Waking Life

less important to Confucian thinkers than how the living fulfill their obligations to the dead. Dou E’s mortality was not the final say in her life – her spirit, and life, and carried on with the promise of her father to avenge her soul. While morality is burdensome, it is also not final. Death offers a welcome release from the encumbrances of this worldly life, but the spirit we carried as mortals pursues the living after our death. Our mortality causes grief for the living, the ones left…

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the Importance of Memory Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind by Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman is a worldwide famous film that makes its audience question the importance of our memories and the identity that these memories create for us. It is a film that toys with the possibility of erasing hurtful and unwanted thoughts from one’s mental record. Memories and experiences are the very things that make us who we are. Without the recollection of our past…

Aristotle takes it that bodies (more specifically, natural bodies), which are taken to have life in them, are generally considered substances (Aristotle 412a12-14). More strictly speaking, a body that has life in it is a substance in the third sense—they body is a compound (Aristotle 412a15). Here one might immediately question how or why it is that Aristotle’s distinction between substance as matter…

paragraph, it hit me like a thousand-pound weight on my chest. I was laying someone to rest whom I had loved all of my life. Someone who had always been there. Someone I never had to live without. Through my sobbing, I wanted to tell her everything I didn’t say enough of. I still have things that were left unsaid, and I always will. Death is more difficult for the living. Life is a fluid known and unknown state of being. When we transcend to our next place, acceptance equals warding off bouts…

Friendship between Nandu and Vedant A small village surrounded by hills and green forest, undemanding, hard working people leading a simple life. The Sun, just waking up and spreading its rays on the body of green velvety earth, pricking every bit and hole in the earth, its warmth gives life to the little seed to rise up and see the beautiful world. Mama, why is Gauri restless today? Why is she lowing, is there something wrong with her? Asks Vedant anxiously to his Mother Meera. Yes, my son,…

Socrates’s Argument on Death The topic of death frightens human beings for several reasons because of the speculation and the anxiety that surround death. Even though most people fear death, philosophers such as Socrates argue that there is no valid reason to fear death (Ahrensdorf 1995). According to 5Socrates, death is a blessing in the context of the relocation of the soul. Socrates avers that death is something that people should not fear and provide several arguments to validate his…

death as something so far off, something that happens to you when you are old. When I thought about dying, my visions were mostly those of falling asleep and not waking up. I believe that I mostly thought about the dying part and not about the grief. Losing my brother and ex-husband have been by far the most painful experiences in my life. One truly does not realize what they have until it is…

ACK-ACK-ACK-ACK-ACK-ACK! Gunfire!” This quote shows how Salva's life changed just like that but also it shows that he was confident to run into the bushes when there was a fire and everyone was running. Another reason why Salva was confident and braver was that he was stuck in the barn by himself and he didn’t know what to do. I can prove this because in the text it says “The tears were hot in Salva’s eyes. Where had everyone gone? Why had they left without waking him?” This quote shows how…

Eudora Welty crafts a short story centered on an old, African American woman, Phoenix, journeying to a destination far from her home. Phoenix embodies all the essential qualities of a successful journeyer, such as perseverance, endurance, craftiness, and courage. Through her journey, Phoenix is tested many times, and she always answers with resilience and confidence. Phoenix is a character that crosses instances of death many times, but instead of being afraid, she welcomes the challenges. It is…

Fleshmarket is a mystery-crime novel written by Nicola Morgan. It depicts the life story of a boy called Robbie whose mother dies in a surgical procedure. For years Robbie blames the surgeon (Dr Knox) until he realises that his intention was never to kill his mother, it was to save her life. The character, Robbie, changes and drastically develops the way he views other people’s intentions, and views the world around him throughout the novel. These changes show that if you haven’t been in a bad…