happy. I put all my effort into skiing and loved every part of it until the end of 8th grade. I was at my nationals competition in Summit County, Colorado, I had qualified for three events that year, Halfpipe, Slopestyle and Rail Jam. I was super stoked, especially for the rail jam competition. I did halfpipe on the first morning and later that afternoon had some practice time on the rail jam course. I fell and dislocated my shoulder, once I was in the ski patrols office my shoulder slowly came back together on its own. I called my coach on the phone, he was going to meet me at the rail jam at 7:00pm, when the competition started. He oddly never ended up being there, but I ended up making it to finals and getting fifth place. I got back to the condo at 12:00pm and got up the next morning at 5:30 to drive 45 minutes back to Copper Mountain from Vail for my slopestyle competition, which started at 7:00am. I got there in time to take a few practice runs but I ended up falling on two of them. My coach was putting a lot of pressure on me and at that point I was over it.
That summer I started skateboarding and skated every day. It was so awesome because I didn’t have a coach telling me what to do or how to do it, I was free to express myself however I pleased. In the fall I fell and hurt my knee. I couldn’t skate for about 2 months and discovered thrasher magazines website and learned about so many skaters and found so many different people with different styles I learned about the history of skateboard tricks as well as the history of skateboarding. Along with many other things, skateboarding has always been a form of freedom from anything one wants freedom from and a pure form of self expression. I skated into the snow that year for about three weeks after my knee healed. Eventually winter fully hit and it was a sweet ski season. As soon as the snow melted I started skating again, after about a month I broke my ankle. That gave me a good lesson about being detached from the active things I love to do. It was quite a bit of ongoing work but by end of the summer I was skating everyday again. That winter was unfortunately dry, but fortunately I was able to skate year round for one year. A lot of the time I fall trying tricks on my skateboard. At first falling would make me stop trying but over time I learning to get back up. Eventually I felt like I had gotten better at falling. I feel skateboarding has taught me many morals and life skills that mean a lot to me. By that spring I was better at skating than I was before I broke my ankle. It has been a year since then and I have logged about 40 days of skiing in both those seasons. Unfortunately for me this past season was too good to only log 20 days. Not skating in the winter time has definitely become a personal controversy for me.
Talking about all that was important because doing all those things has and always will make me happy. I love the adrenaline and I have the most fun on my skis or my skateboard. I have always found meaning and happiness in those two activities and at one point skiing became stressful, and that was not what skiing should be. The purpose of my human existence is to do the things that make me happy and through finding happiness meaning is also found in life. To live a meaningful life means that you care about what your doing and love it as well. It is most imported for everyone to focus on that in my opinion. I think that no matter what belief system one has, one still needs to find activities that make them happy. That is why I told you about all the things that make me happy, they are a very important part of my philosophy. I am also a very social person and love meeting new people from around the world. Love is very important to me and I try my hardest to be very kind to people. Being kind makes me happy and I think happiness is very important. Graham Greene says in The Meaning of Life “The Stoics added that a wise man will not allow his happiness to depend on things not under his control, such as wealth, health, good looks, or the opinions of others.” Happiness is too important to let it depend on things like that and anything else. Thank you for listening to what makes me happy.
Reflection:
For our “Your Life on Earth: Philosophizing Purpose and Place in the Twenty First Century” project in humanities we researched the history behind the development of different philosophies and religions. This allowed us to gain an understanding of belief systems and philosophical ideas that already existed so that we could develop our own. We were given a handful of essential questions to answer. Some came easily for me, others were more difficult. I chose to look into what the purpose of my human existence is, what it means to live a meaningful life and how my intertextual experience has impacted my personal philosophy. It wasn’t easy to answer these questions, so I used my passions and life experiences as a tool to do so. I find it hard to give a precise answer to these questions because, at this age, my viewpoints on life are still evolving as I talk to more people with different viewpoints. I really like to focus on things that make me happy, when I am happy, I find meaning in life. That is why my passions have been such a helpful tool for me to express myself throughout this project. I was a little bit stubborn towards this project at the beginning of the unit, my viewpoints strongly opposed some other piers viewpoints and some of our class discussions would frustrate me. Once I began looking inward later on in the unit and focusing on my own philosophy development I began to really enjoy the unit.
I don’t think I developed many new insights over the course of this unit but the ones I did develop were key. My biggest one was how important happiness is, I know that sounds simple, but one should always make sure they are doing things that make them happy. In my opinion happiness is a state of being, and if one feels happy throughout their life, then they will feel content with their life at the end of it. My favorite passage from all of our readings was said by Graham Greene in The Meaning of Life. “The Stoics added that a wise man will not allow his happiness to depend on things not under his control, such as wealth, health, good looks, or the opinions of others.” This is such an important quote because it is so true, even if it requires effort, everyone should do all they can to make themselves as happy as possible. If one is happy, the rest of life tends to fall into place. My other major take away was how important ones personal opinions and ideals are. I got frustrated disagreeing with other piers differing beliefs at the beginning of the semester, but I ended up realizing how important it is that we all hold true to our own opinions and ideals. They make us all unique and different from one another and life would be much less dynamic and much more boring if we all always agreed and got along. It is a valuable skill to respect others words and respect your own as well, because who really has the right to be right?
I don’t know where my intellectual quandaries will go from here. This unit was hard for me because I don’t enjoy over thinking things, I really just want to live life and enjoy it. I don’t have any major questions and I don’t have any desire to come up with them. My only quandary at this point is how to take maximum advantage of my life as a young adult. I have many things I would like to do and at the same time wonder what I would like to do. I don’t let myself get stressed out about it because that would do no good. Life will work out. I am excited to embark on this beautiful journey.
That summer I started skateboarding and skated every day. It was so awesome because I didn’t have a coach telling me what to do or how to do it, I was free to express myself however I pleased. In the fall I fell and hurt my knee. I couldn’t skate for about 2 months and discovered thrasher magazines website and learned about so many skaters and found so many different people with different styles I learned about the history of skateboard tricks as well as the history of skateboarding. Along with many other things, skateboarding has always been a form of freedom from anything one wants freedom from and a pure form of self expression. I skated into the snow that year for about three weeks after my knee healed. Eventually winter fully hit and it was a sweet ski season. As soon as the snow melted I started skating again, after about a month I broke my ankle. That gave me a good lesson about being detached from the active things I love to do. It was quite a bit of ongoing work but by end of the summer I was skating everyday again. That winter was unfortunately dry, but fortunately I was able to skate year round for one year. A lot of the time I fall trying tricks on my skateboard. At first falling would make me stop trying but over time I learning to get back up. Eventually I felt like I had gotten better at falling. I feel skateboarding has taught me many morals and life skills that mean a lot to me. By that spring I was better at skating than I was before I broke my ankle. It has been a year since then and I have logged about 40 days of skiing in both those seasons. Unfortunately for me this past season was too good to only log 20 days. Not skating in the winter time has definitely become a personal controversy for me.
Talking about all that was important because doing all those things has and always will make me happy. I love the adrenaline and I have the most fun on my skis or my skateboard. I have always found meaning and happiness in those two activities and at one point skiing became stressful, and that was not what skiing should be. The purpose of my human existence is to do the things that make me happy and through finding happiness meaning is also found in life. To live a meaningful life means that you care about what your doing and love it as well. It is most imported for everyone to focus on that in my opinion. I think that no matter what belief system one has, one still needs to find activities that make them happy. That is why I told you about all the things that make me happy, they are a very important part of my philosophy. I am also a very social person and love meeting new people from around the world. Love is very important to me and I try my hardest to be very kind to people. Being kind makes me happy and I think happiness is very important. Graham Greene says in The Meaning of Life “The Stoics added that a wise man will not allow his happiness to depend on things not under his control, such as wealth, health, good looks, or the opinions of others.” Happiness is too important to let it depend on things like that and anything else. Thank you for listening to what makes me happy.
Reflection:
For our “Your Life on Earth: Philosophizing Purpose and Place in the Twenty First Century” project in humanities we researched the history behind the development of different philosophies and religions. This allowed us to gain an understanding of belief systems and philosophical ideas that already existed so that we could develop our own. We were given a handful of essential questions to answer. Some came easily for me, others were more difficult. I chose to look into what the purpose of my human existence is, what it means to live a meaningful life and how my intertextual experience has impacted my personal philosophy. It wasn’t easy to answer these questions, so I used my passions and life experiences as a tool to do so. I find it hard to give a precise answer to these questions because, at this age, my viewpoints on life are still evolving as I talk to more people with different viewpoints. I really like to focus on things that make me happy, when I am happy, I find meaning in life. That is why my passions have been such a helpful tool for me to express myself throughout this project. I was a little bit stubborn towards this project at the beginning of the unit, my viewpoints strongly opposed some other piers viewpoints and some of our class discussions would frustrate me. Once I began looking inward later on in the unit and focusing on my own philosophy development I began to really enjoy the unit.
I don’t think I developed many new insights over the course of this unit but the ones I did develop were key. My biggest one was how important happiness is, I know that sounds simple, but one should always make sure they are doing things that make them happy. In my opinion happiness is a state of being, and if one feels happy throughout their life, then they will feel content with their life at the end of it. My favorite passage from all of our readings was said by Graham Greene in The Meaning of Life. “The Stoics added that a wise man will not allow his happiness to depend on things not under his control, such as wealth, health, good looks, or the opinions of others.” This is such an important quote because it is so true, even if it requires effort, everyone should do all they can to make themselves as happy as possible. If one is happy, the rest of life tends to fall into place. My other major take away was how important ones personal opinions and ideals are. I got frustrated disagreeing with other piers differing beliefs at the beginning of the semester, but I ended up realizing how important it is that we all hold true to our own opinions and ideals. They make us all unique and different from one another and life would be much less dynamic and much more boring if we all always agreed and got along. It is a valuable skill to respect others words and respect your own as well, because who really has the right to be right?
I don’t know where my intellectual quandaries will go from here. This unit was hard for me because I don’t enjoy over thinking things, I really just want to live life and enjoy it. I don’t have any major questions and I don’t have any desire to come up with them. My only quandary at this point is how to take maximum advantage of my life as a young adult. I have many things I would like to do and at the same time wonder what I would like to do. I don’t let myself get stressed out about it because that would do no good. Life will work out. I am excited to embark on this beautiful journey.