Final Blogpost

 

You know, you really never know who you’ll meet at the airport. I’m sitting there, waiting to board my plane and who do I see? Susan Neiman, John Kaag, and John Locke. Three VERY big names, and when a strange opportunity such as this arises, you ask questions. 

Three philosophers walk into an airport, and they explain to a random girl:

"What does it mean to grow up? Why should we?" 

Neiman: I’ll start by saying, adulthood gets the short end of the stick quite often. This only seems more true as people really start growing up, coming into those adult responsibilities. These duties are always there, so it poses the question of: Why are people so shocked when they actually come into the reality they’ve always known was there? I blame unrealistic expectations. The truth versus the fantasy of what adulthood really is.

Kaag: I’d like to quickly chime in to show my allegiance with this. Adulthood is realization and understanding. Independent thinking and the free will and motivation to fully think for yourself is a gift. Adulthood is riddled with negative connotation because people so willingly focus on what they think growing up robs them of, but not what it gives them.

Neiman: The media portrays growing up as a time when reality kills the dreams you had in your youth. This is a common misconception as if an individual is loyal to the dreams they wish to pursue, adulthood brings them from a thought to a reality. Dreams take hard-work and that’s true no matter what. Just because as you grow up you realize that, it doesn’t mean aging is the enemy. “Freedom cannot simply mean doing whatever strikes you at the moment: that way you're a slave to any whim or passing fancy. Real freedom involves control over your life as a whole, learning to make plans and promises and decisions, to take responsibility for your actions' consequences.” 

Kaag: Waking up to reality is very often tied to growing up, but sleeping through life on a whim and partaking in fantasy isn’t beneficial to anyone. “Do my actions have the feeling of the ‘real me,’ or am I just half-asleep, play acting at the only life I have?” I’d rather be alive and working towards a reality. 

Locke: I’d like to chime in and say that, “No man’s knowledge can go beyond his experience.” Experience comes from living, and growing up is a part of living. Experience isn't always positive. One can not expect to grow from only the good. Think about how much you learn about yourself as you continue to grow up. It’s a new part of life at every stage. I’d also say a lot of the negativity that’s associated with growing up comes from what you hear at home. “Parents wonder why streams are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain.” Negativity such as this is learned, and it’s very apparent where it’s learned from. 

Whenever I think of growing up my mind always wonders to Peter Pan. I was obsessed with the movie and book as a kid. I would always leave my window open, just in case. I know it’s foolish to believe we’ll never grow up, but it’s still fun to think of what we would do with our time if we didn’t though, right? What would you do if you never had to grow up?

With discussions such as these, more questions are bound to pop up. We’re at the airport, so what else do we have to do anyway?

“What makes life worth living?”

Locke chimes in with his wisdom first this time.

Locke: It seems too simple to be true, but “A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.” True happiness isn’t found in momentary satisfaction, but in a soundness and discovery of self. One cannot rid themselves of any sorrow if they do not understand and respect their own vessel. This I hold to be true. 

Kaag: I couldn’t agree more. You are what makes your own life worth living. How you shape it, how you look at it, how YOU perceive what is given to you, and what you do with it. Our fate is a lot more in our own hands than we realize. To quote William James, “The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude.” So that leaves the question with the individual. What does make life worth living?

Neiman: What a question. It seems so personal. Yet my answer holds true with my philosophy. We’ve allowed life and reality to be dwindled down to such momentary, materialistic satisfactions. There’s opportunity for so much more. “Doing what you can to move your part of the world closer to the way it should be, while never losing sight of the way it is, is what being a grown-up comes to.” It’s what makes the world a better place, and life a little bit more hopeful. 

They had a lot to say, and I had a lot to learn. All this talk of what’s really important in life made me think of my favorite movie of all time, Dead Poets Society. Robin Williams’s performance is nothing short of  captivating. In the movie he plays a teacher, Mr.Keating, for a group of boys. He inspires them to “carpe diem” and to focus on what makes life really worth living. We are never too old for poetry, and love doesn’t come with an expiration date. 

Although we all must grow up one day, the important things are timeless.