Hello Philosophy Society!

Discussion 1: Meaning in the Present

The first discussion was at one of the backyard bonfires I hosted at my house. Me and another person were discussing how things can become very complicated as we age and meaning in life can be more difficult to feel.

The first thing we have to understand is that our present self is a contingent thing on our past. Making sense of our past is the first step to understand what has brought us to this point in our lives. The second thing is doing an assessment of our current state. Certain factors, like people who are in our everyday experience at home, in the workplace or in school, will have a dramatic effect on our well being. Having boundaries with other people is essential for our own sense of balance. Where we invest our time and energy is import to how we feel and the sense that everything fits together in a meaningful way. Other people can easily take us off track without even explicitly knowing that this is happening.

Lastly, once we have established a connection of our past to our present, balanced self, we can direct that being over time towards future goals. These future goals are important for us to have a sense of significant trajectory towards something that is beyond our limited self. We will find more meaning if we devote ourselves to a project that is not only in our self interest but connects to humanity in general.

Discussion 2: Leadership

Being a leader is a person’s ability to be ahead of the pack and motivate them to either see and understand which direction to go in or have them follow you there. Seeing where to go is important and means that we have a coherent sense of where we are and what is needed relative to factors of the group's goals.

Each person within the group has certain needs. If those individual needs can be met within the group, group cohesiveness is increased dramatically. People will feel that their self expression is met within the group and participation will be self-reinforcing.

Discussion 3: Social Maturity

Socially, there will always be interpersonal issues with people that we do not know yet. Our biased brains will lead us to judgments that are not founded in reality. Our emotional states can lead us to thinking or acting in ways that are not always constructive. We can transcend these micro issues by always treating people we have had problems with, with a sense of dignity for being human in itself. This does not mean we forget the problems that have occurred but we employ and understand that we are all human and make mistakes.

When others notice and know that we have not allowed specific issues to taint our judgments of them in an unfair way, this will actually improve our relationships with them and prevent future issues from occurring. How you deal with conflicts is more important than the conflict itself.

It is very important for you to defend yourself: it is fundamental to your self-conscious relationship with yourself as an animal with self awareness. Your self-esteem and self-efficacy will be dramatically affected by your ability to stand up for yourself in a variety of circumstances and situations that you find yourself in.

Keeping in mind that you defend yourself, it is also important to do good things. If someone who you know is a good person but has made a foul against you can benefit from something in your power, it is important to see beyond the specific interpersonal issue and help that person out. This gesture will show that you are someone who accepts people for their mistakes and genuinely cares for them even though they have made them.

It is important to not allow people to take advantage of you or exploit you. These are different factors that are machiavellian and not the product of a bias or emotional distortion. The psychopathic or narcissistic intention to manipulate others as a means to an end for one’s own gain is a very different thing from someone having a biased perspective that could be corrected through communication and understanding.

Discussion 4: Stoicism and Agency

Being stoic in our lives has many benefits. We respond to circumstances that are out of our control with a sense of acceptance. We learn to not become upset that things happen that we did not expect and appreciate our own sense of agency we have in the cosmos. It is also important to take those feelings and use them in a healthy motivational way. When we feel dissonance from a contrast in our beliefs and reality, we can use that uncomfortable feeling to drive us to change our circumstances. We can take negative feelings and use them as a measure to create asymmetrical happy feelings.

For example, if you were looking forward to vacationing with a group of friends and had been planning it for some time, you would be developing expectations of excitement for your trip. If one of your friends caught COVID just before you were about to leave and the trip was canceled, those expectations would not be contrasted with the reality of the cancellation. In this situation, you can use those negative feelings as a marker for how much positive feelings are necessary to create an experience that is of equivalent value but different in content.

So if you live in Toronto, you could see yourself as a tourist and go to different places in the city with the attitude that you are there simply to enjoy yourself and meet new people. You can keep building on this new experience and discover new things until the initial dissonance is replaced by new experiences you would have never had unless the trip was canceled.

Being stoic is important for us to accept what we cannot change. But it is also just as important to know how to use our feelings of disappointment as motivation to create a positive experience we never knew existed. It is only through a principle to use our feelings constructively that we can take a bad situation and make something good out of it.

Discussion 5: Medication vs Meditation

The pharmaceutical industry has propagated itself in our culture for many years as an institution that can provide external substances to deal with internal turmoil. The human body and mind, however, does have its own mechanism to deal with many problems that we face. Certain forms of meditation have been proven to heal the body of many conditions and are used in the treatment of mental health issues.

The value of meditation is that it is entirely under your control, can be used at any time, and does not have the side effects that many medications place on the body. The issue is that people lack the socialization which instills the value of mediation in them, our capitalist society values instant gratification for solutions, and meditating takes many hours and years of practice to develop the neuro structure and phenomenological sensitivity to feel its effects. Even in the case where people do not initially feel the positive effects of meditation, studies show that people respond better during the days where they do meditate in contrast to the days where they do not. The wisdom here is to start now so that over time you will have the skill ready for you when you need it.

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