Philosophy For The Individual - Recycled Post

Philosophy is the highest music.--Plato


No one can define philosophy. It is an abstract idea something that depends on the individual. Sure philosophy could be defined as the pursuit of knowledge, but is that all it adds up to? I believe philosophy depends on the individual. What do you pursue? What motivates your thoughts and actions? Even more importantly is the why of those questions. Why do you pursue those things, why are your actions motivated by these values. When you answer those questions I believe that is when you discover your philosophy.


I believe having an individual philosophy is a key part in understanding one's life. It is a guideline that you live by, it is a way to explore who you are and who you want to be. Being able to create your own way of thinking is the greatest freedom. No one can take that from you. Not society, not institutions, no one unless you let them. Trust me when I say that people WILL try to take this freedom away. It may be your parents, your boss, or even your closest friends. Never sacrifice your freedom for the acceptance of another.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, its is time to pause and reflect-Mark Twain

So what happens when an institution that you believe in tries to take that freedom away? Say a school or a church. Something like that happened to a boy named Lennon in Minnesota. He attended a Catholic Church his whole life and it was time for him to go through Confirmation, a sacrament in which Catholics reaffirm their faith. At the same time he was getting ready to go through Confirmation there was political battle going on in his town on the subject of gay rights. Now Lennon's beliefs were to vote for gay rights, and that upset his church to the point where they took action against him, not allowing him to participate in Confirmation. This is a perfect example of an individual having a unique philosophy, and because it didn't match up with the majority's he was "punished."

Read the article here: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-confirmation-fight-20121204,0,6040864.story

Why would the church do this? Why was Lennon's philosophy considered wrong in the view of this Catholic Church?  In my opinion its because this church didn't believe in individual philosophy but in religion. The gods gave us philosophy to think for ourselves, man created religion to control that thinking. When a member of a collective group confesses that they don't agree with everything the group stands for, the institution in charge feels it has to take action in order to keep this idea of free thinking from changing the very foundation of the institution. Is it right? That's up to you to decide. I applaud Lennon for standing up for his philosophy. For taking action to express how he felt about something even though the majority disagreed.

Whatever your philosophy involves whether it be a love of nature, art, equal rights. Whatever values define your philosophy, I hope you stay true to them and stand up for them when they're attacked. Also I hope you never attack someone else for their views, and keep an open mind. We all have right to hold true to our values, but we have a duty to protect that right for ourselves and others.

Consider the rights of other before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights-John Wooden


Maggie V

Recycled Post - WHAT IS ART??

 

Today's post is a recycled post from one of my earlier blogs.

 

What is Art?

Today I was talking to one of my friends about a picture by Lois Greenfield, A photographer of Dancers (a great one). I was just explaining to this friend how much I loved art in all its forms. His response shocked me, "I never got in to that part of class, the whole art thing ya know." I of course responded "no I don't know, because art is something you are taught, art is how you feel when you see something beautiful or moving. When you see an object that makes you feel any emotion, you're experiencing art."

The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.Pablo Picasso

So often we are caught up in the daily routine of our lives that we forget to notice all that is around us. Imagine a time where you saw something, or heard something, that made you feel an overwhelming sense of love, fear, hope etc. In that moment whatever you saw or heard that made you feel those things, that was art. Art is all around us. It isn't just a thing of history, or only found in a painting. Art is in music, literature, dance, and so much more. We all know art, we just might not understand it when we see it and that is the true beauty. Art isn't meant to be understood, its just meant to make you feel.


I believe that there is an artist is everyone of us. There is something that we as individuals that make us unique, that help us express ourselves. Maybe you're a chef and the design or the preparation of your food is your art. You're a dancer or a choreographer, a writer, a painter, a sculptor, or maybe you just doodle. Whatever it is that you put all of your soul into, that is your art. Even blogging is art! We are all artists, we just aren't all recognized.

Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.
Oscar Wilde


For me personally I'm a writer. Whether I'm writing for school or for passion I always writer with feeling. I want my readers to have real emotions after they get done reading my work. When a person sits down to read a novel of mine I want them to laugh and cry. When I get a response out of my readers that's when I'll know that I've created something special. I encourage you to look for art in your life. Look at nature, go to a museum, read a book. Find what moves you and fall in love with it. Lose yourself in art. Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.
Thomas Merton


Comment below with what art is to YOU!

Feminism - Let's Talk About It

FEMINISM - Let's Talk About It

 

 

 

Feminism VS. New Age Feminism - IE Radical Feminism:

 

 

I'm about to step on some toes so get ready to lift your legs. In today's society I've noticed a lot of women in my generation latching on to this new age feminism. As a woman who was raised by strong female figures I consider myself a feminist. However, my definition of feminism is very different from the rest in my generation. Feminism to me is the advocacy for all women's right to be treated equally on social, economic and political grounds. Even Google agrees with me... Now that being said I do not advocate telling women that they have to live a certain way in order for them to be considered feminist nor would I tell a woman that she had to be a feminist.

 

The idea of feminism began because women were tired of being oppressed by men. Women were tired of being disrespected by society. They were tired of being told who to be and what to do. Yet somewhere along the way men stopped being the main oppressors and now it's other women. With large blog sites like Hello Giggles and Buzz Feed we have this new age feminism that tells women to over analyze every situation because the name of a lipstick is hurting the women's movement. (seriously this is an article done by Hello Giggles). My favorite article I read recently was the dissection of Megan Trainors new song Dear Future Husband. A writer criticizes her because she sings about being a "perfect" wife as long as her husband treats her right. So are we now saying that if a woman chooses to be a stay at home mom that she's wrong??!!

 

 

I'm all for loving yourself for who you are and wanting to be treated with respect but I'm also all for choosing who you want to be. First the issue was society wanted you to be the perfect babe so that guys would like you and now it seems society wants you to be the perfect feminist so other women will like you? What the hell are we doing to our society here ladies. We should be focusing on REAL issues like the Mexican government hiding evidence of missing women in their country or the oppression of women in the Middle East. How about the thousands of women being abused? Or the ones who are starving? If we want to fight for women we should be fighting for their livelihoods not getting mad over the fact that they'd rather cook meals at home than try and become a CEO!

 

I believe that feminism is important to hold on to only because I believe that equalism for everyone is important to hold on to. Attacking a woman because she chooses to live her life differently than you is disrespectful and quite frankly offensive. By other women saying that its wrong for an artist to sing about scrubbing floors and buying groceries for her husband they are basically saying that its wrong to be a stay at home mom. The other issue I have is pretending that women are victims of every little thing.

 

When we write articles about how its wrong to critique artists just because they're women we're basically saying that women aren't strong enough to handle constructive criticism. I'm not talking about people who bash artists or celebrities. However everyone is entitled to an opinion and just because I don't like Megan Trainor doesn't make me a woman hater!! And honestly its offensive to Megan Trainor and all the other female artists to suggest that they can't handle "haters" or ya know people who aren't into their form of art! Come on we don't want men to tell us we're weak but we also don't want anyone to ever tell us we're wrong? That's not being treated equal that's being treated like a spoiled child with a quick temper.

 

 

So please I beg of you stop worrying about the names of lipsticks, and the lyrics of Megan Trainor because that's not helping women. Start worrying about the real issues and please for goodness sake do some research on feminism.

 

Much love,

Maggie V.



 

Gothic Romanticism - A Turning Point in Art and Literature

 

Gothic Romanticism - The Beginning Of Tragic Love

 

 

Recently while trying to explain a "party theme" to several different people I realized that those in my generation have forgotten about the Romantic period and more importantly the Gothic period. As soon as I say the word gothic everyone jumps in their mind to the 90's fad of wearing bagging black jeans and chain chokers. Did we all forget that after the Victorian Era there came a time in art and literature for brilliant minds like Poe and the Bronte Sisters? We read their novels, poems etc in High school English but do we respect the movement that they originated from?

 

 

Gothic Literature took place in the later 18th century as the world was coming out of the Victorian Era. Writers like Emily and Charlotte Bronte (though they weren't known by these names at the time) shocked the world with what was known then as perverse writing. These women wrote stories of abuse, lust, and death. The works of the Bronte sisters, Dickens, and later Poe were riddled with tragedies and macabre themes. They were dark and scary yet very real and that is why they were so captivating. The Victorian Era had started the idea of love enduring through hardship however the Gothic Era began the idea of love overwhelming someone to the point of madness.

 

In Victorian Literature a character might have fallen in love with a man outside his/her social class yet their love for one another would overpower societal rules. However in the Gothic Romantic period a man would fall in love with a woman, the woman might die and the man would go insane trying to overcome the tragic death of his only love. One of my favorite Gothic novels is Wuthering Heights a story that is riddled with jealousy, rage, and insanity that all stem from the love that Heathcliff has for Catherine. In this novel there is no real happy ending but there is the idea that he never gave up his love even to the point of it driving him mad.

 

Gothic literature also explored death as a beautiful idea, in fact Poe himself was obsessed with the death of beautiful women. Death in Gothic Literature could be a release from the restraints of the world that held them back. Suicide became a common theme as well. However with all of the morbid elements one thing remained constant love was all powerful. Love could bring two characters from opposite spectrums together, love could drive you insane, love could survive death....no matter what happened in these novels love remained the driving force behind all actions.

 

This art period was more beautiful than any in my opinion because it opened the world to the idea of enduring love and reality. These were not fairy tales, they were not happily ever afters but they were relatable for all social classes. People could relate to stories of abuse, they related to stories of sickness, and they related to stories of death. That was the beautiful aspect of this literature....these novels/poems made love seem possible for anybody across any situation and it reminded people that love was powerful.

 

-Maggie V.