carlostheelephant-blog

[carlostheelephant-blog]

I implore you to click the link above and see where it takes you... If you are too lazy, I will tell you it should send you to my AP Physics 2 textbook. There you will see topics like fluid mechanics, electromagnetism, circuits, circular motion, and more. Throughout this year, my classmates and I learned much about the superficial and physical world. We predicted outcomes, we saw patterns and gathered data, but nothing that would help us understand the world in a profound, meaningful manner. So we did not discover any truths. After all, as Kierkegaard mentions, the most invigorating truths are subjective, personal, and irrational. So we must take up action and do things, but do them with passion because, through them, we will find meaning and truths about ourselves. Textbooks like the ones I have linked won't have answers, so it is up to us to make a truth we can live with.

[carlostheelephant-blog]

The world is filled with chaos, with disorder and with what we don't want. We want order, correction, love, and control. This post is part of a school project, and my teacher wants order and control. Well, Camus says that this contrast between the world and our own expectations is THE absurd. I guess in a way I am making an example of the absurd with linking the video to Tyler the Creator, the contrast between what my teacher expects and wants and then me, what the world gives, a video at random what we don't want or expect. Anyway, to continue with my train of thought, and with what Camus says, we live with the absurd... after all, it is thanks to us that the absurd exists. We must learn to live and to rebel against death and make our meaning in the absurd. We are after all, like Sisyphus, a man of myth who is cursed with pushing a boulder up a hill only to see it fall every day for eternity. I make this comparison because we will get jobs. We will wake up every morning, work eight hours, come back home, eat, sleep, and repeat for 40 years until we retire, and then we will have another routine until we die. We live with the same absurdity as Sisyphus, so we must find meaning to our own repetitive lives.

[carlostheelephant-blog]

Let's be honest everyone is self-conscious of their image on social media. So much so that we try to build a facade of ourselves. We choose the right photos, the right filter, and post in hopes of getting likes, so we feel validated. This is a perversion of reality. It has come to the point where we are captives to the "like" counter at the bottom of our screen. We think of that number on snap, the follow to the following ration on IG, the retweets we get just for that dopamine release of fake "validation." Not only that but now we use technology where companionship existed before. We feel sad we BINGE shows; we feel sad we play games for hours; we want to feel connected; we watch YouTubers who don't even know we exist. Heidegger mentioned that the relationship between technology and humans, tools and creators, might not be so simple. He was indeed right because today, what I see are the tools using the creators. Look at the dating apps, for adults and teens, look at how perverse and hollow we have become where we use technology to find people to hook up with were learning how to be human isn't needed anymore.

[carlostheelephant-blog]

Everyone dies. You -the person reading this- will die, I will die, and this post will outlive us on the internet. I mention our mortality because Heidegger believed that our lives having an end is a crucial feature of being human. And unlike many other beings, we live while knowing we will wither and die. The scene that the link-up will take you is from Rick and Morty. In it, Morty comes to see himself die, buries his own dead carcass, and takes the place of "dead Morty" of that dimension. In this shocking episode, Morty has to confront that he will die, for he is dead. After this episode, Morty attempts to cope with living in this "substitute reality" and sees to value things differently, a little more perverse, but that's the nature of the show. Maybe some of the people reading this post have had close encounters with death, be it yourself or someone close has died, and we face the subject of the end of the self. After such experience, like Morty, we value things differently. We should embrace our fragile short lives and value love, family, and companionship because we won't have any of these soon.

[carlostheelephant-blog]

Kierkegaard argued that we derive a sense of anxiety by the infinite possibilities of our own freedom. We are continually making decisions and seem to have near-infinite options for our own actions. In quarantine, many of us have many opportunities to do anything we want, and I can see many people seem lost by this freedom. Heck, look at college decisions for seniors. We, I say we because I'm a senior, could go to community college, in-state college, or big-name schools. But then we ponder whether we choose the right school. At this moment, we don't know.  Maybe for some of us, THAT school we choose was wrong for us. We go into unnecessary debt, aren't challenged, or an accident happens, and we don't even finish college. Statistically, most of us will be in debt after college, and a portion of us won't graduate. Thus our vast freedom seems to create so much room for our anxiety to take over. Even now, I see many students already asking themselves if they choose right and try to see the future. I guess it is the price of freedom and of the human condition.