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Send me some loving. Drop a line at my guestbook.
I've finally returned to the asylum. Did you miss me? Of course you did. I've been regularly jotting down stuff on my LiveJournal, so I guess you haven't missed me that much.
I'm still doing a lot of stuff. I've decided to take a small break from it all and start writing once more on the asylum. I haven't been writing, not from a lack of material, but from a lack of time to formulate my thoughts and organize myself.
So, without further ado...
An entry back I was expounding on thoughts and thinking. I've read it to myself several times and I therefore conclude that I'm not the best person to explain philosophy. I think I got some of the existentialism wrong.
Anyway. After thinking it over (thinking again, JM?), I've come to the very existentialist conclusion that one must decide what to believe, and what not to. However, something still bothers me. Is knowing these things essential to living a happy life? Does a happy man need to know philosophy to be happy? Maybe, maybe not.
But why do we study it? Why do we still contemplate life's mysteries if these aren't essential? What is its purpose?
Then again, we can go about living without contemplating our existence, or the world without us. We can live everyday not knowing Socrates or Kant, or wondering how we exist. Yet, by living without wondering we cease to be human. We are wasting something which makes us human— our own intellect and capacity for wonder. We are the only creatures aware of our own existence.
But then we fall back to asking the practical question: How can it help me live? We're always practical.
Of course, wondering about all of this won't make you live. Instead, it will make you realize how wonderful life really is. There isn't any practical value to philosophy (or at least that's what I believe).
Philosophy won't give you the secret to living in this world. It will only show you what's there. It will show you what you haven't really noticed. It is you who has to decide what to do with that knowledge.
The interesting thing about weblogs and online journals is the fact that they allow you to be a voyeur. They give you a glimpse of a person's life, thoughts, emotions, etc.
I've been browsing LiveJournals these past few days. (Shame on you, JM. You've been browsing and yet you didn't update the asylum. Tsk, tsk.) I came across different personalities. There were writers who were quite emotional. There were some who seemed contemplative. Others were ditzy and fun. Still others were brooding and dark. The one thing all of them had in common was the fact they all were telling their life stories to complete strangers who happened to bump into their journals.
Of course, how much of your life you actually divulge in blogs or journals is up to you. Personally, I don't divulge my secrets or my life story online. I also don't post information that I wouldn't tell my friends.
However, there is still that element of voyeurism. A blog owner does not necessarily know who is reading his/her blog. I personally don't know who's reading this blog right now. I wouldn't know it by viewing access logs or what have you. I might get your IP address (and possibly trace it to your ISP), but why would I go through all that trouble?
The problem is that as a blog owner realizes the voyeuristic aspect of the blog, he/she starts getting self-conscious. He/she starts writing for his/her perceived audience, and whatever original flavor that was in the blog is slowly diluted. Unless, of course, the owner doesn't really care.
Then again, some blog owners already know about it, and it doesn't bother them.
By the way, blogs were originally meant to refer to lists of links to notable sites that have interested the authors of the blogs. How it evolved into a personal journal is something I don't know.
Yes, I've updated the layout. I've been working out the kinks of this layout for quite a while now. I was planning to put it up on my birthday, but one thing led to another and I ended up with a pile of work.
Version 4.0 features XHTML 1.0 compliance, an edited about page, more facts about me, and more links.
I'd really like to hear what you think of this layout. Drop me a line at my guestbook, or email me.
© the Lizard's asylum 2001.
All rights reserved. No part of this website can be duplicated in
any form without the express permission of Jan Michael Ibanez.
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