Happiness & Meaning
Essential Questions:
What is the purpose of your existence?
What is happiness and what makes you happy?
What dies it mean to live a meaningful life?
To what extent can literature shape your personal philosophy on happiness and meaning?
What is the purpose of your existence?
What is happiness and what makes you happy?
What dies it mean to live a meaningful life?
To what extent can literature shape your personal philosophy on happiness and meaning?
Project Description
https://docs.google.com/a/animashighschool.com/file/d/0B5ktO3NLUDlcems1NU1kbjZudWM/edit
Personal Reflection
During the time spent on this project there was much reconsideration on my part about the things in life that are truly important.
As a class, we watched a documentary called Happy. The movie was a gateway to the knowledge of what brings happiness to people all around the world. There are people in China, whose entire lives revolve around caring for their crops and making sure their families have something to eat everyday and they are perfectly content and happy with this lifestyle. Tribes in Africa that have no affiliation with the technologies, devices, businesses and currency that most of the world uses and would say make life easier, are living happy lives just with those around them and just with what they need to sustain themselves.
We also read a book, The Stranger, by Albert Camus that portrayed the life of a man without morals and without care for anything. This man was like a walking and living definition for existentialism; the kind of person nobody notices and the kind of person who seems to take no pleasure spending time with friends or family or anyone for that matter. He didn't express any emotion after his mother had died, not even taking any days off from work. By the end of the novel the man is on trial for murder and is sentenced to be executed, but not for murder. He was proven guilty for manslaughter but also for lacking the usual behavior and emotion that comes with the death of a family member. In the eyes of the jury and the rest of the court, he had no humanity; showing no signs of regret or fear for the consequence of what he's done. This man's belief was that life was not something special and not something that had any meaning in it. Because every single person has the same fate, because we are all doomed to one end and one end only; death.
After reading this book, I guess I began to think similarly to Meursault. He lived simply and was honest up until his last moments. He had no illusions of what life was and I think that most people do. Everyone wants to believe that it wasn't all for nothing and that we are here for a reason. That thought is comforting and gives you hope, but it doesn't seem true. I just have to think of all the things that people say are important, the things that you just have to do to succeed and I think, there really isn't anything that's important, we just say it is so.
You see, the thought that your life is not meaningful is a very distressful thought. No one likes hearing that and no one wants to know that. Because they know that meaning is something you have to create for yourself and that once they die, they will know that it wasn't all for nothing. That their life had a purpose. This is what my opinions and beliefs have become after this happiness and meaning project. I don't really believe in much anymore.
https://docs.google.com/a/animashighschool.com/file/d/0B5ktO3NLUDlcems1NU1kbjZudWM/edit
Personal Reflection
During the time spent on this project there was much reconsideration on my part about the things in life that are truly important.
As a class, we watched a documentary called Happy. The movie was a gateway to the knowledge of what brings happiness to people all around the world. There are people in China, whose entire lives revolve around caring for their crops and making sure their families have something to eat everyday and they are perfectly content and happy with this lifestyle. Tribes in Africa that have no affiliation with the technologies, devices, businesses and currency that most of the world uses and would say make life easier, are living happy lives just with those around them and just with what they need to sustain themselves.
We also read a book, The Stranger, by Albert Camus that portrayed the life of a man without morals and without care for anything. This man was like a walking and living definition for existentialism; the kind of person nobody notices and the kind of person who seems to take no pleasure spending time with friends or family or anyone for that matter. He didn't express any emotion after his mother had died, not even taking any days off from work. By the end of the novel the man is on trial for murder and is sentenced to be executed, but not for murder. He was proven guilty for manslaughter but also for lacking the usual behavior and emotion that comes with the death of a family member. In the eyes of the jury and the rest of the court, he had no humanity; showing no signs of regret or fear for the consequence of what he's done. This man's belief was that life was not something special and not something that had any meaning in it. Because every single person has the same fate, because we are all doomed to one end and one end only; death.
After reading this book, I guess I began to think similarly to Meursault. He lived simply and was honest up until his last moments. He had no illusions of what life was and I think that most people do. Everyone wants to believe that it wasn't all for nothing and that we are here for a reason. That thought is comforting and gives you hope, but it doesn't seem true. I just have to think of all the things that people say are important, the things that you just have to do to succeed and I think, there really isn't anything that's important, we just say it is so.
You see, the thought that your life is not meaningful is a very distressful thought. No one likes hearing that and no one wants to know that. Because they know that meaning is something you have to create for yourself and that once they die, they will know that it wasn't all for nothing. That their life had a purpose. This is what my opinions and beliefs have become after this happiness and meaning project. I don't really believe in much anymore.