Metacognition: Tribute to Aristotle... a Christmas tree

        My mother went out of town last week and she asked me to set up the Christmas tree before she came back. Last year I remember that she had set up the Christmas tree and the ornaments all by herself. Not only did she set up the entire tree but she also took it down and placed it in storage. For this reason, I feel guilty about not helping her with it last year and that now I felt it was my turn to set it up. Throughout the break, I was procrastinating on starting the tree and bringing it from the basement because of how heavy the box is and all the boxes of ornaments that are also apart of it.
       As I began taking each branch and beginning to outstretch them and placing them on the vertical support, I felt each branch was a token of my appreciation to my mom. Within the hour, I was only able to do one row of the eight that make the tree. Despite my efforts, I felt very accomplished because I had started and for me that is always the hardest part.
       During the process of outstretching the branches I felt my anxiety (about it being a Sunday) and knowing I have school tomorrow was channeled in a more positive way and I became relaxed. I also became focused as I worked on the tree and this for me lets me relax my mind and only concentrate on the task at hand. As I reflect upon the exercise, I realized that I can be compared to a train. It is hard to start me up and get me moving but once you do its easy for me to keep going strong and efficient. I was surprised about the way I felt throughout the process because I have never really put too much thought into thinking about the way that I feel when I was organizing. When I begin organizing so does my mind.

Carry It Forward: Spinoza

        Spinoza and I have remarkably assembled a philosophy of what we believe “God” is. As said in Sophie’s World, Spinoza thought that the bible was not inspired entirely by God. Spinoza explained the bible was not written by the God and therefore is written by interpretation of others, which is not accurate. Spinoza took the words out of my mouth when I came across this line in the text. I was surprised to realize I was not the only crazy one to pose this thought about the bible. How can one truly read the bible and believe in its teachings and this entity of god if they have never truly heard from this higher being directly? To me the church and religions have just been rules for people to follow to lead a “fulfilling” life. Who’s to say that this is the only way that one can live, there is no rule for obligating someone to live their life a certain way.
        Spinoza thought religions such as Christianity and Judaism only stayed alive through time because of the outside rituals that surround the religion. Spinoza criticized the church and as a result his family disowned him. I valued his observation as a risky and tough critique of the church but one that was needed to be recognized. Religions are based on faith and Spinoza says that one cannot believe in something that is not reasonable. Spinoza would say, that something is existent through ones senses and only then can they reason that God is nature.
        Spinoza thought that God is all, and all is in God. Not only was Spinoza saying that God is nature and is one single reality but that nature follows natural laws that cannot be broken. A surprising example of these natural laws of natures two known attributes said in Sophie’s World, was that one can have the thought that ones finger detaches itself from its hand and begins to dance around but because of our natural laws/inner cause that this cannot happen. We may imagine it happening but is entirely impossible due to the natural laws of a human. In this case the natural law is that a finger can only move as allowed by its range of motion according to ones hand.
         This was the end of my frustration and distinguishing what is god. I was able to understand my thoughts as come from Spinoza in a concise manner. I began to see the similarities between how the real world fit into how others interpret god. Beginning with the fact that I am a rationalist myself, I found it easy to follow his philosophy and what Spinoza truly meant. Not only will I remember Spinoza’s name for time to come but I will be able to say, “Do you know Spinoza?”
“If you do, well then you know me/nature.”

Change of Mind: Sophie’s World and Buddhism

       Growing up in a secular home, I was never exposed to religion or its effects on others. My mother never understood the significance of the religion she grew up with, and in turn decided she was going to raise us without a particular religion. With this in mind, her intent was for us to be able to guide our own way of thinking.
       As I began to read Sophie’s World, I was able to relate to many of the schools of philosophy. Finding common ground with types of schools made me feel more connected with this book and began to see the similarities of the schools with the way that I think. This was exciting for me because I finally had come upon ideas that engaged thoughts.
       The Stoics and the Cynics were the two schools I agreed with the most. For example, the stoics are known for their “calm” because they do not allow feelings to overcome their everyday lives. I was able to relate with this because I am often caught in this middle sense of calm throughout the day. As for the Cynics, I agreed with the fact that they believe that material object make others unhappy and thus one finds happiness within.
       I was then able to see many similarities between the Cynics, Epicureans and the Mystics to Buddhist ideas. The Cynics believed that happiness is found within and that is why the Buddha meditated. As for the Epicureans, they were Buddhist in the way they wanted to attain the highest amount of enjoyment. The Mystics also seemed to share ideas with Buddhism because they believe in the fusion of human with the divine and this was like a Buddhist saying that a raindrop will soon fall and become one with the sea. With these schools of thought, I found common ground with Buddhism.

Best of Today: Organizing Principle

       An organizing principle is a reoccurring idea that Mr. Allen has encouraged us to use to summarize and help us memorize the main ideas of Shadow Catcher and Sophie’s World. A phrase or word at the top of each page to summarize what has happened helps when trying to figure out the organizing principle.

       Today we used the organizing Principle of “Place Matters!” to connect the importance of the last three chapters we have currently read in Sophie’s World. (“Fate”, “Socrates”, “Athens”) With this principle, I connected that Socrates was the first philosopher born in Athens and his life goal was to answer the question what is man’s place in society (Fate). I was then easily able to connect and remember all the events that happened in all three chapters.

       I think that finding this connection is the best way to approach literature because books all have a binding correlation at the end, but it is up to us to look for that connection. Just like in The Shadow Catcher, the organizing principle was the bracelet and the characters all had a weird way of connecting to each other all through this one symbol. The effectiveness and ability to help my mind remember the events and significance of the story makes for the best idea for my future.