some good thoughts (sleepy)

pictures from the lan party will probably be posted at a time when i feel like posting them.
:)
i'm unmotivated right now.

i just wrote a short philosophy paper. the guy we're covering next is Soren Kierkegaard. He seems really cool. A Christian guy from the 1800s. He was really focused on the individual person and how people are losing their individuality to the masses. I can agree with his view on things, especially in todays society. I'm not saying that I'm some kind of individual standing above the throng of the multitudes. I'd like to believe that, but I know that I do my own fare share of crowd following.

ugh i'm really tired right now so i don't know if my thoughts are clear.

one thing i was thinking though as I was reading stuff about Kierkegaard was the concept of "be yourself." It's important to ask yourself "who am I trying to be?" It's also important to realize that you probably shouldn't have an answer for that, because you shouldn't be trying to be anyone other than yourself, and being yourself isn't something that needs trying for.

If there is one thing that I'm always impressed with as I learn about new philosophers, it's that whether I agree with them or not, whether they are right or not, they always have a solid position that they stick to, and I typically can respect that. Although I'm not sure if it only seems that way to me because they are all long dead and cannot change their mind, their words and ideas are immortalized in text. But it's admirable that they had a conviction and stood by it, especially when it went against popular thinking at the time. Kierkegaard lamented the spread of mediocrity among people, how we level ourselves and others into similarities. "They're only human," covers the mistakes with an excuse. Why can't we have a passion for greatness (in a greatness of virtue/character sense) that makes us more than just what everybody else is, or consents to be? We can be more. You are not a slave to your desires or the desires of others. You can do what you will not what you want. You can use your will to choose a life contrary to what the masses create as a desire, a want in you.

i'm almost embarrassed to admit that throughout this philosophy class, almost every time we start a new chapter on a new philosopher or philosophical view, I am am always saying "a-ha! now this person had the right idea about things." but then we start the next chapter and I see the holes poked in their views by later philosophers, without the persecuted able to give any defense from the grave. If there is one thing I've realized, it's that no man has gotten things exactly right. For all our "wisdom" and "intelligence," we can't explain things in a way so that they can't be refuted in some shape or form. We are so obviously imperfect, with limited understanding.

As a final note, I think that modern day philosophers, or serious students of philosophy must be either very patient with or very annoyed with the numbers of people who know very little about philosophy but who fancy themselves a philosopher with all sorts of grand ideas about things. One starts reading about the great thinkers of the past and then one starts believing that they've got some ideas of their own and so they start quoting and proclaiming.
I would annoy myself if I were a separate person who was more learned in philosophy than me.

we know so little, yet we think we know so much. i'm guilty of this too.

boy i'm tired, i hope it didn't show. goodnight.