We Still Haven't Figured This Out Yet!

     There isn't anything to figure out! That's why we haven't figured it out. This meaning, this purpose, this truth that everyone seems to be driving themselves crazy trying to figure out, it doesn't exist. 

     I think it's human nature to need purpose behind everything they do. We get fulfillment from knowing that what we are doing means something and nothing gets done if it not for anything. We want to know about everything. Why are we here? Who am I? We're all just wondering aimlessly looking for answers to questions that doesn't exist. Meaning where there isn't any. 

        I don't think there is one definite truth or meaning. I don't think there is ONE definite anything. I think truth and purpose are all up to the individual person and people get sidetracked looking for something that holds true for everyone. Throughout life we all go through our own personal journeys learning about and experiencing life as we go. But in the end, when it's all said and done, we still don't know anything more than what we started out with. 

        I think we all need to stop trying to figure things out; stop getting distracted. Instead, just live. We are wasting time trying to figure it all out, but maybe we aren't meant to. 

How Do I Know What I Know?

       You know what you know because of the learning and observing you have done since childhood, after you know to believe. Beliefs comes from questions, criticizing that leave you to interpret what you've been taught. In addition to what you've been taught in text books and by parents, everything learned from experience. Once you gain that experience you interpret it and analyze it. 

        You know what you know because it is what you have grown to believe. I think it all starts when you are young. You start off learning and observing from different experiences you have. We take after and learn from our parents, teachers and other influential figures during our childhood development. You learn from your text book that 2+2=4 and that Columbus discovered the Americas. From your parents what is right and wrong. 

         But it is after we have learned that we begin to criticize. It is this that leads us to believing and knowing certain things. We examine our life and the things we've been taught to see if they're accurate and if we agree with them. After you analyze you determine if you want to follow and believe in the things you have been taught. You know what you know because you have been taught it and after a process of examination, come to accepted it as truth and knowledge. 

        The things that are not proven or accepted are rejected. We no longer believe in them. Humans always want to make sense of things they do not know. So we set ourselves out on a quest in order to find the truth. 

        I think that trough learning, experiences and a lot of examining we decide what we think is true and decide to accept as what we know.

The Garden State

I take the garden state  to be the utopian society.  A place in which everything is perfectly perfect, amazingly amazing and happens for the best.

    Candide left the garden state in search for something better. I think that it is part of humans to naturally want something more. we are constantly striving for something bigger and better than what we have. Us, just like Candide, are inclined to always search for more.

In the story El Dorado represented  the utopian society. However, despite the optimal life El Dorado could provide, Candide left because he felt he could gain riches in another place. I think in real life people have the opportunity and chance to live happily and in an utopian/garden state but chose not to. Instead of having everything well and happy they get greedy for a fame, fortune and happiness that suppasses others. Our greed overcomes us and determines our actions. In real life we abandon the garden state because we think we can find something better.

As we discussed in class, the idea of a garden state is subjective . Everyone has their own opinion of what utopia looks like and different ideas on how to achieve this society. Although, I wonder if this utopian/garden state is actually real. How do we know that this (the world we live in now, the way it is) isn't the utopian state and isn't the best of all possible worlds? I question if we are being greedy and fantasizing about a garden state better than the one we live in now. Maybe this (the world and life we live now) is El Dorado and  this is as good as its going to get. By striving for another better world we are leaving our own El Dorado in order to get something better. something better that doesn't actually exist.

Maybe this is the garden state. This is as good as it gets and us as a part of human nature want something more. I don't know if the garden state actually exist but I question rather or that if it did, would be satisfied  with it? would it be enough? or would we leave our El Dorado in search of a better life?

         In the end, Candide did realize his own garden state.  It took a very long time and many unfortunate events, but he got there. I think in real life we need to take a page from the book. We are all Candide in the sense that we'lre always looking for something better. I wonder what it would take (hopefully nothing copared to what Candide went through)  before we realize that we need to tend to our garden and be conetent with what we have.