Last Midterm Post! Jake Goza H01 Group 3

Hey guys, it's sad that this is the last post, I know, but all good things must come to an end. I hope these seires of posts have been entertaining and interesting: I try to spice them up a little to keep the flavor from being dry. Today for the last time, I'll be talking to you guys about what philosophy has done for me, as well as other things going on in my life that I'm trying to apply philosophy to.

I think the previous post discussing happiness and morality left my position on those particular aspects of philosophy relatively clear; and I hope I was at least able to open your mind to my opinions. And if not, well as Harry S Truman said, "If you can't convince them, confuse them." So today I'll be discussing not only how I've applied philosophy to my personal relationships, but how I've incorporated it into what I've decided is my religious (if you want to call it that) path.

First, in my relationships, I'll talk about three separate faucets philosophy addressed for me: friendships, romances, and family.

 

Ah friends...I've always been the introvert of our family (shocking I know, my current disposition has been aquired through years of theater). My sister could walk into a room full of 100 people, and at the end of thirty minutes she'd be friends with forty of them. Conversely I would have found two or three people that I would have talked to the whole time. By this anecdote I simply mean that growing up, I didn't have a lot of friend: but the friends I had were very close to me and I to them. Alexander Nehemas believed that friendships existed unreletive to morality. After all, by definition friendship is elevating someone over other humans in your life and giving them special preference: an unethical choice. Morals and ethics deal with our commonality, or the similarities we ALL have as well as the similarities we hope to propagate among us. Whereas friendships focus on the differences from one another, everything that make us a distinct and interesting individual. Friendships shape and mold our characters into new and interesting people. However he warns against being anyone's friends for the reason of friendship's intrinsic influencing power. Choosing unwisely could lead you down the road of changing into someone you don't want to be.
The way I've started applying this to my life is by: a) paying close attention to what kind of influence I am on my friends. Sometimes I get a little ratchet, and I forget that I am constantly changing my friends through my behavior: and if they don't like who they're becoming or who I'm becoming they could end our relationship. b) I've also started paying attention to how my friends treat me; whether that be with indifference, humor, anger, etc. And I've started thinking about the person that I've become after knowing these friends and trying to discern whether or not my friendships have positively influenced me. c) I've also decided on taking Nehemas's ideas a step further. He believes that often, friendship (since it's based on individuality) can disrupt what is morally right to do. Our emotions dictate and get involved, thereby screwing up our decision making skills. I would argue using the platform of our friends being influential factors in our life that if we chose wisely and are happy with who are friends and ourselves are becoming, then moral decisions won't conflict with the accepted standards of ethicality. By this I mean that friendships and moral decisions shouldn't conflict with each other. For example: I see someone drop a twenty dollar bill. I pick it up and run to return it to the person. If I chose my friends wisely, they would encourage this decision and wouldn't try to convince me to act unethically. 






Now, for the juicy subjects: romance. This has been a touchy subject for me for a very long time. As I'm sure you all know (especially if you've read my previous posts) , I'm gay. My relationships before moving here, as a result of my environment, have bee hushed and hidden. In the past, I was extremely selfish in my love life. I was constantly thinking, "what can they do for me?" I had the crippling disease that many men suffer from: I would argue no matter what that nothing was my fault and that there's nothing I could've done to change my mistakes. I constantly tried justifying my immature behavior, and my relationships suffered for it. Philosophy in general has helped my mature and grow up as a person, and as a result, I have also matured greatly in the romantic department. I can communicate about problems now instead of lying and covering them up. I have learned the positive effects that can spur from respectful conversation and open-mindedness. Philosophy can help with love because love is a learning process: and philosophy can give you tools that help you learn. For example, now I've moved from "I'm always right" to "I know I did the wrong thing, and I don't want it to happen again: You make me so happy, and I don't want to do anything to make you unhappy." Sounds like an improvement, no?
Family. This topic is one that has yet to have philosophy applied simply because I don't think my family would be down. Open-mindedness and respectful conversation are fine until it's YOUR son that's gay and going to Hell. However, I genuinely hope that I can lead them through demonstration: perhaps if I listen to my family without exploding and really put forth an effort to understand and respectfully communicate, then they will take the cue and return the favor. Wish me LUCK!!!

Now that I've gone over philosophy's role in my relationships, let me elaborate on what it has done for me personally. I came into this class a deist, and I will leave this class a deistic, philosophical Buddhist.

 Allow me to explain myself. In correlation to this class, I have also been enrolled in Kundalini Yoga for beginners here at MTSU. This class in correspondence with philosophy have really opened my eyes towards finding peace with my body, mind, and spirit. I can use Yoga to stop frantically planning and exist peacefully in the moment, in the pose. I have been researching Buddhism as well as learning about Buddhist concepts in Yoga and Philosophy. I have dedicated my life to engendering positive things only (or attempting to at least). Positive thoughts, actions, and words. I want to help people: and not necessarily physically, but by being emotionally uplifting and encouraging. Philosophy has helped me in doing this by not only teaching me moralistic values, but how to adapt them to what I believe to be correct morals. I've meshed them together and added stipulations and subtracted extremes (in order to find a sort of Golden Mean), incorporating dogmas such as Cosmopolitanism, Multiculturalism, Moral Relevatism, The Greatest Happiness Principle (with personal modifications), Kant's views on morality, Mill's Harm Principle, and more. I now have a much much firmer grasp on who I want to be, how I want to achieve this, and what's right, wrong, and shady.

And that's it ya'll! I really hope these posts didn't bore you to death, because their fun for me! I never sit down at the computer knowing what I'm going to type: I always just sit for a moment and ask myself, "Self, what are you thinking about? What do you feel like talking about? What are you confused about?" I'm thinking these things through as I'm typing. I'm discovering how I feel and what I think about these concepts as I'm writing them down/conversing about them. Please comment and tell me what you think: and post added thoughts or disagreements! Finally, for the last time, Au Revior class!
-Jake Goza
Word Count: 1330
Total Midterm posts Word Count: 2775