I DON'T KNOW!

I only know that I do not know. Thank-you Socrates for giving me this.

As a philosophy major, I recognize the lack of importance of philosophy majors, as well as the need for them. In general I would encourage people to not necessarily major in philosophy in university (let alone go to university, let's face it, college is the job-maker nowadays). But I do consistently encourage people to spend their spare time studying philosophy. It is super important to maintain both sane and embrace your insanity at the same time.

I find myself consistently learning and embracing the one thing I have known since philosophy in high school: Socrates proclaiming "I only know that I do not know". If you are unfamiliar with this quote, essentially it is interpreted as meaning that essentially everything is uncertain and everything s questionable, therefore the only truth that is knowable is that you do not know.

I hate this quote and love it and live my life by it because every time I learn something new I bring skepticism to the table which makes everything 100x harder but makes everything 1000x more worth studying due to the unknowingness of it.

My point about this quote is that it does bring a certain amount of frustration to my life. I feel since I have learned of this quote and the philosophies surrounding it, that I have become more frustrated and more uncomfortable with everything I encounter in life. Not to say that this is necessarily a bad thing, just that it is different and makes life harder to counter on a daily basis.

So why mention this quote now? Because I don't know.

I really just don't know. It is not about facts and what is learned in books, it is about the way I conduct my life and the method in which I will earn money. I think the most valuable lesson I have learned in university thus-far (other than certain aspects of philosophy) is the importance of survival and the responsibility it takes. Yes, I am 20, I am a youngun, but seriously, I work part-time at a local store and part-time at the local library and essentially scrape together rent, my phone bill, insurance, etc., and have some money left over for non-essentials (usually clothes and makeup... whoops). Money is not my strong suit but sometimes you just have to fucking get by. I know so many people not in school just dragging themselves along in part-time minimum wage jobs, that get you nowhere. I want a house someday, and if I don't find success with the education I am trying to complete, that is impossible.

Minimum wage is definitely not enough. You CAN survive but you CANNOT be a middle class family, owning a home, paying it off over 25 years, maybe having a kid or two and retiring. That makes me sad. Oh how I envy the Scandinavian countries. I would move to Denmark if it was not for the fact that I value warm weather more and would much rather live in a place with no cold ever, or at least British Columbia (reminder, I am Canadian, and do not necessarily want to leave my country). I don't know.

I don't know.

I really don't fucking know.

I am trying to pull myself together this summer. I am catching up on certain books of philosophy I have yet to experience to the fullest, attempting to bring myself to start writing a book I have had bumbling around in my mind the past while, and trying to get more active and eat healthy again.

Bleh.
Life sucks and then you die.

See you soon (people who still follow my blog, I love you guys).

I wish I wrote more on here. But sometimes I just forget, or don't find the time. I haven't given up yet, fuckers. Love y'all. Fuck I hate myself for saying y'all. Someone stone me, please?

Oh Hey! I'm alive.

2 essays
1 take home exam
1 final
until I'm done 3rd year university.

I've neglected my blog due to philosophical disability (i.e., writing too many essays for my philosophy major). Also 1 too many dogmatic slumbers. HAHAHA okay no. Seriously.

So whats new?

I have a new tattoo, a new apartment, a new understanding of my personal undisclosed handicaps, and I am broke as fuck (but I suppose that is not totally new).

After this upcoming Friday, I will be done 3rd year and I will begin to focus on new things for the summer. Since this *might* be my last summer without an official full-time adult job, depending on whatever the hell life is going to throw at me, I want to use the extra time I have from being unable to get a job anywhere ever because of the lack of jobs where I live, to write.

I want to keep up with my blog, as per usual. I want to write a novel as well, or at least start to. I have a growing list of ideas for books. I'm not too sure what I'm going to do, but that is what the summer is for. The third thing I want to work on this summer is an academic paper. I want to write something and attempt to get it published into a student academic journal. I'm thinking something related to the Kama Sutras, but I am not 100% on what I am doing there yet, either.

I've actually been doing some thinking on it and have been considering applying to schools for a masters in philosophy once I am done my undergraduate degree. I am almost 100% sure I am applying to the program at Queens University for the fall of 2017, but if I do not get in I am going to redouble my efforts and apply to schools in British Columbia for the following year, or the year after that and move out west with the love of my life. I need warmth and a change of scenery. Canada does not really do it for me, but British Columbia seems just so beautiful, I want to go to there. (30 Rock reference)

If I decide to do a PhD, if I do a masters degree, I'd love to do it in California. But that's way into the future and I've realized I need to stop looking that far ahead with a microscopic perspective upon life. I don't live in the moment, but I also don't want to live just thinking into the future. This is a problem for me, actually. I am always thinking ahead way too far and it gives me anxiety for today. Will I be with the love of my life in 5 years? Will I be dead? Will I be in school? Have a job? I need to stop thinking like this and just put effort into now.

The problem with this type of thinking is that it is totally contradictory to my philosophy in life. I am pretty much a huge nihilist. To quote the T.V. show Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, "The trick is not caring whether you live or die". Kimmy Schmidt is an overbearing optimist, so coming from her, this is kind of an amazing quote. I am a huge pessimist but I am trying to just be a realist instead of just negative. I am not into all of the positivity and meditation that millennials are suddenly super interested in all of a sudden, although there are good lessons in the philosophies. I just know that if I keep acting so negative that I am not even going to be living anymore. I'll just slowly become a part of my bed and never get up again. Which is depressing as fuck, but hey, I warned you how negative I am.

The biggest thing with functioning nihilists is to find meaning in your life, usually for most people this just means doing what makes you happy. Unfortunately, what makes me happy is literally doing nothing, which too much of this makes me unhappy. So I need balance. But the problem with "needing" and "wanting" is that it just disables you from being happy, ever, because then you just enter a never-ending cycle of desiring. Now I am preaching buddhist philosophies, apparently, but I think it to be a true idea. Desire is just... I don't really want to get into this right now. But essentially desire is what makes the world go around.

I'm trying to re-embrace my nihilism and have been putting a lot of energy into thinking about it. Most people meditate on positivity, I just meditate on my nihilism. I always find myself going back over my old philosophies from since I was maybe 16 and analyzing them again and deciding whether I still believe in these philosophies. At one point atheism was my most important philosophy because I meditated on it all of the time. I am still an atheist right now, but I probably could not defend to you as well as I could've 3 years ago exactly why I am because I haven't meditated on it in a while. I could much better defend why I am a nihilist to you because I have been thinking on it more, and recently read some Nietzsche and Schopenhauer too, which helps.

Anyways I still cannot fucking spell Nietzsche on the first fucking try and I am three years into my philosophy degree, so that fucking shows a lot. But I did spell Schopenhauer right on the first try just then. Jesus fucking christ.

Anyways. I suppose that is all. I have no idea where the hell I was going with this post, but I sure did go no where. Haha, like life, am I right?

Eh. Who knows. Who cares.

Peace. Find eternal bliss in pizza. Amen.

Updates + Happy New Year!

It has been quite a while now, hasn't it?

Let's just get into it. What's new with me? Firstly, I have started drinking more responsibly. It's really hard for me. What I mean by responsibly is that I am only drinking when it is socially acceptable to drink. In other words, no more getting drunk at random parts of the day, no more drinking alone, and no more drinking too much that I can't function. It's hard for me because I am so used to just drinking whenever I want. I realized it's not healthy and so I've stopped doing that.

I decided to just become a philosophy major instead of doing my double major with psychology. It is for a number of reasons, but the main reason is that I have pretty much decided I want to get my masters in philosophy. I am not in love with psychology as much as I used to be. I still love it, it's just not enough for me to want to major in it in university any longer. So when I graduate (hopefully in 2017) I will have an honours (again, hopefully) BA in philosophy with a double-minor in english studies and psychology. Perfect.

What else... oh, I have been finding it hard to hit the gym as much as I used to. Again, it's because I am quite busy. Although I've realized that half of the time I say I'm busy I'm really not and I could just change my priorities. Although I have been procrastinating everything in my life lately so now that I am changing my priorities, my priority right now is finishing my 3 essays due in a week, which is what I will be doing after I publish this post. The first essay I am working on will be the hardest, I am breaking down and identifying fallacies in correspondence and/or coherence theories of truth. Yeah, it'll be difficult. I am also writing a paper on the yin yang symbol, essentially talking about how it has been reappropriated, the history of the symbol, what it means, etc. The final essay I am writing is for my criminal justice class I have and it's just talking about psychopathy in criminals and whatnot. That one will be super easy.

I'm so excited to start next semester as my first semester with just philosophy courses. I am taking the second half of my Eastern philosophy, modern philosophy and reason and logical argument classes and also taking a political science class on power that counts as a philosophy course and a topics course in philosophy on security. It should be a more enjoyable semester.

Anyways. I thought I'd leave you with something I wrote down the other day on a sticky note:

"A lack of certainty is the same as strength. To be uncertain and maintain composure is the most noble way of becoming stronger"

Just a bit of a thinker.

Talk soon,

Sarah 

New Tattoos!

INK!

Recently I have gotten a few new tattoos. For those who have forgotten, I have one tattoo, the word "fuck" on my lower left back.

I still don't regret it. I love it so much. 

Anyways, a few days ago I got this tattoo:

It's a series of blue lines wrapped around my right forearm with a red line through it, like a piece of lined paper. I got it because I like to write, I love writing by hand. I love to learn. Plus I thought it would look rad. Even the artist who did it said it is one of the most unique and cool pieces she has done. So boo-yah. 

I got two other tattoos done recently. The first is the name "Pheidippides" in greek whose existence is argued, but the story of him is most known in the battle of marathon. 

He was sent around Greece during the war to deliver news, travelling hundreds of kilometers and eventually dropping dead with a sweeping declaration that they won. I got it because 1) I love ancient history and 2) I ran a marathon and his running is essentially the creation of the marathon. 

The third tattoo I got is my favourite. I think. I don't know. 

It is an eye. Not much to it. Not much meaning. Or at least, not much meaning I'd like to discuss. It is kind of personal to me. But the actual image of the eye has a story. It is from the cover art of Art of Dying's EP "Rise Up". I wanted to get an image of an eye on my pointer finger but I wasn't 100% sure of the image I wanted. I wasn't going to get something super detailed because finger tattoos apparently hurt like a bitch, but I figured fuck it and do it anyways. 

Turns out, out of all of the tattoos I have gotten so far, they don't really hurt that badly. Although I am pretty much a pin cushion apparently. I don't cry. I just kind of lie there and take the pain. There are some points that really hurt. When she was doing the page lines and near the sides of my bone, that hurt. Actually, "Pheidippides" hurt quite a bit, overall it probably hurt the most out of all of the ones I have gotten so far. The eye felt really different. Getting a finger tattoo is kind of how I imagined the pain of all tattoos to feel like. It really only hurt the closer she got to my hand, though. The pain was the same, I just kind of felt it more. That makes no sense. 

Anyways, I plan on getting several more tattoos. But for now, I am good. Mostly just because I can't afford anything right now. I just scraped by on getting those (all together the three cost $200). 

I want to get a half sleeve done next summer. I want a thigh tattoo of a flower. I have some other ideas, I want to get memorial pieces, whether small or big to all of the animals in my life. 

I don't know. Tattoos make people more interesting.

The funny thing is although tattoos are becoming more socially acceptable, I have already started noticing glances from people, especially while I am at work. Oh well. I knew it would happen. 

I just can't wait for them to heal now! I hate feeling like I am tiptoeing around trying to avoid infection. 

Until next time,

Sarah

We are selfish to believe in a humanoid god

Just as a declarative statement: I am an atheist. I recognize the ability for a god to exist, I just doubt that there is a god or gods in existence, nor has there ever been a higher power. Now, let's continue.

I  have many problems with the concept of a god and reasons to proving god's existence, and I am only going to address one of them today. This is the main problem that I have. Maybe it's not the best proof I have, but it is the one thing that bugs me.

My perspective on why people think there is a god is because people over time have figured that having a higher being is a good explanation and with careful thought and practice, people started to believe this.

Whether or not that is true, I think it is extremely selfish of people to assume that god is human-like in appearance, thought and action. Humans were not chosen. We are not a product of some human-like but god-like being. I think that is the most selfish thing we have ever done. Naturally most of us are at least somewhat narcissistic in our thinking. We generally put ourselves or other humans first above the humanity of nature and other animals.

But if we really think that if there is a higher-being, and they are humanoid that is the most selfish thing that we have ever believed.

I can almost more easily attest to believing in some higher being of force or molecules, atoms, something that I can't possible begin to scientifically explain. I am not saying that is my standpoint, I am just saying it as at least more plausible to me than a humanoid figure that just happened to create us and make us better than everything else.

As a culture we are obsessed with hierarchies, and have been for a few hundred years, at least. Which food is best? Which outfit is best? Which singer is best? Which type of animal is best? We have theorized pyramids and systems for the alpha to the zeta making sure everything is just perfectly ranked.

I am getting a little biased here just because I don't believe in the fact that somethings, both living and non-living have better value or worse value. I believe they have a different purpose and value, but not one being better or worse. Obviously a table is better at being a table than a porcupine is, but is one really better than the other? Tables serve a different purpose than a porcupine, but does that make porcupines or tables better than one another? I digress with my table to porcupine scale.

My point is that as a culture we are so obsessed with hierarchies and power that it make complete sense that we invented this "god" figure as human-like. If there is a higher power, they are likely equal to us and not a human. Again, some kind of force.

So then "how was everything created?" you may ask. Well I have no fucking clue but the ideas that I seem to stick to for the most part is something along the following: I don't think that time had a start. I don't think that there was nothing and then something. I think that something has just existed forever. I am not talking about earth or the human race, I think those two things have a starting point. I am just saying that "it" being existence, not of a certain thing, just existence in general is just there and there is no starting. To exist there must always be existence.

That is hard for most people to wrap their heads around, I actually drive myself a little nuts getting into that pattern of thinking sometimes. Now something like earth was probably created by something like a big bang. We know about evolution of humans and obviously at one point, something collided or occurred to make life happen on earth. I have no science background to even begin to explain how this is possible, but based on my knowledge, this is my philosophical assumption.

That's what I love about science. Originally there was no "science" it was just philosophy and speculation. Philosophy was everything at one point. It's just the ideas philosophized about science and biology eventually rightfully gained their own subjects of study. The things that can't be scientifically explained are still speculated about using philosophy and current knowledge. LOVE IT! Love philosophy. I love loving ideas. That's literally what that means Philo (love) sophy (ideas).

Anyways. Anybody else have any other theories? I am not super looking for debate about god's existence or anything, I just want to know anyone's thoughts on my ideas. I am not stating anything as truth in this blog post at all. It's mostly just speculation.

I'll be back another time. In a few weeks or so to write about some other crazy thing.

- Sarah

Anxiety as Skepticism?

I've been fighting with anxiety quite a bit lately. Between panic attacks over social outings, avoiding social situations completely and being misunderstood by others around me, it has been quite tough. 

Anxiety was much easier when I was younger and it was understood to be anti-social tendencies.

Anxiety was much easier when I was even younger and was understood to be shyness.

Anxiety was much easier when I recently understood it to be skepticism. 

Problem. I have been thinking more about anxiety and what it really means and how I really experience it. Obviously it is not experienced the exact same by all, but I realized that anxiety is much like skepticism. I think the line that skepticism crosses over to be anxiety is fear. 

Think about it, people with anxiety and/or skepticism question things, overanalyze things in order to uncover what will happen/what is true, think about all possible outcomes of a situation, and find it hard to just accept things. The difference is this fear or worry that people with anxiety get. People who use skepticism don't necessarily feel this. 

I am a skeptic about most things, only because it is hard to be a skeptic about all things all of the time because to even begin to function in modern society you have to accept some most-certain truths just to get by. But when I experience anxiety, it is usually over unnecessary things to even be worried about. The thing is that I think I've always had anxiety, along with my dysthymia (depression), or at least I have had it for a while now. It's just as a kid they called it shyness, as a teenager they told me I was introverted and anti-social. It's just when I got to just this year, just about to hit my 20s that I finally realized and they finally realized that it was anxiety. 

Anyways. I thought this might be interesting.

You can almost see quite literally my double-major in psychology and philosophy in this blog post. Oh god. Does this mean I am actually learning things in school? I didn't know that was possible. 

I'll be back soon enough,

Sarah.

3rd Year of School and still sad

2 years down, 2 to go.

I really want to try to make an effort to enjoy my education. I realize that the thing about a liberal arts education is that this is the only time I'll probably ever be able to just sit and have meaningful conversations as my full-time job. The reason I am in philosophy is not for my career, it's for the lessons and the actual schooling. I just have this deep lack of motivation to do much of anything of the sorts.

Hey, do any of my old readers remember when I used to describe my mental issues in full detail? I used to complain and reiterate my pains and problems, psychologically speaking. I still have many of the issues I used to describe. For those who don't know, here is the most brief version of my mental history:
My parents split up, I saw a psychologist who made me happy for a while (ages 10-12?) after my mom was concerned for my mental health. My dad died, I stopped seeing the psychologist, high school came and made me sad and I realized my intense anxieties and I kind of just learned to get over them by myself after multiple doctors proved to be of no help to me. After a mental episode in grade 12 I was sent to get psychological testing which was an appointment for 6 months after the episode and the psychologists claimed I was "perfect" and told me "not to pursue philosophy", I am pursuing philosophy. I got into university and was confused why my grades dropped and why I was sad and I went to the doctor and I got learning testing done to make sure I have no learning disabilities and I don't but I learned I am terrible at spacial reasoning and have genius-level writing skills, the psychologist suggested I have dysthymia and possibly bi-polar disorder or PTSD, and suggested to get more testing done which I didn't want to pursue due to the fact that last time I tried to get testing done by a psychologist they did nothing. The end. (I understand those sentences were pieces of shit, that's the point)

Anyways, to summarize my current status of mental problems: I definitely have dysthymia, there is no doubt about it. I was also diagnosed with it by the learning disability psychologist, so that is what I know for sure. It is what I like to describe as permanent part-time depression. I go through phases of depression, some worse than others. They often render me angry, sad, lazy and unable to function in school activities, let alone social activities. I also am likely to have anxiety, which I am currently considering seeking medication for but I also don't want to. I also may have PMDD which I also sought medical help to diagnose but I didn't finish the diagnostic process because I was too lazy. Whoops. PMDD is like PMS except it actually drives me to suicidal tendencies maybe once every year.

Right now I am decently okay. I am not sad, I am pretty happy, but I am not as happy as I could be and that makes me sad. These cycles drive me insane.

So what am I going to do? Probably ride out what I am feeling now until I go crazy and then maybe seek medical attention to go on some pills for depression or anxiety, which I'd hate to do, but I want my education to not go to waste. Counselling has never worked on me because I start using reasoning and logic with the recent college grads of next-to-meaningless College and defeat them in their attempts to aid me. I shouldn't do that, but I do.

Why am I telling the internet this? I'm not too sure. I was tempted to write a book for a while about my inability to receive medical attention for my psychological dysfunctions but I soon realized that it is mostly because I am holding my own self back, not because of any fault in the system. The psychological treatment system is pretty fucked up on it's own, but that is almost inherent and has next to nothing to do with my own specific situation.

My point? I am going to try to not let my dysthymia get ahold of me. The problem is I have lived with it for so long that it has become a bigger part of me than it should've. It's almost like a drug to me. I like the sadness and hate the sadness. I know it impairs me but it is so easy to just fall into the habit that I am being forced into. Though, it is incredibly hard to just say "no" to depression because depression is something that happens to you, it is not something you make happen to yourself. Though you could make yourself depressed, that is not my case.

Anyways. This post is pretty stupid right now. I am not quite to sure as to why I am posting it. I don't want feedback, please no comments.

Talk to you soon, interwebs.

Sarah