Final BlogPost- Kate Allen

 Kate Allen Section 11 

Me: Today I am here with two new philosophers and one that has joined us previously. I have John Kaag here, author of Sick Souls, Healthy Minds and Susan Neiman, author of Why Grow Up. Kurt Andersen has also rejoined us for this interview again. He is the author of Fantasyland. I have a couple questions to ask all of you. What does it mean to grow up? Why should we? What makes life worth living? I would love to hear from all of you on every question, so let's get started. 

Neiman: In my book, I have written about growing up and what good it can bring to you. Many people see growing up as a bad thing. They see it as a time when we are abandoning our dreams and accepting where we are in life and acknowledging we cannot continue any further. People are scared to grow up because it can come with the thought we have seen all the bad things in the world and it's not as beautiful and innocent as when we were children. I could even reference from my book, "Being grown up is widely considered to be a matter of renouncing your hopes and dreams, accepting the limits of the reality you are given, and resigning yourself to a life that will be less adventurous, worthwhile and significant than you supposed when you began it" (1). I think growing up consists of many different phases and teaches us lots of new things along the way. Growing up means so many different things. We don't only grow in age, but we grow our values and knowledge. We realize we have freedom and control over our lives. We can make decisions and take responsibility for them. We also are able to realize things that are wrong in the world. You realize injustices in the world and are able to see others being treated unfairly which relates to the difference between the is and the ought. This can go back to your question on why we should grow up. Growing up allows us to see more things in the world and learn many new things. We can become better people along the way and realize we can do our part to make it better. Because, "the world is not your world, and you don't have another" (107) with age comes this realization. I reference Rousseau throughout my book. I discuss his paradox: "we cannot construct a decent society without a critical mass of real grown-ups, yet we can hardly create real grown-ups within a society that doesn't want them" (125). The society today doesn't allow people to fully grow up. We have almost created a childish world that doesn't want people to be at their full potential. You can watch this video of mine to hear more about my book.

Andersen: I just wanted to interject here and say that I really like the point you just made. I think society is consumed with technology and this can hinder people from growing up. Yes, technology is a good thing but in today's world I think we have all been warped into it and don't really see the world as it is anymore.  In my book, I mention technology quite a bit. It has greatly evolved over the years and has slowly been taking over our lives. I liked in your book that you mentioned we should limit our technology use and not let it rule. I'm glad we feel the same way about technology.

Neiman: Yes, technology can be great but it can also take over our lives. As we grow up, we learn new things through travel as well. Growing up also means learning about other cultures and there are people who live life differently than you do. Travel is an amazing way to learn about other cultures. You can learn where other people have come from and how their life differs from yours. "Travel is at least as important for learning about yourself and your culture as it is for understanding others" (152). The most effective way to learn about a culture is to work there for a year. Immersing oneself in another culture truly allows us to understand that culture. Growing up can also mean finding our place in the world and this can come with work. Working can allow us to make our contributions to society and can help us determine our purpose. In conclusion, growing up is portrayed as "a process of decline" (199) that leads us to accept we have ended our dreams and don't have more to accomplish. But growing up means increasing our knowledge, having new experiences, and truly trying to understand why the world is the way it is. Growing up is a good thing and can lead us to learning so much more about the world and the people who live inside it. We find more out about ourselves and others. 

Kaag: I believe life has its ups and downs and as we grow we can learn how to deal with them. My book talks about mental health and how we can find our way to controlling it and making it better. I think this knowledge comes with age. I don't think growing up should be seen as a bad thing, but rather as a chance to improve ourselves. 

Me: Wow that was an amazing discussion. I have definitely seen growing up being portrayed as a bad things. I see more bad than good in it. I think people tend to forget how much we have learned while growing up. Now, onto the next question: What makes life worth living? 

Kaag: I wrote about the life of William James in my book. James deeply struggled with mental health and tried to find ways to help himself and others over come it. Today we can use his advice and research to help  ourselves and possibly save our lives. Improving one's mental health begins with the person suffering making the decision to help him or herself. Love is one thing that can make life worth living. "Usually does transform life for a better or for ill, for richer or for poorer. Love's conditions are up to you" (65). If we find someone that is healthy for us and that makes us happy, love can improve your mental health. There is also a Stoic answer to this. We can try and understand the world and ourselves, which can give us freedom and independence. Though this response didn't satisfy James, it can still provide us with answers for ourselves. We can attempt to learn about the world and understand its workings and provide ourselves with independence. We should also work on our state of mind and not linger on issues from the past. We need to realize things will pass, "Any state of affairs, or more accurately, state of mind, is temporary" (104). Any bad thing that may have happened to us will not hurt us forever. This kind of pain is only temporary and we will be able to move past it. There are also other things we can do such as yoga to help our mindset. There are many things in the world left to learn and living life to the fullest will allow us to be open to these experiences. We can improve our own mindset and this will better our mental health. 

Neiman: I enjoyed hearing your response. I also think life has so much to offer and we should want to discover it. We can find out many things about ourselves and other people as well. As we grow, we learn more about how to help ourselves and what is good for us. We learn to handle our emotions and how to control and interpret them. I'm glad I can relate this back to your book.

Andersen: Mental health is very important in today's time. We can get wrapped up in many other unimportant things and can drown ourselves in others such as technology. I feel this can also cause us to become even more down in our emotions. We can regain our footing though and get back on balance. It would be so nice if it were possible if America as a whole could come together and work with one another. I think if we learned more about other people's values we could help each other much more. Hopefully, America can rebound and improve in the future. 

Me: Thank you all so much for your amazing responses. Reading all of your books has opened up my mind to learning new things and helping myself. I enjoyed talking with all of you all today. This will conclude our final interview.