The Eternal Rest

Since I was little, I have always wondered, why many people say that dead people are in a better place? I remember when my grandpa died, I was so sad and had 11 years old, and I remember my aunt trying to calm me, telling me: “Don’t cry, grandpa is in a better place now, he doesn’t want to see you crying”, but is there a better place where we go when we die?

Death is a mystery that no one can explain, although many people have died, they can’t return to tell us how it is to be dead. Even though every single person is different, since we are born, we all will die, all of us need to die, I see it as a cycle, and we need to die so another person could live, even though nowadays when a person dies, like 5 babies are born. That’s why we shouldn’t be afraid of death, but should we be afraid of losing someone? For many people it is very hard to lose a close person, even for me it is terrible, but why being afraid, if I’m not afraid of dying, the problem is that we don’t want to suffer, but why do we suffer? Is still the question, if we are only earning a little time, because as I said we’ll all die.

Finally, it does not mean than dying is going to a better place or something like that, dying is passing to another step, a completely different step, in which we have been before being born, so are you afraid? No, not any more.

“It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other”.

Francis Bacon

DEATH

Interesting topic, very feared and yet unavoidable. Are we all going to die? YES, at some point. We don't know when, how, why but for sure we are all going to. I have never been afraid from death, I accept death as something that is going to happen, and as for I know, it's the end of this state; Life. I won't try to convince anyone to think as me, or to feel as me, but what I want to make clear is that death isn't soo bad, maybe people value a lot their lives and they don't want it to be over, but heyyyyy isn't that a bit selfish? I mean, people is still borning and as Savater said: we beated death once by being born. I suppose we need to give a chance to all those new human beings(mortals) to live their own lives and somekind replace us in the world. I think we must live day by day without imaginating how our death would be, I mean, is like imaginating what you will feel in a certain circumstance, you can have an idea of what it's going to be, but you can't be 100% sure. As for me, let the things happen as they mean to be, yet do not underestimate the capacity of movement. While we are still alive, enjoy being alive, when we're death well we'll figure something out. I am very satisfied with this chapter of the book, I learnt that death complements our individuality and makes us somekind of empathic, as we are all going to die, no matter skin color, race, social position, etc. What would be of the world without it? A disaster? well, we don't know that, so why don't we just take advtange of life, of this state which can be managed in many ways, live your life, do all what you can, and for one moment, stop worrying about what you can't controll; death, and change what you can; your attitude in life, your relationships, and not because of the fear that you're going to die soon, but for improving your LIFE QUALITY.

Death

Death is not always a pleasant subject to think or talk about; even if I already know, as many people that we all are going to die someday, in a way or another, at any age; it is sad but true, especially when it happen to people around you. Also, as philosophers once said “we cannot fear something not yet experienced” like death, I agree, but personally I still have a little fear about dying, not because I denied it, but because I like very much to be alive. I prefer not to think much about my own death, I know someday it will happen, so I just hope it will be in many years, and be somehow careful.

Something I know, because of an experience, that when people are suffering a lot with a mortal illness in the final stages, they began to accept more their death than before, like they prefer to die than to suffer more, and they are completely conscious and ready for it. Maybe this sounded weird, but I guess that in our final stage of life, it is the point when we really are ready for it, for our death; except if it is an accident, and you die unconscious, you didn’t have time to think about it.

Death

I personally think that this topic is a great topic to talk about in philosophy. There are so many different beliefs about what happens after death. Every religion has their own belief, also all sciences believe in something else. The real truth is that nobody knows what happens because is true what the book says “you cannot experience death while you are alive”.
I have asked myself this same questions so many times. And my individual conclusion is that when one dies, body and soul stay together and you just stop existing. I agree with the fact that we didn’t know anything or feel anything before we were born, so I think that Is exactly what happens when we die. One just stops existing and stop feeling and thinking you are just disconnected of everything. I don’t believe you are going to heaven or that you’re resting because you’re not even tired and why would you be resting for such a long time. People when is death has no more energy. Resting is for recovering yourself and fill yourself up with energy again, but what for. Your body stops working so you are gone.
I don’t think that people is more alive than other people. I think you might be alive or not. Some people are more useful and use more their lives than others but that for ME doesn’t mean that you’re more alive.
In conclusion, some of my personal beliefs accord to the book but some other some other does not. I think that everybody can have its own personal beliefs and it is very important that each one of us give our own points of view.

Why Philosophy?

Why philosophy? A common question, don’t you think so? I have not been very interested in discovering philosophy, and neither my other classmates, I suppose, but what is it? Why a lot of people say: “Oh no philosophy class, that’s boring”, or “Philosophy! That’s for crazy people”, but Do we know what philosophy is about? I don’t think so.

Since I read the introduction of the book, I’ve learned that philosophy is one of the important bases in life, but be careful the objective is to learn to philosophize, since the philosophy is based in the knowledge, but more important, it is based in each person’s life experiences, also called wisdom. But what does this mean? It means that philosophy is personal, it can be shared, but in order to understand it, you need to go the same way the person followed. That means that there are many ways of interpreting, and understanding life.

In the future, I hope the people get to understand philosophy, and begin to show its importance, because I think that philosophy could be one source, for solving the world’s problems, since the people should work out their brains, for being able to understand the world’s needs.

“An unexamined life is not worth living”.

Socrates

Why philosophy?

At first, philosophy seemed to me to have no use at all, I thought it was some kind of hobby, whim, I didn't know how could it help me in my life or in anything I wanted to do so I began to read the introduction to philosophy from Fernando Savater's book. Now my visioning is growing and I am able to see more, for example, how many times we are satisfied with the solutions people give us? Or how many times you don't question what is told to each one of us. When I was younger i used to question things, words, and also why they existed, etc, and my teachers and family sometimes got mad with me so I stopped asking them those kind of questions, now I can suppose why their reaction had occurred; maybe they didn't know either. Well now I can start questioning truths and ideas people use everyday, as I'm becoming aware of what I use, see, think, feel or imagine. I agree with the author where he says that scientists can use information from other scientists while philosophers philosophize by their own, remarking that a philosopher can't transmit the knowledge, because is not like an argument or data or something like that but a point of view, a way of seeing life.

Why philosophy?

Why philosophy?
It is a great question that maybe most of the students will ask. Most of the students will ask themselves why should they study philosophy if it will not help them in their lives. That is totally incorrect, philosophy is totally useful because it helps you think and understand how things happen. Philosophers ask themselves questions for their knowledge and work on it until they can find a logic answer to it.
First of all, philosophy will help you understand how things work and why that way. It is very important because people know perfectly what to do avoiding making mistakes. I see philophy as a logic explanation and knowledge that people needed to think in the past to get to the answer but most of the actual people should know. I think that new generations in the world think the world started like that but mostly for everything they use and see in their lives some people had to think to make it.
In the case of the cellphone or computer, people today are used to it because they see them daily in their lives. But, to get to the computer up to date, there had been hundreds of inventions improving it each time to get to what is today a computer or laptop.
Philosophy is the study of what happens and how things happen. Without philosophical thoughts world wouldn't be as it is today because CRITICAL THINKING is one of the most important factors of improvement.
To conclude, I will say that philosophical thoughts and critical thinking are two of the most important things to keep improving and growing technologically in our actual world.

Why Philosophy?

Nowadays, philosophy is not as important as before, but it is good to know to philosophize, because when we think in a philosophical way, we analyze things based on our thinking, reasoning, and life experiences, not based on others experiences and solutions like other sciences. We cannot always agree without thinking, because the reality is that we are different from the other species of animals because we think and reason. I think that we should combine philosophy and science when analyzing something because there are two ways to question and analyze things, with our own critical thinking, and with proved knowledge that is given to us by science.
Philosophy wants us to learn to question things, even if there is no answer possible yet, and for us to be able to make these questions we need to use our critical thinking, and also use our reasoning to analyze all the answers we can get from others. An easy example that I think science and philosophy can combine to analyze a whole from different points of view is an iPod where we mostly listen to music; science will try to know how it is made, how it works, etc while philosophy will focus on the reality of life and people, and will make questions like “why people use iPods” “why they like to listen to music”, etc. This was just a very easy example, but there will be always much complex ones that can combine philosophy with all sciences.

"Life is short, but long enough to enjoy it"