Week 9 post 1
https://www.philosophytalk.org/shows/science-happiness
This is from a radio broadcast, “philosophy talk” featuring GGSC’s Emiliana Simon-Thomas
Philosophy Talk celebrates the value of the examined life
How do we define happiness? Is happiness a subjective feeling, or an overall evaluation of your life?
John considers whether he can even characterize himself as happy. Ken questions whether we can imagine someone who is unsatisfied with their lives but is still happy.
Perhaps happiness is a dispositional state—that we tend to have it, so we can call ourselves happy, even if we do not have it at every given moment
Simon-Thomas shares her favorite way of thinking about happiness: an acronym called OKRA that stands for Optimism-Kindness-Resilience-Awareness.
Ken wonders whether this definition conforms to people’s ordinary conceptions of happiness.
Simon-Thomas thinks it does, but adds that it goes a step further in explaining why they call themselves happy.
Simon-Thomas claims that interpersonal relationships and compassion towards others is the easiest and most-surefire way to become happier.
whether memory has much of a role in happiness
Simon-Thomas clarifies that memory tends to amplify neither positive nor negative memories; moreover, the neutrality of memory suggests that we ought to cultivate happy moments on a daily basis
we know what we are taught; we ARE what we have learned. {That is the crucial point in critically thinking about modernity: if we accept at face value the maudlin virtues of fitting in; being 'trendy'; gobbling up mass/popular culture as though it were ambrosia; and adopting for our own the shallowness of situational ethics, we are surely beyond help and perhaps beyond recognition as humans
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/may_mindfulness_be_with_you
May Mindfulness Be With You Jeremy Adam Smith finds common ground with his son in the philosophy of Star Wars
“The Force is what gives a Jedi his power,” says the Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi to the idealistic farm boy Luke Skywalker. “It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.”
The Force? This goes beyond the really cool flashing light sabers and pulsing blaster cannons. This is…philosophy—a bulky, foreign, fascinating word to my seven-year-old self. But even at that age I understand that the philosophy of Star Wars is not merely tacked on; it is built right into the narrative
Pay attention to what is happening inside, the film suggests. There you might find something larger than yourself
“Don’t center on your anxiety, Obi-Wan,” replies stern Jedi Master Qui-Gon. “Keep your concentration here and now where it belongs.” Obi-Wan, brash young buck, isn’t buying it. “Master Yoda says I should be mindful of the future…” “…but not at the expense of the moment,” cuts in Qui-Gon.
I can see that the practice of moment-to-moment, nonjudgmental awareness of thoughts, feelings, and surroundings darts in and out of the Star Wars movies like a pod-racer through Beggar’s Canyon
It’s in Revenge of the Sith, when Luke’s father, Anakin, allows his emotional states to interfere with his perception of reality—and thus he becomes Darth Vader. And all this appears in some of the most popular, influential movies of our lifetime
It’s only in retrospect, it seems, that the mindfulness of Star Wars has influenced me
Are the messages of mindfulness lost in the explosions and running and shooting and commercialization of Star Wars?
While explosions sell tickets, underneath and around them the films have consistently preached that mindfulness fosters compassion, mercy, and restraint.
“Fear is the path to the dark side,” says Jedi Master Yoda in The Phantom Menace. “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
“Fear is the path to the dark side,” says Jedi Master Yoda in The Phantom Menace. “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
Relate this to the fear philosophy conservatives and republicans base themselves on
George lucas was a communist, did his message get lost in capitalism, people who embrace capitalism embrace starwars yet the people they idolize would have disliked people like trump and capitalism
As I discovered when I polled my contemporaries in real life and on Facebook, many of us have gradually taken Yoda’s words to heart, moving from fascination with the machinery and explosions of Star Wars to its philosophical underpinnings.
“Yoda’s fear-leads-to-anger sequence had the most influence on me,” says my buddy Dave Pai, who saw the first movie at age nine. “It helped me learn that it’s okay to adjust my expectations and let things be.” This is a sentiment echoed by several friends in a Facebook discussion. “Racism and desensitization to violence aside, Star Wars at least introduces the idea of mindfulness to the typical preteen male,” says Dave.
Star Wars is so widely loved by people who Embrace capitalism yet the philosophies that this movie teach do not align with that and what does that say about our society.
That’s not Yoda’s only philosophical hit. Here’s another: “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” This is advice Yoda delivers to Luke Skywalker as the apprentice attempts to use the Force to lift his X-Wing fighter out of the Dagobah swamp. My friend Auey Santos saw the movie at age seven, and she actually recalls the “there is no try” speech when she’s trying to lift her own personal X-Wings out of the swamps of her life. Yoda’s words ask us to focus on the moment we’re in and not worry about the unknowable next one.
How we can embrace the philosophy of star wars in our everyday life
The deeper lessons of life that are dotted throughout the Star Wars epic will gradually sink in. As Darth might have said, “Like father, like son.”
A meaningful, morally correct life?
Self analysis of the storyline:
The condemnation of populism-despite
George Lucas says the heroes of Star Wars were modelled after the Vietcong and resistors to colonialism while the villains supposed to represent American and British empires.
Palpatine came to power on a platform of bringing down the corrupt elite and bureaucrats who were owned by the space capitalists like the Trade Federation. We just don't think of him as "populist" because he doesn't give rip roaring speeches or outwardly appeal to the common man in his demeanor. I mean it was all a front anyway, but he was supposedly loved by the people for being a strong leader who stood for order and justice etc.
'Star Wars' proves treasure trove for philosophers
“‘Star Wars’ is very powerful because it helps us understand ourselves in the light and dark side of The Force. We feel this in our lives when we have this pull of immediate gratification but a desire to achieve long term goals,” said George Backen, professor of philosophy at Adams State University in Colorado.
For more than 30 years, academics, students and people of faith have used ‘Star Wars’ as a springboard to explore themes like moral ambiguity, father-son relationships, concepts of feminine beauty and the yearning for something better in life.
Spiritualism is a major “Star Wars” theme. Creator George Lucas was quoted as saying some 15 years ago that The Force embodies “a concept of religion based on the premise that there is a God and there is good and evil.”
https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/03/17/george-lucas-meaning-of-life/
George Lucas on the Meaning of Life sourced from https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0316294020/braipick-20
“There is no why. We are. Life is beyond reason.”
Scholars who have studied myth and religion for many years and have connected all of the theories spawned over the ages about life and consciousness and who have taken away the superficial trappings, have come up with the same sensibility. They call it different things. They try to personify it and deal with it in different ways. But everybody seems to dress down the fact that life cannot be explained. The only reason for life is life. There is no why. We are. Life is beyond reason. One might think of life as a large organism, and we are but a small symbiotic part of it
It is possible that on a spiritual level we are all connected in a way that continues beyond the comings and goings of various life forms. My best guess is that we share a collective spirit or life force or consciousness that encompasses and goes beyond individual life forms. There’s a part of us that connects to other humans, connects to other animals, connects to plants, connects to the planet, connects to the universe. I don’t think we can understand it through any kind of verbal, written or intellectual means. But I do believe that we all know this, even if it is on a level beyond our normal conscious thoughts.
If we have a meaningful place in this process, it is to try to fit into a healthy, symbiotic relationship with other life force. Everybody, ultimately, is trying to reach a harmony with the other parts of the life force. And in trying to figure out what life is all about, we ultimately come down to expressions of compassion and love, helping the rest of the life force, caring about others without any conditions or expectations, without expecting to get anything in return. This is expressed in every religion, by every prophet.
^ george lucas
" I have a philosophy that we all teach, and we all teach every day of our lives. And it’s not necessarily what we lecture. I’ve discovered kids don’t like lectures at all. But it is really the way we live our lives. And what we do with our lives and — and the way we conduct ourselves. And once in a while they listen to the lectures. So when I make the films, I’m very aware of the fact that I’m teaching on a much larger scale than I would just as a parent or somebody walking through life. Because I have this megaphone. Anybody in the media has a very large megaphone that they can reach a lot of different people, and so whatever they say, whatever they do, however they conduct themselves, whatever they produce has an influence and is teaching somebody something. And I try to be aware of what it is I’m saying."
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