Professor Gunderson,
I’m sending this from my personal email because I don’t want some of the more personal things I’m going to say to be stuck in my D2L forever. Maybe the fact that this is going to your MSU email is a bit counterproductive, but at least it won’t be in my D2L account and you’re leaving anyway so maybe they’ll wipe your email memory.
I hope that you know that what I was saying was mainly tongue-in-cheek. I do not really imagine anyone, let alone yourself, will write something impactful enough to change anything. Most of the time I am a cynic, like yourself, perhaps even more so than you because I often resonate with nihilism and you seem not to, and bug the shit out of people with my incessant pessimism. People tend not …show more content…
While obviously this is incredibly common, and I would say probably psychologically questionable if one does not feel that way about one’s own offspring, as someone who does not wish to have children, I feel disheartened. If you don’t mind my asking, what did you derive meaning from pre-parenthood? Was it simply reading? I am working my way through your reading list, and through your own writing and through things that both your list and your own work lead me to and I do not feel that I am getting enough from that. I do not like imagining a life in which I marry, give birth and live in the suburbs in an effort to achieve meaning in the same manner as everyone else, but I also do not like imagining one in which I have trouble getting any meaning out of my life at all. Of course, this will have to be my own quest, and I recognize that you are not a therapist, but I wonder if you do or ever did relate. Perhaps not and you have been content with reading your whole life and have always wanted the things you have now and are, as you have always been, a very fulfilled person, and my existential angst is entirely foreign to you.
I laugh awkwardly when we are talking in order to avoid crying because really the issues we discuss, i.e. the (inescapable?) futility of life, are not funny topics. They are quite morbid and I don’t quite know how to escape that overwhelming and persistent …show more content…
Is it an empirical comment or a notion of “we must push on to fight futility?” I would like to know if you know the answer of if you speculate his intentions to be one way or the other because to me they are very different and I disagree wholeheartedly with the former.
I’m sure I’m making very little sense. I’m sorry to continue to take up so much of your time with things that you need not concern yourself with, but when I am around someone who appreciates philosophizing (mind you this is incredibly rare for me, I do not know if it is for you or not), I am compelled to talk, rather than compartmentalize and continue going about my life, which you seem to have mastered. I can see how that may have sounded a bit patronizing/judgmental (“you aren 't worried about things that you should be!!”), I did not mean it that way. I mean, sincerely, that you seem to have your shit together and do not worry in the same way that I constantly do, and I am envious of that apparent fact.
In all honesty (though this is probably going to sound so sarcastic at this point), I hope that you got good news back regarding a loan for your house.
I’m sending this from my personal email because I don’t want some of the more personal things I’m going to say to be stuck in my D2L forever. Maybe the fact that this is going to your MSU email is a bit counterproductive, but at least it won’t be in my D2L account and you’re leaving anyway so maybe they’ll wipe your email memory.
I hope that you know that what I was saying was mainly tongue-in-cheek. I do not really imagine anyone, let alone yourself, will write something impactful enough to change anything. Most of the time I am a cynic, like yourself, perhaps even more so than you because I often resonate with nihilism and you seem not to, and bug the shit out of people with my incessant pessimism. People tend not …show more content…
While obviously this is incredibly common, and I would say probably psychologically questionable if one does not feel that way about one’s own offspring, as someone who does not wish to have children, I feel disheartened. If you don’t mind my asking, what did you derive meaning from pre-parenthood? Was it simply reading? I am working my way through your reading list, and through your own writing and through things that both your list and your own work lead me to and I do not feel that I am getting enough from that. I do not like imagining a life in which I marry, give birth and live in the suburbs in an effort to achieve meaning in the same manner as everyone else, but I also do not like imagining one in which I have trouble getting any meaning out of my life at all. Of course, this will have to be my own quest, and I recognize that you are not a therapist, but I wonder if you do or ever did relate. Perhaps not and you have been content with reading your whole life and have always wanted the things you have now and are, as you have always been, a very fulfilled person, and my existential angst is entirely foreign to you.
I laugh awkwardly when we are talking in order to avoid crying because really the issues we discuss, i.e. the (inescapable?) futility of life, are not funny topics. They are quite morbid and I don’t quite know how to escape that overwhelming and persistent …show more content…
Is it an empirical comment or a notion of “we must push on to fight futility?” I would like to know if you know the answer of if you speculate his intentions to be one way or the other because to me they are very different and I disagree wholeheartedly with the former.
I’m sure I’m making very little sense. I’m sorry to continue to take up so much of your time with things that you need not concern yourself with, but when I am around someone who appreciates philosophizing (mind you this is incredibly rare for me, I do not know if it is for you or not), I am compelled to talk, rather than compartmentalize and continue going about my life, which you seem to have mastered. I can see how that may have sounded a bit patronizing/judgmental (“you aren 't worried about things that you should be!!”), I did not mean it that way. I mean, sincerely, that you seem to have your shit together and do not worry in the same way that I constantly do, and I am envious of that apparent fact.
In all honesty (though this is probably going to sound so sarcastic at this point), I hope that you got good news back regarding a loan for your house.