If I were to categorize the time that I've spent in this existentialism course by personal utility, I think today would fall at the very top of the list. On talking about bad faith, I feel like there are many of my personal habits that require further inspection; in short, I feel that I am acting in bad faith on a number of levels. I do not believe that I am even at a level of authenticity in my own being to enumerate them, and frankly, this gives me pause. I don't think I've had a realization of this calibre in years, and I would be lying if I said it didn't terrify me.
More than anything else, I define myself as a guitarist. In terms of the course, my "they", my personally chosen subsection and title in a group as a group member, is a guitarist. And... yet, I do not look honestly at my progress of learning. It's extremely disconcerting, knowing that I'm lying to myself like this. On the one hand, I've got my personal goals as a guitarist, by Sartre the "transcendence", and with the other hand, I've got my lack of disciplined and consistent practice, by Sartre the "facticity". So as a form of bad faith to my own personal authenticity, I'm living vicariously through the transcendent ideal of being a professional guitarist, while completely ignoring the facticity of my not practicing enough to ever achieve that goal.
I've looked at this before, I've thought about my lack of practice, but I've never really crept deeper than that. Even with a background in psychology, completely aware that it is a bout of cognitive dissonance, I have only just now taken the philosophical and moral responsibility to my own perceived being-in-itself. I feel completely taken aback by this critical avoidance of self-responsibility, and talking about emotions yesterday, I also feel like I've taken away my ability to avoid feeling it, as I clearly stated my personal stance on emotion in conflict with my dissonance. I'm not sure if it is entirely freeing or if the understanding is freezing me in my tracks, but as it stands now, I feel like the woman in Sartre's thought experiment- I'm feeling the weight of decision in an unchosen, non-lucid sense, with my hand stuck between the actions of self-creation and self-depreciation through inaction, and I have no way to wriggle out of this self reflection.
It is extremely uncomfortable, emotionally and mentally, but... I cannot help but feel that once I can reasonably solve this, I will make huge strides in my goal towards becoming who I am.
Friday, August 9, 2013
Sixteenth proof of my existence: On Sartre, Emotion, and Free Will
Today was an animated discussion. Regrettably, I missed class yesterday, and with it, the introductory talks on Sartre; however, I read the materials and was significantly impacted. I think the notion that Sartre brings up in terms of emotion being a choice is relevant and almost entirely accurate, in my experience.
In discussion, we brought up the point of fate. Now, personally, I am diametrically opposed to the idea of fate. I feel that for fate to be possible, there is no room for free will, that the universe is entirely deterministic and small physical reactions completely determine all events in the world. To me, this goes against everything I believe, essentially absolving all individuals of the responsibility of their choices, since they don't actually HAVE choices. But... I think that this is not the case, that we all have the opportunity to change the world as we see fit, from moment to moment.
Tying this back into Sartre's definition of emotion, I absolutely believe that it is our decision as to how we feel. Though, I must separate Sartre's definition of "true emotion" into its constituent parts, in my theory, as both physiological emotion and psychological emotion- physiological being our physical and chemical response to an event and psychological being our reflection on an event. Of course, these are not all encompassing terms or definitions, but I feel they break down Sartre's concept of emotion fairly accurately for the scope of this blog post.
In discussion, we brought up the point of fate. Now, personally, I am diametrically opposed to the idea of fate. I feel that for fate to be possible, there is no room for free will, that the universe is entirely deterministic and small physical reactions completely determine all events in the world. To me, this goes against everything I believe, essentially absolving all individuals of the responsibility of their choices, since they don't actually HAVE choices. But... I think that this is not the case, that we all have the opportunity to change the world as we see fit, from moment to moment.
Tying this back into Sartre's definition of emotion, I absolutely believe that it is our decision as to how we feel. Though, I must separate Sartre's definition of "true emotion" into its constituent parts, in my theory, as both physiological emotion and psychological emotion- physiological being our physical and chemical response to an event and psychological being our reflection on an event. Of course, these are not all encompassing terms or definitions, but I feel they break down Sartre's concept of emotion fairly accurately for the scope of this blog post.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)