Before I start my post for today, I would like to apologize for my absence to the small community who read and (hopefully) enjoy my blog. I’ve been absent for awhile, but the time I have been gone has sort of been like a renewal of myself. While it has been a confusing and consuming period, I believe that I am a little bit stronger for it. Trust me, the irony of disappearing and reappearing with a new sense of hope isn’t lost on me. Hopefully, I can now begin to write about the many new facets of life.
Before now, I have been lost and confused. I didn’t really feel like I had a purpose in life rather than merely to exist as a lone wanderer. This negative idea of my existence is still echoing through the deep depths of my mind, but it doesn’t haunt me like it once did. I can say that while I was happy before, I wasn’t (how to describe it?) full, for a lack of a better description. I felt empty, drained. I was in pursuit to search for something that wasn’t written or spoken. To tell the truth, I didn’t even know what exactly I was searching for, I knew that I was trying to find a place to belong, somewhere where I knew I could become irreplaceable (my own niche). It’s still too early for me to know exactly what life has in store for me, but I think that I am heading in the right direction.
In several of my earlier posts, I wrote about how high school lead me to the realization that I wanted to help people around me with their problems, in anyway I could. This hasn’t changed. I have always wanted to help people (and probably always will) because I can relate with their pain and their struggles in a way I thought others couldn’t I have changed my opinion of that remark knowing now that there are a ton of people who, like me, are thinking about the greater good of the abandoned/ignored/depressed/etc. There isn’t a day that passes that I don’t think about the loss of people because of their unheard pleas for help.
Which brings me to the heart of the matter, I am a freshman in college who has every intention of majoring in psychology (this is common knowledge). What is also common knowledge is that I was once (a long time ago) a very depressed individual. Having mentally matured and wisened up to life and its difficulties, I am prepared to delve deeper into learning about life’s secrets and our role in these secrets. This semester I have taken the opportunity to take a philosophical course, nothing major, just an introduction to ethics course because of its role in psychology. I’m not going to spout nonsense about how easy the class is because I don’t find it easy at all! It’s not like a Math course where there’s a definite right or wrong answer for each topic/scenario, and it’s not like an English course where you can just copy all of the information out of the book.
Ethics is one of the courses that you have to really dig deep into your mind to analyze everything (the evidence, the information, and the data) to choose what you agree or disagree with. There isn’t one right answer that’s set in stone (it’s more like a great divide). It’s even harder when a professor (practically a stranger) is asking you to form your own individual opinion of hot topics (e.g. abortion, stem cell research, cloning, physician-assisted suicide/euthanasia, etc.) when everything you discuss goes against what you were taught. It’s a struggle to really analyze and think about what YOU believe in, and not what your family/friends believe in. After you acknowledge what you believe in, you have to defend your position of that belief (which isn’t easy when your stance on a particular topic is far off from a large group of others). Being on the opposite side of the spectrum can be lonely, but I have and will always believe in the practice of “staying true to ourselves.”
René Descartes, a French philosopher/mathematician/writer spoke one of the most famous philosophical statements in history: “Cogito ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am”).
Whilst thinking, we shape our beliefs, and as we all know, our beliefs shape who we are as people. I believe that our beliefs give us something to exist for. Why else would we fight so hard to protect them? To go against what we are taught early in life, replace it with what we believe in as we mature, and then defend that position for most of our lives (if not longer) can be difficult but liberating! If you are at constant attack of the community around you who do not share your views (e.g. family/friends), it’s even more difficult and can prove to be mentally/physically oppressing. So to end my post, I would like to say to whoever can honestly state that any form of ethical thinking (or belief building) is an easy task: I salute you! As always: get out, experience new things, and enjoy life!
-AlexEelise