“I was looking for an answer.

It's the q
​ uestion​ that drives us, Neo. It's the ​question​ that 
brought you here” T
​ rinity (The Matrix) 

Questions, Questions

Philosophy is one of my favorite subjects. It’s a tool to help anyone make better sense of

the world and themselves. Philosophy is how you learn who you are, what you believe in, and

how to question because at its core philosophy is about questioning: “Who am I?” “What is

God?” “Why am I really here in college?” “Am I really living my life to its fullest potential?” In

our classes this semester we asked and even got an answer to some of these tough questions.

Alas, a philosopher's work is never done as once one set of questions is answered another

tougher set appears. Fortunately, any philosopher with their salt welcomes these questions and

the challenges they present with open arms. With that, I have questions leftover from the class

that relates to what we learned in class and how it applies to the world today.

Wool over my eyes

One of the first ideas we learned about in the class was the idea that many of us aren’t

individuals but sheep who follow things as they are for many reasons (fear, convenience, etc).

We spent a lot of time in class trying to unlearn this idea and question for ourselves and this

eventually leads to a paper questioning what the purpose of a liberal college education was; we

read a passage from a book called “​Excellent Sheep” ​which explained that a college education

isn't meant to be extended job training, it's a way to create yourself your morals, philosophy, and

how you're going to approach challenges in your adult. “​Excellent Sheep” ​argues that college is

the first stop in a road to a meaningful life. That the experiences, friendships, philosophies, and

skills you learn here will stick with you and grow with you until the day you die. This is
something that has stuck with me deeply because I have rarely heard an adult who has gone or

encouraged me to go to college to go in order to create myself and really prepare myself for the

actual world past high school. They always encouraged me to go in order to secure a more stable

financial future. At first, I didn't want to go to college at all. I hated high school with a passion,

it's poorly financed and the teachers often aren't good enough at reaching kids with interesting

methods of learning or catering to the individual (this stems from them being poorly financed it's

really a vicious cycle). But when I finally decided to take the steps towards higher education,

everyone I knew tried to pressure me into going into a major that would guarantee me a job once

I exited college whether it be a doctor or programmer it always seemed like I was getting the

same five recommendations for majors it made me frustrated to no end but once I got into

college, I picked a major I was passionate about. But writing that paper made me have one

question, and it's this: Should colleges have even opened this year with covid if one of it’s key

aspects is social? If the answer is yes then I need to reason out why, if the answer is no then the

question becomes what could an alternative be?

Drones

To save you of the suspense I don't think that colleges should have opened up this year,

as someone who participated in remote learning not only was it extremely underwhelming, and a

lot of the factors highlighted in ​“Excellent Sheep” ​were missing. For example, one aspect talked

about in the passage was the social aspects of college (Late night talks in the dorm, meetup,

clubs, parties, etc) are as important as the material you learn in class because it allows you space

to informally talk out these ideas among other more personal ideas and find new interests and

grow yourself because that's a part of the experience that you are paying for. But that's only the

first part of the question presented earlier. The second part asks what is an alternative? I think it's
there where I can really speculate and come to various conclusions. The first conclusion reared

its head thanks to COVID-19, and that is that college in its current form is extremely outdated:

It's expensive, Exclusive, and society has morphed it into a factory or farm where people go to

get better jobs but remain the same drones they were when they ended high school. One thing

that I find interesting about excellent Sheep and its philosophy is that a lot of the experiences

could be achieved the same way by just going out and experiencing life. For example, taking the

money that you would normally put towards tuition and travel, meet new people, experience new

environments, and learn through experience. Another way you could achieve many of the same

experiences in college is through the internet. Connectivity and education are incredibly easy to

achieve during our lifetime, everything you could want to learn you can learn on the internet, and

anytime you want to talk to people who share interest you can find them on social media (Reddit,

Facebook groups, Discord) it has never been easier to learn how to do something you really care

about and even make money or get a job from it like if you're going to college for game design

you could learn how to program and everything you could want from the internet and publish a

game on your own within a year. If you make music or films SoundCloud and YouTube allow

you to get your art out to a wide audience incredibly needing help funding or getting connections

making a Kickstarter or Indiegogo or tweeting at a celebrity or company can get you film or

music deals, The possibilities are endless and open-ended. But with all these options I have to

wonder: How are colleges still around? Why do millions of students fight for spots in the top

schools, go into student debt, and stress themselves out with tests and finals if they're more and

arguably better options out there in the world? It's fear. College no matter how free it appears to

be is still a structure. Classes have to be obtained, work has a deadline. After high school it's

incredibly easy to become lost, many of us have been in school since 1st grade and been
conditioned to get up in the mornings and have classes and work turned in, college provides

many with the structure and changes small smarts but overall it prepares you for a job which is

similar to school. Going a different route means letting go of that safety net and trying to become

a person without the help of guides or structures, traveling requires you to be responsible, crafty,

and open-minded. Using the internet requires patience, asking questions, and understanding who

you are and how you learn best. There are more questions that I have like: What will college

look like in 20+ yrs? What are the roles of professors in a post-internet world? But I will have to

look at those another time I still have another Topic to examine.

Déjà vu

My next question comes from the lessons we had involving Nietzsche and his stance on

life. The key thing I took away from that week was the thought experiment Nietzsche proposed

to see if a person was truly living life to the fullest. The experiment is written in Nietzsche’s

book ​“The Gay Science”​ and it goes like this: “What, if some day or night a demon were to steal

after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived

it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself

down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced

a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I

heard anything more divine.” The quote is asking if a demon came down and was gonna make

you repeat a day, a week, or more of your life would you be grateful to the demon, or would you

beg and plead for it to let you stay in the present. This is something I find incredibly interesting

because I have always tried to live in a way that if this demon came down, I would have no

problem reliving my life as I felt I have made the best choices for myself and my happiness. But
my question I had after hearing this is how can I possibly continue to live my life in that way

when society has its own set rules and agenda for me?

There is no fate but what we make for ourselves

To answer the question. I don't know, there's a going against me as a person. I'm a big

African-American man to a lot of the world I'm seen as a delinquent or a threat. This makes the

world dangerous for me. It's harder to travel, get a job, and even just talk to people to get new

persectives. The world needs to see an image of me being non-threatening wearing colors like

green and brown, and talking calmly and clearly. It's restricting and puts me into a box that

means I cannot express myself if I want to get anywhere in life or be happy. I try very hard to

carve my path even with something like society pushing me down that, such as; I am going to

college for a subject I'm interested in; I spend weeks at my brother's house learning and growing

as an individual and I make small choices like what I eat and who I decide to talk to. But in 2020

if the demon came I think I would beg him not to rewind time. Not just because it was a bad year

but because there is so much about my life that I wouldn't want to relive I need to take more

steps closer towards freedom and if I spent the rest of my life reliving events I was forced to do

while being grateful for the small accomplishments I had back then. But then that leaves me the

lingering question of How can I make it so my life is that of one worth living every second of

every day? Maybe the answer isn't so extreme. Maybe it's a give and take, for example, if I work

a 9-5 I hate perhaps the money used from the work can be spent on having the most fun I

possibly can and pursuing my interests. Maybe eventually the thing you love to do can become

your job and take up more of your time. It will be slow but if you work towards a goal you can

have a life you would want to relive. Nietzsche thought experiment made me look back as far as

I could remember and for a lot of my life I was just following other people's words It's wasn't
until last year when I left my mother's house did I make the conscious choice to live my life, it

was extremely difficult but I felt free like my life was finally my own. One more method I could

do is try to look at my life through Nietzsche's worldview and imitate what he would tell me.

Nietzsche's main philosophy on life is to live powerfully and authentically, creating my own

goals and values and systems, so Nietzsche would tell me that I am on the right path towards

living authentically but I'm still not there fully. I think he would tell me that I would be there

when I learn to make my own rules for the world instead of following others, to be more specific

once I figure out my philosophical code and stick to it I will be living more authentically.

Conclusion

I think it's pretty clear now that the subject I find most interesting especially in

philosophy is the idea of identity and how elements of the world can affect our Identity and

development. I find these things important because it's our identity, it's who we are and how

we're gonna impact the world either positively or negatively. So I would like to thank you

Professor for taking the difficult task of teaching such a complex subject for college. I would

also like to commend you for trying your best to teach during a global pandemic without any of

the traditional means and having to learn all new programs. It's really important that college

students have professors as dedicated as you to get them through school and guide them. But

now I turn the reflection onto you professor: How do you think you did? Do you think this

semester you were helping to fulfill the true purpose of college or were you helping to breed

more excellent sheep? I’m curious about your thoughts please let me know, and again I wanna

say thank you for a good semester.