Journal Entry on the Themes in The Chase/ Motto for Life


As a warm up today, write a journal reflection on the following theme: 

In "The Chase", Annie Dillard's motto for life is something like "you have to fling yourself at what you're doing, you have to point yourself, forget yourself, aim, dive" (74).  In other words, throw yourself into your tasks, your work, your life.  Be engaged and embrace your fears. 

What is your personal motto for life, as your life stands right now? In other words, what would you consider to be your personal philosophy? 

Sample Journal Response. (Caveat: these are simply Mr. Ogden's thoughts and are not authoritative in any real way.  I encourage students to make their own philosophy.) 
If I had to come up with a motto for life, I would say something like "The purpose of life is to study it, and by studying it change it for the better."  Our first task is to be a fair, unbiased observer of what is happening around us.  We must practice mindfulness. 

I probably got this motto from watching episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, growing up.   As the Enterprise warps past light speed, going deep into space, the crew comes across "new life and new civilization."  But the crew must follow the "prime directive", they must observe and explore the wondrous life and phenomenon they encounter, but they must not unduly change it or give it new technology.  What if they don't truly understand the culture they encounter? What if they end up giving the civilization a new fuel source or computer and this ends up harming the alien race.  

In other words, listen twice and much as you speak, or as Stephen Covey says in The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, "seek first to understand", and then be understood.  

Being a careful observer also means that we must be aware of our affect on others. Like it or not, we carry an emotional presence with us wherever we go, and we can change the emotions, mood, and well-being of others.   

We even see this in science, to a certain extent.  Whatever is observed changes, even in quantum physics. If you use instruments to examine subatomic particles, the mere fact that you used an instrument on these particles changes the state of what is being observed.  The observer, much like the observer effect in physics, looks at life both with his own eyes, or with finely crafted tools he creates. He knows the world around him, the context, the atmosphere is changed by his presence. 

In this way there really is no division in knowledge.  There is not math, there is no physics, literature, or philosophy.  There is only one thing to study because the whole world is our book.  But If the world is infinite the study of universe never ends either. Does the idea that we will never complete our task of discovery, of investigation, darken the process?  In Labyrinths by Argentinian writer Borges, the author imagines the world as a series of hexagonal rooms, each outfitted with books containing the answers to everything. 

If you study anything in detail, it gives you a glimpse of the infinite.  Just like Blake's "Auguries of Innocence, "  To see the world in a grain of sand/ and heaven in a wild flower/hold infinity in the palm of your hand/and eternity in an hour.  

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