Time In Memorial, Personal Philosophy Project
Interpreting personal philosophy can be very difficult, and even now I can’t really say that I have a complete understanding of my own Philosophy. However throughout the course of this project, dabbling in all these different interpretations of concepts like purpose and life has helped me to curate an idea of what is most important to me in my life. Essentially the question my project attempts to answer is “What do you want to remember ten years from now?” This is why I chose to create a time capsule containing objects of my identity, things that have meaning to me in some way that I want to remember 10 years from now. The inspiration behind my personal project was not based on any one particular thing however, but rather a culmination of concepts and experiences. The philosophical aspect of my project comes from ideas of existentialism and the unknowable future, as well as from my own experience in life and the experiences of others. In essence I don’t know the future and that's scary in a lot of ways, and there’s no philosophy that relieves me of that. But what I do know is what I have now, and what I think is worth remembering even if everything were to change, thus a Capsule of time, as well as a capture of identity.
My biggest epiphone in this project is that I don’t really care to live in grandeur. What I mean by that is that I think there’s inherent meaning in just being, in just living happily day to day, even if I don’t make a significant impact on the world or am not anything special. It’s honestly hard to think of things much larger than myself, I feel insignificant in the face of seven billion other people. And so I realize it’s not necessarily always what we have done with our lives that’s important at the end of the day, but rather the way we’ve lived. Wouldn’t someone who has relished their entire life have lived more fulfilled than one who has spent their entire life in turmoil, even if that person was let’s say a king? This project helped me change my way of thinking about life in the form of the things that I view as worth living for. At one point we interviewed an elderly man about his life, and during that interview he talked about how simple things like walks and talking to his friends are what he lives for, that at this point he doesn’t really need much else, he’s happy. This message really struck me because I agree, part of the reason I like the perspective of existentialism is because in the face of existentialism living simply to be happy is as valid as living to be a saint, or a stoic, or whatever else. There’s freedom of choice in that you don’t need to be anything in particular, just living is valid.
Some questions sparked by this project.
-Will I be the same person 10 years from now, how much will have stayed the same or changed?
- Is it ok if the most important people in my life may only be there temporarily?
- How much value does religion have in our modern society? And is there anything we need to change about our interpretation of it?
- I think there’s inherent value in just existing, but what I wonder is if someone does something really really horrible, does that devalue their own life? Is there a point where someone no longer deserves the right to existence?
My biggest epiphone in this project is that I don’t really care to live in grandeur. What I mean by that is that I think there’s inherent meaning in just being, in just living happily day to day, even if I don’t make a significant impact on the world or am not anything special. It’s honestly hard to think of things much larger than myself, I feel insignificant in the face of seven billion other people. And so I realize it’s not necessarily always what we have done with our lives that’s important at the end of the day, but rather the way we’ve lived. Wouldn’t someone who has relished their entire life have lived more fulfilled than one who has spent their entire life in turmoil, even if that person was let’s say a king? This project helped me change my way of thinking about life in the form of the things that I view as worth living for. At one point we interviewed an elderly man about his life, and during that interview he talked about how simple things like walks and talking to his friends are what he lives for, that at this point he doesn’t really need much else, he’s happy. This message really struck me because I agree, part of the reason I like the perspective of existentialism is because in the face of existentialism living simply to be happy is as valid as living to be a saint, or a stoic, or whatever else. There’s freedom of choice in that you don’t need to be anything in particular, just living is valid.
Some questions sparked by this project.
-Will I be the same person 10 years from now, how much will have stayed the same or changed?
- Is it ok if the most important people in my life may only be there temporarily?
- How much value does religion have in our modern society? And is there anything we need to change about our interpretation of it?
- I think there’s inherent value in just existing, but what I wonder is if someone does something really really horrible, does that devalue their own life? Is there a point where someone no longer deserves the right to existence?