It is 4:18 PM on July 9, 2008. I am currently in my room typing this entry. I should be just getting out of my Philosophy class. I decided that today i didn’t need to attend Philosophy class. I decided last night that i didn’t need to attend my Marketing class either.
At 2:00PM today in the shower i realized that a paper on Plotinus’ “The Ennead” was due by e-mail before class began at 1:50. I scrubbed extra fast and began reading the pseudo-philosophical “Ennead”. The two sections we were assigned to read made zero sense, and I was beginning the paper after its due date in hopes that my cool, young teacher would be hip to my cause and let it slide. A few weeks back I had missed a paper deadline, and instead wrote on a topic the week later. The teacher gave me the grade for the second paper as if I had done nothing illegal, so I am hoping i will luck out again. ANYWAY….I digress.
So basically i write this awful paper on how the points in “The Ennead” are weak. I claim that the points make zero sense and that they are nothing but gross speculation designed to comfort the author and those associated with his school of thought in order to live a more anxiety-free life. I firmly believe this, but writing two pages on this topic was quite troublesome. I wrote one and a half pages and called it quits. I even went as far to equate the pedantic language and peculiar nomenclature used by Plotinus to that in Orwell’s 1984.
So this is how i handle one of my summer classes. The other I am taking is Consumer Behavior, an upper level marketing class designed to provide terms for concepts which do not need naming due to their presence in the realm of common sense. This class is instructed by another graduate student in his late 20′s with a lackadaisical worldview. Or so this is my perception.
This class has 3 tests, the first of which i made a 78 without studying a lick. My current scholastic goals include: keeping the hope scholarship, which is done by keeping my grade point average above a 3.0. Currently I have a 3.4 so this is the reason explaining my lack of active status pertaining to seriousness in school.
It is 4:29 PM and all I have to do now is study for my second marketing test. I have reasoned that I would like to make an A on this exam to make my need for future scholastic application in the field of consumer behavior very limited. I will make flashcards and review the powerpoint presentations tonight, and study all day tomorrow (test isnt until 7:40). This should allow for adequate preparation.
I will post my paper up here for all to see the quality of work i turned in earlier today. This paper is worth 15% of my Philosophy grade:
Ryan Diedrich
SEP 3
I personally find the arguments in the selections from Plotinus’ “The Enneads” rather weak, however I understand their function. Statements like, “This, then, is how the material thing becomes beautiful- by communicating in the thought that flows from the Divine,” regarding beauty are completely ungrounded and seem like an opinion in which Plotinus finds solace from the uncertainty of being. From what I could comprehend of the section regarding beauty, Plotinus believes in the great role the soul plays in realizing and being in awe of something truly beautiful. Beliefs like these surely solidify Plotinus’s labeling as a Neo-Platonist.
“But what is it that awakens all this passion? No shape, no colour, no grandeur of mass: all is for a Soul, something whose beauty rests upon no colour, for the moral wisdom the Soul enshrines and all the other hueless splendour of the virtues. It is that you find in yourself, or admire in another, loftiness of spirit; righteousness of life; disciplined purity; courage of the majestic face; gravity; modesty that goes fearless and tranquil and passionless; and, shining down upon all, the light of god-like Intellection.”
The above passage shows the value placed upon the soul by Plotinus. His passion about what he believes in is surely inspiring, however I cannot find any proof to believe such things through his writing. Why would anyone spend time theorizing about things that cannot be known? I feel that the beliefs held by Plotinus exist simply to serve as a sort of game plan for how he would live his life. I feel that this links Plotinus with someone like Epictetus in that their beliefs serve as a sort of shield from emotional pain. Plotinus’ belief of the soul’s power of knowing what is beautiful is very similar to Socrates’ incessant desire to associate only with “the good”. Both cases involve incredible subjectivity in determining both “the good” and “the beautiful”. Neither individual had proof that their modes of living were the “correct” way to live, however they came to conclusions and followed through with their beliefs.
“As a manifold, then, this God, the Intellectual-Principle, exists within the Soul here, the Soul which once for all stands linked a member of the divine, unless by a deliberate apostasy.” So Plotinus believes that the soul is linked to the divine. I find his wording rather pedantic and oddly similar to the terminology used in George Orwell’s 1984. All of the ideas presented in the text are matters of speculation and personal opinion; therefore I find their argumentative value to be weak.
I do believe that the current lack of necessary duty in my life is serving as the catalyst for my increasingly apathetic viewpoint toward life. As you can see, little is required of me in the field of study. Methinks it’s time for some added purpose, perhaps in the form of currency acquisition, since my reserve is becoming depleted.
ALSO. i do enjoy this blog with no purpose. I do not like writing because i have to. I will now write only when my creative juices are flowing.
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