HW # 30 Psychological and Philosophical Theorizing of Cool

When Sisyphus, a clever king, fooled the gods one too many times when he captured Hades so no one could die, his own deadth ended in an eternal punishment of having to push a voulder up a hill that would just fall down again just asit reached the top. In this absurd situation, Sisyphus found satisfaction in the struggle to keep trying with the boulder, and this was what was interesting about him to the existential writer Camus. Sisyphus had to look within himself to find some meaning in his life since there was no outside power that was going to help him. I can understand why an existentialist would like to use the Greek myth of Sisyphus as a way of explaing human happiness in an absurd world. An absurd world must be a world without a higher power (a god) who puts people on earth for a reason and gives meaning to their lives. If there is no god and no afterlife to go to no matter what we do in this world, and we are all just going to die, then life can seem absurd. Camus is making the point about Sisyphus that it is the struggle to achieve our own goals that gives us satisfaction and makes our lives worthwhile.

I think that being a teenager can be considered an existential time because a teenager is not a child with godlike parents telling him or her what to do, and a teenager has no idea what being an adult will be like. It is a time to try to find your identity by creating your own existence in the eyes of your peers. Being cool is an identity. We are all judged by our peers, and if they think you are cool then your life has meaning. Whatever you are doing, you are doing it right because the feedback is great. The problem is there are so many ways to be cool, some good and some bad. The ideal way to be cool I think is by developing your talents into skills that can help you achieve goals and help you feel you are contributing to humanity in some way or that you will be able to before you die. This is not possible if you act like a "poser," someone who has the need for attention and acceptance without having developed a sense of self.
I think this a poser does what the existentialist philosopher Sartre called inauthentic acts. Posers are not developing theirr own abilities and identity so they can make some positive contribution to humanity. If death is the end of existence, then making the most of this life means feeling part of something bigger while you are alive, and that bigger thing is humanity. I am not arguing that you should never try to act cool like a James Dean, sometimes it is nice to feel wanted or be found interesting by your peers. Everyone should have some unpredictable qualities that distinguish him or her, but these qualities should have to do with positive achievements of some kind that give satisfaction. This kind of satisfaction gives meaning to life, and that is what humans are all looking for.

I think that Bhuddists are in a sense existentialists because they are trying to live a better life in this world. Even if they believe in some sort of way of the spirit continuing after death, they do not believe that an individual is going to wake up again in an afterlife. So the important thing is to live a good life doing "authentic acts" as the existentialists would say to contribute in a positive way to humanity. Bhuddists believe in The avoidance of unwholesome actions and the cultivation of positive actions is called Śīla (ethical conduct in Sanskrit),
meaning "the avoidance of unwholesome actions and the cultivation of positive actions." Cultivating positive actions would give life satisfaction, and that brings me back to Sisyphus, who was cool because he kept on trying. No one is going to be cool all the time (think of poor Tiger Woods). But if we keep trying to develop our own talents and live in a way that makes us good human beings (helping humanity), we will get some satisfaction that gives our life meaning.