My Philosophy of Life - Assignment Example

My Philosophy of Life Everyday life unfolds fresh layers of experiences, which influence and often transforms our lives and our philosophical approaches towards it. I am a student and youth of a first world nation like America. There are many things common in my life with those of others belonging from my age approximately. However, individual lives weave their own narratives that capture different frames from distinct angles that are incomparable with others largely. My philosophy of life also went through a great deal of changes as I advanced in the path of my life. Such a transformation of outlook happened to me last summer when I went to Iran with my friends, it changed my worldview especially helped me understand the importance of free will. 1. Last summer I went to Iran with some of my close friends. The first city I visited was Tehran. It is a beautiful city. Tehran is located in the north-central division of Iran; it is situated on the slant of beautiful Alborz Mountain. It is a city with a striking combination of mountains, rivers, forests, and plains in it. The city has a great marketplace and is a foremost core for the sale and export beautiful carpets. It is a very big and most important city of Iran. However, I stayed in Iran for almost one and a half month, so umpteen chances I got, to explore the country. At first, I reached Imam Khomeini Airport, in Tehran. It is a big metropolitan city, though in many ways different from that of the American or European countries. We stayed initially in a hotel at Hafez Hotel in Ferdosi Street. On the next day, we went to a couple of local NGOs of my friends’ in Tehran and the charity houses, in the local places of Tehran. It was an extremely touchy and new experience for me to see the orphan and physically challenged children there. Especially, in post war period they have been suffering like anything. Their plight seemed affecting my own heart deeply. Like many other people, I also have many complaints about my life and the things I do not get easily. Iran is a large country. It experiences the most serious fits of poverty, though strikingly lavishness and poverty walk hand in hand, as per as my personal experience. The city streets are full of beggars with unimaginable ragged dress and a clinging attitude to get some alms from the people, especially the foreigners. I used to give some money, but one should make sure that big charities should be contributed to big projects. Lack of education is also a problem that Iran goes through; sadly it results into child mortality, as the mothers are in a large extent unaware. Many children move out in streets and work as child labors or they just beg. The need of poor but big families forces them to do so. I stayed in the government guesthouse in Zahedan, when I visited this poor city. It was our travel guide Omid’s idea to visit Zahedan. The financial stand of the city is the manufacture of bricks, processed foods, milled rice, mats and baskets, livestock feed, embroidered articles and ceramics etc. However, the main experience is not about the financial features of Zahedan, or the other major magnetism of Zahedan that are the ruined citadel in the centre of the city, and the Friday Mosque with all its different beauty , but a person I came across there. To our utter surprise, we met a Spanish man there. His name is Jose. This man came to India three times earlier. He almost spends half of each year in Iran amidst the destitute children and village folks and works a lot for them. He set up a school and is currently working on a project to build a well-equipped medical center there. Initially I thought he had some monetary profits from these projects, but gradually as I talked to him and came across the details of the projects, I came to know that it was absolutely a non- profit scheme. Frankly speaking, I started to admire him and respect after knowing about it. The way he mixed up with the people and interacted with them, it is no wonder that he became one of the local people of Zahedan. The people are just deeply attached with him that reminded me of Che Guevara and his interactions with the people of South America, though there was a huge political connotation in it, but here I only want to refer about the popularity of him among the local folks. I have never come across an experience like this before. I personally deeply believe in Descartes’ famous philosophical outlook that tells, “I Think, Therefore I am.” (Russell, n.d.) However, I have never tried to apply it practically in my life before; I think my understanding of the philosophy had been incomplete earlier. Now I guess what Descartes mean is more than that of the knowledge of scholarly paradigms or mere self-discovery, it rather is a much more humanitarian appeal that comprises the thinking about the dogma of humanity as a global religion. The philosophy that schools do not teach- Iran, and my experience here taught me. I stayed there for a week. I discovered that the people may be poor according to the scale of financial matters, but they are quite rich in the prosperity of their hearts. Religion has been a concern for me and for its association with the philosophy it offers us. However, it has changed a lot now. Lately I realized that the core of the religion does not lie within the religious institutions that different religions such as Islam, Zoroastrianism, or Christianity offer us. The true religion and real philosophy lie interweaved with each other among the people of soil. I have studied various paradigms of philosophy such as Kant, Plato, Hegel, Locke, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Descartes, but the realization of the philosophy that is embedded within the trivial layers of life, I could discover in this country, amidst the unknown but very down to earth people. Philosophy in books and classes offers not only the cognition of true wisdom and truth, but also the realization of self in this process of studying. The philosophy that life teaches can be acquired from the various practical experiences of life, which are invaluable. The completeness of the theories of philosophy occurs, when one is capable to merge up these two paradigms of knowledge together. I would like to refer to the name of Jose’s organization that helped in my thorough metamorphosis of life’s philosophical approach; it is called “Mundos Unidos” that means, “worlds united.” Reference Russell, M. T. (n.d.). “I Think, Therefore I am”, Available at: http://www.innerself.com/Reflections/i_think.htm (accessed on July 11, 2010) Read More