Sisterhood

I wish we didn't feel the pain. I wish we didn't welcome it.

I wish we could let it go. I wish we wanted to.

I wish for questions. I wish for answers.

I wish to be a part. I wish to be a whole.

But most of all I wish to be heard, to be recognized in your eyes, my companion, my friend, my sister.

We wish but we do not ask.

Instead we search, hand in hand, for the parts, wholes, questions, answers, pain, happiness, and recognition of our existence.

We search. We seek. We long to understand.

But the beauty lies in the fact that we don't.

Love

I love our philosophy class.

I just love it.

Eighteen

Eighteen.

I am eighteen today.

What does that even mean?

I'd like to know.

I know it's a number.

What is a number?

It brings order.

What is order?

It is meaning.

What is meaning?

It is chaos.

What is chaos?

It is beauty.

What is beauty?

It is love.

What is love?

Love is life.

Eighteen years of life.

Quote of the Week

"Life's but a walking shadow." - William Shakespeare, Macbeth

I feel like I'm...

...slipping.

Blank White Page

How is the world represented in one blank white page? This is the question that left us as we exited class today. We had just done an activity on Hegelian philosophy about self-consciousness and consciousness, desire and intersubjectivity and mutual recognition.

So, how is the world manifested in one white page? Well, I think that the world is one white page in itself. It is there for humanity to paint, draw, sketch, scratch, and write upon. But why does it stay white? Why one white page? It's because history and humanity is a series of "heres" and "nows," and every here and every now gets its own white page. No two white pages will be the same, but they will all be beautiful. This is how we arrive at Hegel's Weltgeist--an arch of colorful history that has led us to this here and now. If we were to stack every colored page on top of one another we could have a vibrant display of human history. The top page, however, is always white.

But don't worry, I am coloring it as I write this.

Hegel and the Internet

I came into class today very confused about Hegelian's view of the subconscious, to be completely honest. I didn't know how to contextualize it, how to put it in a broader perspective so that I could successfully zoom out and say, "Yes, I understand now."

Today in class we attempted to crash the school network, at least that's what I thought Mr. Summers' initial plan was. But no. Instead we navigated the world of the interweb using philosophical triggers and through the exercise tried to arrive at a greater understanding of the "Geist."

Matthew T Grant put it brilliantly when he wrote, "Spirit (“Geist” or “Mind”) represented itself to itself in an unprecedented manner."

We are coming together through the world of the internet. In this invisible being, all of human history is connected, shared, and harbored. We are able to connect to others through social networking, e-mail, etc. We recognize other consciousnesses as they recognize our own. It is a world of connectedness and isolation, unity and disunity.

Hegel is still a bit foggy to me, but much clearer now than when I stepped into class.