Up@dawn 2.0

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Liam Quinn Second Installment

              In this subsequent and final installment, I will focus on providing more substance to the idea of training oneself or working toward the vague, opaque and even imposing (for those who do not possess it) concept of happiness. The considerably subjective and individualistic nature of happiness can impress upon one attempting to define it a sense of futility, which undoubtedly can cause frustration in light of the fact that, in this case, the purpose is to attain it or develop it. For now, and for the purposes of this discussion, it must be accepted that the ideal of happiness, which is to hopefully be achieved cannot be universally defined. Therefore, the following thoughts are dedicated to the philosophical thoughts and thinking processes that work toward the attainment of happiness rather than understand the essence of happiness, which may overall serve as better definition of happiness than a definition of happiness, itself.
                The following hyperlink will take you to a YouTube video of a commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace that gained considerable popularity after his death.

David Foster Wallace: This Is Water
               


It is a somewhat lengthy video, but it provides great context to the discussion of working toward happiness. He makes a point early on in the video relevant to the ambiguity of happiness that states, “… important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.” He reduces the profundity of this statement immediately afterward, citing it as being a “banal platitude” when stated in plain English language, and perhaps it is, but its significance is crucial, because happiness is a reality difficult to talk about without being cliché, but it is a reality, and it is potentially the most important value in life, if pursued and understood with consideration of others and one’s own health.
                Moreover, this speech touches on the importance of our education in the sense of working toward happiness, but in opposition to the idea that it is the knowledge we have forcibly ingested into our brains or the promise of material success after graduation that serves as a means to this happiness. Rather he posits that it is the training in how we think and what we think about that instills us with the tools or enhances the ability cultivated throughout our lives to think. How we think and what we choose to think about is paramount to our lives and our happiness.
                The application of the educated thinking that follows a liberal arts degree applies directly to the banal platitudes discovered when discussing the reality of adult life and the mundanities inherent within it. Wallace gives an anecdote regarding the necessity of going to the supermarket that applies to this in which one, on a good day, should try to view the grueling day to day responsibilities and obligatory actions of life in a positive light.

                I hope that this speech provides some solace in our soon to be post graduate lives as we embark on trying to find happiness and our place in the world. Also here is a link to a video with a nice little quip directed at those of you considering graduate school. Good luck everyone!


First Installment

First comment

Second comment




1 comment:

  1. DFW's commencement address was wonderful. So sad that someone as solicitous of others' happiness could not finally achieve his own.

    Good luck in grad school, if that's your destination. Like John Irving's & Robin Williams' "Garp," I soon learned to think of it as Gradual School - gradually teaching me not to want to be a student! - except in the Lifelong Learning sense, of course.

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