Final Essay June 2009

In the beginning of the year, one of our very first assignments was to create a video showing what is meaningful in my life or what makes my life meaningful. My art was, still is, and will always be one of the most important aspects of my life that adds to the meaning of my life. Over the past few months, we have touched upon several different units, all-relating to living a more meaningful life. I have to say when we first started this course I was not sure what to think about living a good and meaningful life. I felt lost at times because I had never taken the time to think about how I am either living a good and meaningful life or not. I felt the video assignment was creative and was a good way for me to think about something important to my life and who I am as a human being, an animal, etc.

Later on, I learned that people base the meaning of a good and meaningful life on their personal experiences and what they view around them. The media runs our society by setting standards of acceptability to abide by in order to live a good and meaningful life. We are no longer the driving force of our decisions because there are many influences us in our daily lives. It is harder to be "original” because someone out in the world has already come up with that same idea floating around in your head. Most often, you think you have come up with a great idea but instead it is Corporate Culture and the Dominant message of how to live a good and meaningful marginal message etc, folk culture

In the beginning, my definition of a good and meaningful life was whatever corporate and folk culture had told about the ways of the world. I was and still am influenced by the media and corporate and folk culture but now I know when I see the media trying to persuade me into buying something new or to try a "new and improved" diet, and when to stay away from this type of advertisement. I can spot the propaganda and follow my own knowledge about what I now know about living a good and meaningful life.


Two of my most favorite units were the health and the animal units because these two units have a lot to do with each other. Health was a big unit; there is physical, mental, and moral health.

The animal unit really opened my eyes to how related we are to other animals, we are animals and we act like animals. This unit was a chance to explore what living like an animal like; following our natural instincts and doing thing that are natural to the human body. We talked about the relationship between humans and other animals and the differences.

At first, I was a bit skeptical about the health unit; I did not understand what it had to do with me living a good and meaningful life. But as we discussed how understanding our physical, mental and moral health played a part in making my life more meaningful I began to want to know more. Learning how to describe your emotions in words will help you understand more about yourself, why you feel the way you do, and how to make yourself better.

We participated in different physical exercises for example we laid out a mat on the floor and all of us would lie down, then one person would lie on top of everyone else and we would work together to roll our bodies simultaneously to roll the one person across the room. Rolling people on the mat was a lot of fun and a great way to exercise your mind, strategically. We also went to the park and played tag as a class, this was an exercise to see how the physical can also affect the mental state. We found that running around in the park, like free animals, we were having fun; we felt carefree and did not have to worry about school and work. We were living in the moment. Running and chasing each other, enjoying the nice weather and feeling energized. The exercise made us feel relieved of everything in the world. The physical affects the mental. I have to say, as childish as some may think this sounds, this unit was some of the most fun I have had in any of my classes all year long.

Being healthy also has to do with what you eat. America's food culture is a complete mess.The major industries that run our country have taken over and converted most natural agricultural farming into a process where products are becoming "mass produced" items and must be grown faster, fatter, bigger, and cheaper, which we now call, industrial farming. Natural, agricultural farming much like, "home grown" produce, is dying out. "If you can grow a chicken in 49 days, why would you one you can grow in 3 months?" Everything about our food culture is so automatic and all about speed and money. The faster the better.

Jared Diamond discusses in The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race he goes on to explain that the adoption of agriculture was in many was a "catastrophe from which we have never recovered." Agriculture has destroyed the land and with it came social and sexual inequality, epidemic disease, that "curse our existence." Before agriculture was adapted by humans our race consisted of hunters and gatherers. We fed on wild plants and hunted for other wildlife. But most of us would not go back to those ways of living lives because we have have become so attached to this new and better way of living. Where "we enjoy the most abundant and varied foods, the best tools and material goods, some of the longest and healthiest lives, in history." And we get "our energy from oil and machines, not from our sweat." Life seems too good to change, why would we want to work more for the food we can get so easily from industrial farms? or at least that is what a majority of people think. Agriculture is an efficient way to get more food for less work, that is why hunters and gatherers adopted this method of living. Not that that is a good thing.

In our last unit we discussed the Collapse of our society, I believe our society will and is (semi) experiencing collapse but slowly. We will gradually over time realize that our way of life is coming to an end. But we won't do anything about it until the last minute because we do not think the collapse is too important today. It doesn't scream to us: IMPORTANT PAY ATTENTION, THIS COULD BE YOUR LAST CHANCE! So we ignore it. Like Global warming, everyone says they are "going green" but what are they actually doing to prevent Global Warming?

Our society is so dependent on oil that we extract and use an enormous amount of it to make most things in the US, for example plastics and used as heat to melt metals. The US does not think about the consequences of abusing the existence of oil. All we care about is that it is there for the time being and we will use as much as we want.

We touched upon the Oil Peak Theory: Our society is based upon a constant growth and oil, the constant growth of oil. We have already found the most oil in many years, so the amount of oil being produced has already peaked and is now declining. Meaning there is less oil being produced and the cost of oil is rising. This can become dangerous because oil production will be volatile during the decline and there may not be a constant source of energy needed to keep a society going.

Entire financial system based on a growing economy, constant growth, our entire society based on oil and fossil fuels, everything is made from oil or oil and fossil fuels must be used to make a product. Ever increasing use of ever decreasing resources will lead to our collapse. (along with many other reasons, which we did not touch upon)

Now that I have been giving all of this information on how food, health, and the effects the economy has on me, I am more aware than when I started in this course. I know have a stronger idea of how to live a meaningful life. You have to learn how to take control of what you do. Make your own decisions based on the information at hand to choose what you feel is right. Make yourself happy, you should also experience other feelings and understand your feelings. Understanding yourself, the world around you, the world you live in, helps to make a meaningful life because once you know the situation you are in, you can then make the decisions that make you happy it is completely up to you, and you must also learn to understand other people.