HW 5- Banach Parts 3 and 4

At the beginning of his lecture, David Banach talked about individuality and freedom and what they mean to every single individual. Many of his ideas were logical, thorough, and I agreed with them. However once Banach reached the third part of his lecture, I found myself on the complete other side of the room, disagreeing with nearly everything he said.

We as a species often raise the questions “What is happiness?” and “What is the meaning of life?” Well according to Banach, the true value of happiness is found in oneself, that to be a true existentialist, one must discard “the promise of external value” and “find a more real happiness”. Now I must go back and state that I did NOT disagree with EVERYTHING Banach proposed in parts III and IV of his lecture, this being one such exception. By looking inwards and finding happiness in oneself, we can never lose this happiness, as Banach later states, and I think that this is a goal many people do not find themselves accomplishing. However, I must say that even this is no easy task, for finding true happiness from within is very tough to do and even harder to know. How would one know they did this? I mean, couldn’t somebody look in the mirror, see a tattoo saying “me” encased in a heart and be happy with this? Or can this too be taken away? Do we try and think of a trait we love about ourselves, like if somebody could do a hundred push-ups? What does internal happiness truly mean? I think that this is even harder to determine, and it can also lead to another state that Banach avoids but is quite similar to this view of happiness. Narcissism. Being in love with oneself is not too distant from what he proposes here, which most would agree is not healthy. I think that happiness cannot be determined by one source, that’s impossible. What if something happens to change that, then you are left a blob of melancholy. I think that happiness has to have many sources, almost acting as reserves so that if one source fails you, there is another in waiting for you

Also discussed by Banach is the concept of meaning. Here Banach kept things much more vague, proposing contradicotory arguments as he had before, but in a new way so that they seemed more gloom and doom than before. Banach calls life pointless and meaningless, since everybody dies down the line anyways. He references the myth of Sisysphus, a man who the Gods condemned to an eternity of pushing a rock up a hill, at which point it would fall right back down. This little story inserted in the context of the lecture gives the impression that life is pointless labor, with no point. By the end of the lecture, he has explained the relevance of this in that he found happiness and that happiness comes from struggle. However he never really explicitly states his views on how life should be lived, instead proposing that maybe struggle can lead to a good life, to making the best out of a bad situation.

I hate when people call life meaningless. It quickly causes things to degrade to the conclusion of “Well, why don’t you just kill yourself then?” Now, many people might not agree, but in some ways this is right, that life has no meaning. That we don’t get anything out of life for all we do with it, other than some temporary joy or sense of accomplishment extinguished as our flame burns out. I never liked this view though, even if it is right in some regards. I must say, that with all of life leading to nothing for us, why do we even bother? Because giving up never got anybody anywhere. To just give up and accept death, accept that you cannot have meaning is the easy way out, you might as well kill yourself. To keep going, fight the inevitable, and try to make a better tomorrow for not just yourself but the world is meaning. A meaningful life, for me at least, can be achieved in two ways. The first, being true to oneself. Don’t hide who you are, just be yourself. The second way to live meaningfully is to leave the world better than you came to it. Fight for a better tomorrow, help people out, do what you can. If you give up, all you’re doing is condemning the future generations to give up too, and nobody should ever wish that on another.

My idea of a meaningful life ties in with Banach’s views on freedom then. Banach states that people should live for one another, similar to many religions that believe that people should treat others as themselves. Stating that people should live for society is something that is a common thread in many cultures, simply because it provides limits on us and has people live responsibly. But we don’t HAVE to, which leads me to my next point, whether or not people are truly free, if we can live life our way.

All in all, I think that humans are most definitely free, despite society, despite the TV screen of images, despite living for others. Nobody has to confide themselves to any life for eternity, everybody has the right to choose their own path and make their own decisions and be as they see fit, despite what everybody says. There are restrictions, but they are strict and defined, like not being able to fly right this second on my own. It is not to say that I cannot fly ever on my own , there is a way. I could find a way somehow, combine this or that, attach wings to my arms. Something. But right now, right this second I cannot. But I’ll tell ya, there is a way I can fly and I intend to find it, because I am free to do so.