Josh Project Proposal
Part 1
It is important to know what makes our life meaningful and happy and for me I believe that it is most important to have fun. I feel the need to enjoy my life the best I can and with no greater meaning it is possible to simply enjoy living. I believe that our existence completely ceases at death, no after life, no reincarnation, just nothing, and so we need to focus on the present by finding ways to live our life to the fullest. Our existence has evolved from a state of simply surviving to an existence that allows us to focus on the greater things in life. And with this ability I choose to pursue excitement, I want to do things that allow deviation from routine and remove the monotony of a stable life. And while excitement may reduce longevity it increases happiness. There are people who I look and think, “wow, they have an awesome life,” are not people who are 110 years old but instead people like Shane McConkey who where all about fun.
To me happiness is being joyful and having fun. We can do this with good friends and family. To have fun and be happy we must break from routine and do what we enjoy not always what we must. Happiness is a description of how much we are enjoying ourselves, and we can enjoy ourselves by having family gatherings or by skiing gnarly lines. It comes down to doing what we can to release dopamine in our brains, and excitement and relationships help to sustain that.
A meaningful life is a strange idea as there is no inherent meaning, we don’t have a divine purpose or a specific preset goal on this earth, yet we still feel better when there is meaning in our life. So we must look to Sisyphus and see that it is up to us to create our own meaning. Meaningfulness is whatever you make it and that can be something as simple as completing your job or something more extreme such as saving starving children. We may determine our own meaning but it often includes helping others in some way.
Part 2
This is a quote that shows a contrast between longevity and excitement.
Part 3
1. Write your personal philosophy credo in 1-2 sentences
In order to be happy we should sacrifice longevity for excitement and meaning
2. What median do you want to use to clearly express your philosophy to an audience at the all-school exhibition?
A free verse poem on a background that show some connection to excitement
3. How is this median creative and representative of your authentic or unique self?
Because it is
4. What impression do you want to make on your audience? What do you want them to remember most about your presentation/project?
I want them to remember to have fun
5. Describe your idea in as much detail as possible
A poem that is maybe a page or two long on an image that I have or will take myself that shows excitement and or joy.
6. What obstacles do you think you will encounter in creating this project?
I don’t know yet
7. What materials will you need to create your project?
A camera
8. How much time will this project take you to create?
1-2 weeks to make a solid poem?
9. What do you need from Ashley to help you succeed?
Cookies
Part 1
It is important to know what makes our life meaningful and happy and for me I believe that it is most important to have fun. I feel the need to enjoy my life the best I can and with no greater meaning it is possible to simply enjoy living. I believe that our existence completely ceases at death, no after life, no reincarnation, just nothing, and so we need to focus on the present by finding ways to live our life to the fullest. Our existence has evolved from a state of simply surviving to an existence that allows us to focus on the greater things in life. And with this ability I choose to pursue excitement, I want to do things that allow deviation from routine and remove the monotony of a stable life. And while excitement may reduce longevity it increases happiness. There are people who I look and think, “wow, they have an awesome life,” are not people who are 110 years old but instead people like Shane McConkey who where all about fun.
To me happiness is being joyful and having fun. We can do this with good friends and family. To have fun and be happy we must break from routine and do what we enjoy not always what we must. Happiness is a description of how much we are enjoying ourselves, and we can enjoy ourselves by having family gatherings or by skiing gnarly lines. It comes down to doing what we can to release dopamine in our brains, and excitement and relationships help to sustain that.
A meaningful life is a strange idea as there is no inherent meaning, we don’t have a divine purpose or a specific preset goal on this earth, yet we still feel better when there is meaning in our life. So we must look to Sisyphus and see that it is up to us to create our own meaning. Meaningfulness is whatever you make it and that can be something as simple as completing your job or something more extreme such as saving starving children. We may determine our own meaning but it often includes helping others in some way.
Part 2
This is a quote that shows a contrast between longevity and excitement.
Part 3
1. Write your personal philosophy credo in 1-2 sentences
In order to be happy we should sacrifice longevity for excitement and meaning
2. What median do you want to use to clearly express your philosophy to an audience at the all-school exhibition?
A free verse poem on a background that show some connection to excitement
3. How is this median creative and representative of your authentic or unique self?
Because it is
4. What impression do you want to make on your audience? What do you want them to remember most about your presentation/project?
I want them to remember to have fun
5. Describe your idea in as much detail as possible
A poem that is maybe a page or two long on an image that I have or will take myself that shows excitement and or joy.
6. What obstacles do you think you will encounter in creating this project?
I don’t know yet
7. What materials will you need to create your project?
A camera
8. How much time will this project take you to create?
1-2 weeks to make a solid poem?
9. What do you need from Ashley to help you succeed?
Cookies
Josh Davoust Seminar Make Up
Everyday people try to tell us how to think and what to believe, so many thing may attempt to affect our own personal philosophy. And one place we can look to shape our personal philosophy is literature especially when we want to look for the happiness or meaning we all want. Books, speeches, poems, and even movies can be used to gain a greater understanding of how we may achieve happiness and meaning. In The Stranger Albert Camus uses literature to illustrate the idea that in our lives we strive for meaning and that we alone must create meaning for our life. When talking to a priest the main character begins to see this, “Of this he was absolutely sure; if ever he came to doubt it, his life would lose all meaning. ‘Do you wish,’ he asked indignantly, ‘my life to have no meaning?’ Really I couldn’t see how my wishes came into it, and I told him as much.” The Priest had his own individual meaning for his life, he created this meaning for himself on, what may seem like to some, an idea that is ridiculous and false. Like Sisyphus the priest has taken an inherently meaningless life and found a way to give himself a sense of meaning. Everyone can find meaning to become happier, whether we give meaning to our life by saving starving children in Africa or by skiing until we master it, a life with a purpose is more satisfactory than one without.
Winning the lottery, it’s something we have a thought about. If we could just find that winning ticket our life would be so great and we could be so happy, but maybe not. If I won the lottery I would likely be no happier after a year or so, I would just be living a superficial pleasant life. Tennessee Williams began living the pleasant life after a rapid rise to complete fame. In his essay “The Catastrophe of Success” he outlines his decent into a lonely and sad life, “Of course all this was the more trivial aspect of a spiritual dislocation that began to manifest itself in far more disturbing ways. I soon found myself becoming indifferent to people. A well cynicism rose in me.” Because he no longer was doing anything for himself he became no longer was creating meaningful relationships or getting the joy that we may feel from hard work. Just like if someone won the lottery Williams became distant to friends and family because he is constantly concerned with retaining what he has. The lottery winning would make someone less happy because they become distant from important things like friends and family as well as the accomplishment of independence.
Everyday people try to tell us how to think and what to believe, so many thing may attempt to affect our own personal philosophy. And one place we can look to shape our personal philosophy is literature especially when we want to look for the happiness or meaning we all want. Books, speeches, poems, and even movies can be used to gain a greater understanding of how we may achieve happiness and meaning. In The Stranger Albert Camus uses literature to illustrate the idea that in our lives we strive for meaning and that we alone must create meaning for our life. When talking to a priest the main character begins to see this, “Of this he was absolutely sure; if ever he came to doubt it, his life would lose all meaning. ‘Do you wish,’ he asked indignantly, ‘my life to have no meaning?’ Really I couldn’t see how my wishes came into it, and I told him as much.” The Priest had his own individual meaning for his life, he created this meaning for himself on, what may seem like to some, an idea that is ridiculous and false. Like Sisyphus the priest has taken an inherently meaningless life and found a way to give himself a sense of meaning. Everyone can find meaning to become happier, whether we give meaning to our life by saving starving children in Africa or by skiing until we master it, a life with a purpose is more satisfactory than one without.
Winning the lottery, it’s something we have a thought about. If we could just find that winning ticket our life would be so great and we could be so happy, but maybe not. If I won the lottery I would likely be no happier after a year or so, I would just be living a superficial pleasant life. Tennessee Williams began living the pleasant life after a rapid rise to complete fame. In his essay “The Catastrophe of Success” he outlines his decent into a lonely and sad life, “Of course all this was the more trivial aspect of a spiritual dislocation that began to manifest itself in far more disturbing ways. I soon found myself becoming indifferent to people. A well cynicism rose in me.” Because he no longer was doing anything for himself he became no longer was creating meaningful relationships or getting the joy that we may feel from hard work. Just like if someone won the lottery Williams became distant to friends and family because he is constantly concerned with retaining what he has. The lottery winning would make someone less happy because they become distant from important things like friends and family as well as the accomplishment of independence.
A Moth’s Lesson to Us About #YOLO
Josh Davoust
We often ask ourselves how we can live a happy life or how we can live a life that we are glad to reminisce about. “the lesson of the moth” by Don Marquis is a poem that explores opposing viewpoints on a happy life where a cockroach tries to understand the reason behind a moth’s desire to fry himself on a light bulb. It begs the question of whether it is better to live a short life of excitement of a long and mellow life. Although longevity and pleasantries are nice, a happy life is a life of excitement and adventure.
Happiness isn’t a boring buildup of mediocrity but instead a compilation of our greatest moments. If we reflect on our life we don’t remember all the time we were moderately happy we remember the greatest, most exciting and happy moments. The moth displays this in Marquis’ poem when he says:
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
The moth believes that we are defined by the greatest moments in our life and that we must strive for the greatest single moment we can achieve and for the moth this was burning in a beautiful flare. The moth claims, “we get bored with the routine / and crave beauty and excitement” (Marquis). We can’t expect happiness from a simple and boring routine even if it may be a pleasant routine. As the moth says we must have more in the form of excitement and deviation from the routine.
Often happiness is the fulfillment of desires. When there is something that we strive for happiness may be gained from the completion of such a task. In “the lesson of the moth” the moth had the goal of reaching the light and frying himself. He explained,
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll (Marquis)
Even though the task of frying himself may appear pointless or dimwitted it was something that the moth could wholly pursue; a task that he was willing to die for and the completion of that task gave him personal meaning and joy. Even the cockroach who contradicts the moth can accept this, Marquis shows that regardless of whether you pursue excitement or longevity you can still understand the joy gained from success when the cockroach concludes his poem with,
but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself
The cockroach feels a little less meaning in his life because he doesn’t have the same passion as the moth.
In their own way both the roach and the moth are aware that living longer doesn’t equate to greater amounts of happiness, though the moth marquis says,
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
The moth sees a clear separation between longevity and happiness; he holds no belief in a direct correlation. Even the cockroach notices the distinction when he writes, “myself i would rather have / half the happiness and twice the longevity” (Marquis). Even though the roach may feel as though the moth is living too sort of a life he sees that a short life can easily be a happy life.
Marquis offers two opposing viewpoints of the longevity versus excitement question and he refrains from giving a blatant answer to which side is superior. There is however a reason it can be determined that Marquis ultimately sides with the moth, everything the roach says is rather monotone and nonchalant, whereas the tone portrayed by the moth is joyful and child like. The childish tone is a excellent symbol for happiness because children are something we so often associate with absolute happiness. “the lesson of the moth” shows us that we may have to sacrifice longevity in order to achieve a greater, happier life.
Works Cited
Marquis, Don. "Literature | DonMarquis.com." DonMarquiscom. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2014.
Josh Davoust
We often ask ourselves how we can live a happy life or how we can live a life that we are glad to reminisce about. “the lesson of the moth” by Don Marquis is a poem that explores opposing viewpoints on a happy life where a cockroach tries to understand the reason behind a moth’s desire to fry himself on a light bulb. It begs the question of whether it is better to live a short life of excitement of a long and mellow life. Although longevity and pleasantries are nice, a happy life is a life of excitement and adventure.
Happiness isn’t a boring buildup of mediocrity but instead a compilation of our greatest moments. If we reflect on our life we don’t remember all the time we were moderately happy we remember the greatest, most exciting and happy moments. The moth displays this in Marquis’ poem when he says:
it is better to be a part of beauty
for one instant and then cease to exist than to exist forever
and never be a part of beauty
The moth believes that we are defined by the greatest moments in our life and that we must strive for the greatest single moment we can achieve and for the moth this was burning in a beautiful flare. The moth claims, “we get bored with the routine / and crave beauty and excitement” (Marquis). We can’t expect happiness from a simple and boring routine even if it may be a pleasant routine. As the moth says we must have more in the form of excitement and deviation from the routine.
Often happiness is the fulfillment of desires. When there is something that we strive for happiness may be gained from the completion of such a task. In “the lesson of the moth” the moth had the goal of reaching the light and frying himself. He explained,
so we wad all our life up
into one little roll
and then we shoot the roll (Marquis)
Even though the task of frying himself may appear pointless or dimwitted it was something that the moth could wholly pursue; a task that he was willing to die for and the completion of that task gave him personal meaning and joy. Even the cockroach who contradicts the moth can accept this, Marquis shows that regardless of whether you pursue excitement or longevity you can still understand the joy gained from success when the cockroach concludes his poem with,
but at the same time i wish
there was something i wanted
as badly as he wanted to fry himself
The cockroach feels a little less meaning in his life because he doesn’t have the same passion as the moth.
In their own way both the roach and the moth are aware that living longer doesn’t equate to greater amounts of happiness, though the moth marquis says,
it is better to be happy
for a moment
and be burned up with beauty
than to live a long time
and be bored all the while
The moth sees a clear separation between longevity and happiness; he holds no belief in a direct correlation. Even the cockroach notices the distinction when he writes, “myself i would rather have / half the happiness and twice the longevity” (Marquis). Even though the roach may feel as though the moth is living too sort of a life he sees that a short life can easily be a happy life.
Marquis offers two opposing viewpoints of the longevity versus excitement question and he refrains from giving a blatant answer to which side is superior. There is however a reason it can be determined that Marquis ultimately sides with the moth, everything the roach says is rather monotone and nonchalant, whereas the tone portrayed by the moth is joyful and child like. The childish tone is a excellent symbol for happiness because children are something we so often associate with absolute happiness. “the lesson of the moth” shows us that we may have to sacrifice longevity in order to achieve a greater, happier life.
Works Cited
Marquis, Don. "Literature | DonMarquis.com." DonMarquiscom. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2014.