Tag: life

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Classes I’d like to teach because of topics about which I’m curious (sports, video games, and growing up)

It’s a new year, so I’m thinking about new things. Next school year, I’ll be teaching the same slate of core class: “Philosophy of Human Flourishing”; “Religion in Global Context”; “Introduction to the Bible”. While I enjoy teaching all three of these, I’d like to someday, possibly teach courses on the following topics, because I’m curious about them:

1. “History and Philosophy of Games”

    This may be a 1.a and a 1.b option, maybe even a 1.c depending on what would draw the most interest from students (presuming that there would be any). 1.a would be “History and Philosophy of Games” but if that’s too broad, 1.b would be “History and Philosophy of Sports”. If 1.a was doable, I’d open with Unit 1, “What Is a Game?” I’d consult the thinking of Ludwig Wittgenstein but also Bernard Suits (The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia), Jane McGonigal (Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World), and the philosopher who I’m currently reading: C. Thi Nguyen (Games: Agency as Art). Unit 2 would likely focus on, for lack of a better word, physical games ranging from baseball to Uno, or “sport” if the former idea is too broad. Unit 3 would likely focus on video games. Each unit would begin with a history of those types of games. I’m not sure what other lessons I’d add yet, though I imagine.

    If this is too much to stuff into one class, then my 1.b option would just be, as mention, “History and Philosophy of Sports” and my 1.c option would be “History and Philosophy of Video Games”. Both of these topics would be much easier to plan for separately. Paradoxically, I don’t play video games all that much, but they were a massive part of my childhood, so I find them interesting still. I watch a ton of sports, but don’t play much. I think the history and philosophy of sports would be easier to create, as I’m more familiar, but I imagine, if somehow I could incorporate some video game play time into the class, the history and philosophy of video games would be a lot more fun to create/teach.

    2. “Philosophy for Becoming an Adult” or “Philosophy for Adulthood”

    I imagine this being an elective for seniors. Unit 1 would focus on meaning-generation. I could see myself teaching lessons on what major philosophical and religious traditions have presented as the meaning of human life. (For the religious traditions, I could use Stephen Prothero’s four key components of religions (problem, solution, technique, and exemplars) which might map onto schools like Stoicism, Epicureanism, Confucianism, etc.

    Then, Unit 2 would focus on relationships. Maybe something related to Confucius’ ranking of relationships and teachings about filial piety combined with something on friendship (maybe consulting Robin Dunbar’s Friends: Understanding the Power of our Most Important Relationships) and maybe something—if I’m brave—on romantic relationships, though I’d be super cautious about this, and may want to choose some novel angle. Unit 3 would focus on work and career, maybe built around Matthew Hammerton’s “What Is Wrong with Workism?” Hammerton mentions Aristotelean “perfectionism,” which would be worth a lesson in itself. I think a discussion of AI’s relationship to work and whether we want a “post-work future” would be a great fit here.

      An introduction to ethic could be a lot of fun too.

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      A high-risk, high-reward society

      A while back I was listening to The Herd featuring “American sports media personality” Colin Cowherd. Usually, he sticks to sports, providing his hot takes. But there was one day when he said something about American culture that struck me. I can’t remember the precise wording, or the context, but he praised the United States for being a place where if one “makes it” (in a capitalist sense), then one really makes it. We’re a high-risk, high-reward society. That means for the many who don’t make it, it’s natural to feel like a loser because our society exists as a competition that we welcome. America is held together in the same way that many professional sports organizations are: not so that all will succeed but so that the game itself can exist. Many poorer Americans perceive themselves as losers but rightfully so, admiring those who “succeed” (think of the adoration of Trump and Musk that we’ve seen from some circles), and sometimes hoping that they’ll get another shot to redeem themselves like we see in so many “rags-to-riches” Hollywood flicks. As many have said about Americans: we tend to think of ourselves as one big break from being millionaires when in reality most of us are one bad break from bankruptcy, especially if your health fails you. Most of us are far closer to being the person begging on the street corner than we are to being the next Jeff Bezos but our myths sustain us, so we ignore reality.

      I think when many Americans despair the word “socialism” it’s because they agree with Cowherd: America’s greatness is—in the words of the Alicia Keys and Jay-Z song “Empire State of Mind”—the place where “if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere“. Americans see themselves as playing on the biggest stage. Sure, the “World Happiness Report” ranked us 15th overall with nations like Finland, Denmark, and Iceland ranking at the top but I imagine it’s a small portion of Americans who would trade for the secure happiness provided by those countries’ social safety nets and the other perks that come with being a more collectivist society.

      No Pleasure without Pain
      In Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Joyous Science, Book 1, Section 12 (Hill translation), the philosopher provides a perspective that aligns with Cowherd’s and that of many Americans who see our country as “the greatest in the world” in spite of where we rank in measures like happiness, health, safety, etc. Nietzsche writes, “…suppose that pleasure and pain are so intertwined that whoever wants as much as possible of one must also have as much as possible of the other (p. 45). In other words, to experience the highest highs, one must risk experiencing the lowest lows. When we think of celebrities in our country, they have fame like no humans before them but often their lives are very complicated: addictions, failed marriages, or in the case of our athletes, the physical toll.

      Nietzsche understood Stoicism, which is having a revival in our time, as a philosophy that encouraged seeking “little pleasure” because this would lead to less pain. Likewise, he understood “socialists and party politicians” as opting for a life where risks are minimized in exchange for offering a lower ceiling of pleasure. He writes, “…should you want to mitigate and assuage human suffering…you must also moderate and diminish the human capacity for joy.”

      Nietzsche v. Epictetus
      This stands contrary to some of the Buddhist, Christian, and Stoic ideas that I’ve come to value, which emphasize human joy being found in minimizing suffering and being content with what one has. For example, this week I read Epictetus’ Encheiridion, and the emphasis from that ancient Roman philosopher (55-135 CE), who has once been a slave, is that true freedom is found in accepting what we might now call your “locus of control”. In Section 29, Epictetus tells his students that if they want to pursue the type of greatness that comes with say being an Olympian, then they should be aware of the cost. He doesn’t say that one shouldn’t pursue such goals; neither does he lionize doing so. Instead, one must be prepared to “exchange it for calm, freedom, and tranquility” (the “it” being the potential glories of achieving lofty goals). There’s something perplexing about human nature, especially as filtered through “the American Dream”: we know the path to peace but it bores us. Meaningfulness matters more than happiness. The philosophy of many Americans seems to be that they’d rather live somewhere where they can dream of greatness than somewhere they can be secure and at peace.

      Are Ashramas the Answer?
      I find that as I’ve aged, I’m attracted to Buddhist and Stoic ideas but I recognize that when I was younger, I would’ve aligned more with Nietzsche’s perspective. (I’ve found Christianity to be easily molded to fit both perspectives, depending on the emphasis place on different parts of that tradition.) There was a stage in my life where I was obsessed with completing a Ph.D. Once that stage was over, I lost my taste for living in a state of constant ambition. I think I was burned out. I wanted to take life much slower, catch my breath. It seemed like one stage of life required certain things to be satisfied while the next stage has required other things.

      In Indian philosophy, there’s the concept of “ashramas” or life-stages. One begins with a preparatory stage where they develop discipline and become educated (“Brahmacharya”); then move to the family and wealth building stage (“Grihastha”); then they transition more toward voluntary service and spirituality (“Vanaprashta”); finally one ends with a preparation for death and hopefully deliverance from the cycle of rebirth (moksha from samsara) during the last stage of life (“Sannyasa”). Maybe this is a middle way? Maybe we need our days seeking glory and our days seeking respite and calm?

      Now Cowherd, Trump, Musk, Keys, and Jay-Z aren’t examples of this path. They seem to be pursuing Grihastha to the day they die. But ashramas might serve as a way to reconcile some of the truths that seem to resonate in the contradictory words of Nietzsche and Epictetus, acknowledging, of course, that this presentation is structured upon a metaphysics that many outside of India don’t embrace. Maybe Nietzsche is right for young people: take those risks; pursue great pleasure. Maybe Epictetus, the Buddha, Jesus, and others are better voices for when one comes to realize that all that glitters is not gold, and that once one achieves, the satisfaction fades quickly. In the later, wiser years—for those who find it—peace, calm, freedom, tranquility, etc., should be the goal. It could be argued that one can’t really value the reward of a peaceful, calm, free, tranquil life without having first tried to find satisfaction in the pursuit of greatness. Personally, I needed to see if I had the ability to earn a doctorate. Others have an itch to start a business, earn a million dollars, travel around the world, etc. Sometimes we achieve what we want and it’s a Pyrrhic victory. We’re left wondering if all the effort was worth it. But the fact of the matter is that for many people, they’d be left with the same cloud hanging over them if they never tried to “reach their full potential”. I don’t know what this says about people in the late stages of life who need more money, more property, more power, more, more, more. My suggestion here doesn’t reflect well on them but hey, maybe Nietzsche’s right and our one short life is best lived with our foot on the pedal and the pedal to the metal until the day we close our eyes for the last time.

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      Midlife

      A few years ago, I read Kieren Setiya‘s book Midlife: A Philosophical Guide. I can’t remember the specific year. It was published in 2017. I’m confident that I read it before I turned 40 in 2022 because I remember having an unfamiliar sense of calm about that birthday—a birthday that I thought would bring a lot of anxiety. I think it’s because I read Setiya’s book. The gift of that book is that it helped me think through what people call a “midlife crisis” without the result being money spent on a motorcycle and a leather jacket. It helped me focused on two important but interrelated realities about midlife: (1) we wonder “is this it?” and (2) we lament the limited pathways that life offers us now in comparison to our youth.

      Now, I can’t remember if it was what Setiya wrote that led me to the following insight, or if was just a thought inspired by what he wrote, but I remember doing a mental exercise that was sort of multiverse related. On the one hand, in an almost Stoic sense, I found calm with my place in life by rejecting the possibility that it could be otherwise. I’m not saying that I adopted some sort of determinism, per se, but that “I” would not be “I” without the events that had led me to become who I was. If you change this experience here, that relationship there, this job here, that loss there, then I become a different person. And since I was generally pleased with who I was and what my life was like, the “is this it?” question could be answered, “This is it!” I had to think of what I liked about my life—for example, being married to my wife—and I had to realize that what I have now is due to the paths I took then. Had I gone to a different school, lived in a different city, worked a different job, etc., there are elements of my life as it currently stands that wouldn’t have happened. So, I took solace in the reality that I find my life to be a net gain based on the paths that I took. At the current juncture, I feel like I’ve done good for myself and I’m happy with where I am.

      But then I thought back to being a teen, a twenty-something, and even an early thirty-something. The choices were exhilarating, yes, but also anxiety inducing! For example, nostalgia leads me to remember my few years in San Francisco as the most exciting of my life. So much was new! And in a city like that, every neighborhood is interesting and has a story. It’s way more exciting that the current suburbanite life that I live now. But it was stressful. There was a ton of pressure. It could be very depressing. It felt like so many choices were being thrown my way at a pace that I couldn’t maintain. My current life has a lot of routine, predictability, safety, and stability. I like it. Do I miss the energy of my youth? Yes. But I don’t miss the anxiety that came with it.

      I don’t know if twenty-something “me” would be thrilled or appalled if I could go back in time to tell him who he would become. Probably, a little of both. But almost 42 year old me looks back and imagines all the paths that I might have taken, and yes, some may have had certain rewards that I lack…but I’m not interested in trading places with a multiverse “me” if he exists!