Monday, June 8, 2009

final essay

The topic for LDH2BM students is - "What makes life meaningful?". If that is too hard, feel free to tweak that topic - perhaps to - "What makes my life feel meaningfuler?" You should connect to specific areas we've investigated - including dominant and marginal corporate messages, your own thoughts, the elderly, animals, physicality, health, food, and the fundamental energy basis of our society. Please include some quotes from your own or others' earlier work that expresses strongly what you believe or what you don't (any longer) believe. Feel free to include an explicit quote like, "This is the way I'm (mostly) thinking about this topic now - but my understanding is evolving!"

Some starter suggestions and questions:
You should share your own orientation to living a meaningful life. Contextualize your point of view in terms of the dominant perspective, other individuals' perspectives, and your own evolving understanding. Is meaning possible given death, infinity, and the Universe? What's your stance on happiness (the dominant easy answer for a meaningful life) - what is it, how important is it, what causes it? What about the other dominant answers - family, success, self-improvement? How about the "marginal" answers - authenticity, creativity, physicality, or deep understanding? What is the significance of the social - should we strive to be "above" our desire for acceptance and affirmation or should we accept our desire and channel it (how?)? What is the significance of our animality - of our physicality and desire for touch and sensation? Feel free to include a disclaimer like, "This is the way I'm (mostly) thinking about this topic now - but my understanding is evolving!"

No comments: