The overall thesis of my initial reflection on love was basically that I despise the ways society has twisted the meaning of love, but have encountered some moments similar to love in my life, albeit not being closely acquainted with it. Reading The Symposium, Consolation of Philosophy, and The Reasons of Love has not provided me with a clear explanation as to what love truly is, but has provided me with multiple interpretations for further pondering. The Symposium was my favorite of the texts that we read for this course. Pausanias’ speech, in particular, related to my initial reflection in discussing base love in comparison to noble love. According to Pausanias, base love is love that is based on sexual gratification while noble love
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The first book talked about how happiness cannot be defined by material possessions, and while I already knew our culture likes to overlook this, Julia brought up an interesting topic in our discussion group. Apparently, one of her friends attends a wellness church. From what she explained, people who go to wellness churches believe that your relationship with God is directly proportionate to your place on the Earth. If you were to suddenly become bankrupt at a wellness church, the people there would think you’ve had a falling-out with God. It is terrifying that some people actually think this way, and it definitely shows how society is able to skew what love and happiness are. In Consolation, I also liked the part where Lady Philosophy related back to Plato’s idea that wickedness is a lack of good and not it’s own entity. I’ve spent a lot of my life contemplating good and evil, especially since I was bullied a lot as a child. I always wondered why the people who bullied me had to be as mean as they were. At the time, I liked to believe they were the spawns of Satan, but I was an elementary schooler who enjoyed oversimplification. It makes sense to me to say that they ‘lacked good.’ I know a lot of my bullies had family issues and probably didn’t get the love they needed at that age. While their actions were not justifiable, their pain was
The first book talked about how happiness cannot be defined by material possessions, and while I already knew our culture likes to overlook this, Julia brought up an interesting topic in our discussion group. Apparently, one of her friends attends a wellness church. From what she explained, people who go to wellness churches believe that your relationship with God is directly proportionate to your place on the Earth. If you were to suddenly become bankrupt at a wellness church, the people there would think you’ve had a falling-out with God. It is terrifying that some people actually think this way, and it definitely shows how society is able to skew what love and happiness are. In Consolation, I also liked the part where Lady Philosophy related back to Plato’s idea that wickedness is a lack of good and not it’s own entity. I’ve spent a lot of my life contemplating good and evil, especially since I was bullied a lot as a child. I always wondered why the people who bullied me had to be as mean as they were. At the time, I liked to believe they were the spawns of Satan, but I was an elementary schooler who enjoyed oversimplification. It makes sense to me to say that they ‘lacked good.’ I know a lot of my bullies had family issues and probably didn’t get the love they needed at that age. While their actions were not justifiable, their pain was