experiencing life through an always-nuanced worldview.

Note: This post will be making a lot of references to The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, so it may be a bit incomprehensible…and will basically be a ramble.

So I just wrote a 7-page paper on why Dostoevsky believes Ivan does not know how to deal with suffering and why Alyosha does…but I didn’t get a chance to try and figure out how this applies to my life. That’s the whole reason I’m taking this class on existentialism, isn’t it? To attempt to figure out why my so-called existentialist philosophy on the world may or may not work for me… So, I’m going to try and flesh out my thoughts here.

While I argue in my paper that Ivan does not know how to deal with suffering, and that his view on the world is problematic, I find myself identifying with the majority of Ivan’s beliefs. Here are some examples:

“the absurd is only too necessary to earth. The world stands on absurdities, and perhaps nothing would have come to pass in it without them. We know what we know! …I made up my mind long ago not to understand. If i try to understand anything, I shall be false to the fact, and I have determined to stick to the fact” (Dostoevsky 220).

“What do I care for a hell for oppressors? What good can hell do, since those children have already been tortured?” (221)

However, a discrepancy between Ivan’s and my views is that he oscillates between claiming God exists and God does not exist; for me, God does not exist. Perhaps I don’t have a clear understanding of Ivan’s belief about God’s existence. But the fact of the matter is, he did not existentialize God the way Alyosha seemed to have been able to.

For Alyosha, the existentialization of God was the ability for him to get in touch with agape love – the Christian love of brothers, an “interestedness” in people. Through such, he is able to escape suffering and despair. I like to believe that I have “existentialized God” in the sense that the meaning others attribute to God, I’ve attributed to other things in my life. Vague, perhaps. But at the same time, how could I have ever existentialized God if I were never really exposed to it in the first place? That’s the issue with my trying to understand the philosophies of philosophical thinkers Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, and the like: that they come from a background of Christian religion (or even Western religion, at that), and that it was after they were exposed and taught it, that they attempted to reconcile such with their own existential beliefs. What am I reconciling?

I’ve had friends who wanted me to go to church and try and be exposed to Christian teachings. It’s one thing to be exposed to it — which I have, mildly, through most of my classes involving philosophy and/or English — but it’s another to attempt to learn it for your own life and own philosophy. I honestly just don’t see the need to do that, because why would I need to learn about Christian teachings only to have to reconcile those teachings and “beliefs” that I may obtain with my current views?

Anyhow, that wasn’t the point – the point is that I need to figure out what it is I’m missing – the steps between Ivan and Alyosha… Because in the novel, Ivan goes into despair and becomes crazy. I argue that it’s his logical nature and his need to rationalize everything with reason that becomes his downfall. For me, I reason things – to an extent. But then it’s like Ivan’s own quote about the absurdities. There are things on earth (and even beyond, if you’d like to believe) that we can never understand – that I can never understand. I’m trying to, which is why I even take these classes to begin with, but I know that there are always going to be aspects of our existence that are just incomprehensible and inexplicable. But I’m okay with that.

…And I think that’s what may be “bad.” Ivan was okay with it – or so he thought. His doubts and so-called “convictions” come back to haunt him and, in my reading, attribute to his downfall/craziness. I can see my similarity to Ivan: we are both so convicted in our convictions. What if that’s all we have? I always like to think that it’s enough, that it is all we have and that’s the beauty of it…Because what I believe, I so strongly believe it’s true for me, that there can be nothing else of a fundamental truth in my mind. Is it bad, to have this strong of a conviction, through reasoning?

Alyosha, on the other hand, gets in tune with this interconnectedness and “agape” love that Dostoevsky supposed believes we need to do. How do I do this, via a non-Christian context? Alyosha does it by existentializing the religious sacraments and being incarnation of God (or, rather, Dostoevsky existentalizes them..), but what would be the need for me to existentialize these sacraments if I never had them in my life to begin with?

So, somehow, I need to figure out how to get “in touch” with this interconnectedness amongst people. I don’t think it’s really socially or anything in that sense. A disconnect I can pinpoint would begin with basically the content of this post. In my lifetime, I’ve come across very few people who share similar sentiments or are even willing to discuss these types of issues with me. I think it’s difficult for me to feel “interconnected” with others in this sense when I don’t feel like I can connect with others philosophically(?). But I don’t think it’s so much that they need to have the same philosophy as I do, for what would be interesting to discuss then?, but as that few people think about these issues and question their beliefs. Again, this is probably an issue I’ve struggled with for who knows how long now, but I think the fact that I still feel this disconnect is something that should be figured out… But how??? Practically, it’s not really possible. Who has time to think about fundamental beliefs such as these. Some people don’t want to, because then it shakes the very foundations of their existence…etc.etc.

…so what is it?? I’m confusedddddddd. Obviously I’m not going to evaluate my life and philosophy exactly as how Dostoevsky pictured it, for how do we even know 100% that that was really even his philosophy? But it’s an everyday struggle (yes, I am being overly dramatic) in figuring out how we (myself include, and perhaps the human race too…and no, I am not trying to be patronizing nor all-knowing) get out of despair and find meaning in our lives, or else everything is rendered ‘pointless’ and what would be the point of that?

Note: My reading of Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov is via my professor’s (Professor Hubert Dreyfus) interpretation of the novel. The class it’s for is “Existentialism in Literature and Film.”

Also, I have written a follow-up entry to this: “Creating and discovering new suns..” as of May 8, 2010.

I’m excited to be participating in Blog Action Day 2009!

Climate change and global warming are terms we are all familiar with and have heard a million times by now. While most of us know that climate change will affect all of us, what we don’t always talk about is how climate change will hit hardest those who are poorest.

The Millenium Development Goal #7 is addressing environmental sustainability, and makes a connection between global warming and poverty reduction:

Reducing poverty and achieving sustained development must be done in conjunction with a healthy planet. The Millennium Goals recognize that environmental sustainability is part of global economic and social well-being. Unfortunately exploitation of natural resources such as forests, land, water, and fisheries-often by the powerful few-have caused alarming changes in our natural world in recent decades, often harming the most vulnerable people in the world who depend on natural resources for their livelihood. [Source: End Poverty 2015]

It’s not surprising to me that climate change will affect the most those at the bottom of the pyramid. Not only will price increases (in the case of drought –> less grains / food –> increase in food prices, etc.) impact the most those with lower incomes, climate events such as droughts, heat waves, and storms will hit — literally — those who are the poorest. Those that live in areas that lack the infrastructure that could withstand severe weather conditions will undoubtedly face the impacts of storms and hurricanes. Farmers whose crops fail due to drought will have to find another way to sustain themselves and their families. The list goes on.

But instead of highlighting all the problems that climate change causes, it’s even more important to think about solutions — more specifically, the role social entrepreneurship could play in addressing global warming.  In reading C.K. Prahalad’s The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, I came across a case study about a company that does just that.

Prahalad sheds light on the work of a rural energy finance company E+C0. E+Co found the connection between energy and poverty: one reason people cannot escape poverty is due to the lack of access to modern energy (mostly electricity) that allows them to be more productive. E+Co conducted a study and realized that the demand for electricity at the bottom of the pyramid exists, and that there is “potential for widescale adoption of renewable energy technologies” because the majority of costs for renewable energy is up front, while “fuel” costs (wind, solar, etc.) are essentially free (Prahalad 140).

E+Co’s mission was:

the provision of clean, modern energy to the world’s poor via locally developed, market-based solutions

E+Co emphasizes “energy through enterprise”; they seek entrepreneurs in developing markets to develop products and services that will meet the energy needs in the local communities. E+Co invests in these entrepreneurs or companies, one of them being Tecnosol, a company that “sells and installs distributed solar PV, wind, and hydroelectric power systems to mostly rural unelectrified populations throughout [Nicaragua]” (Prahalad 144) and has installed over 3,500 PV systems, 20 wind systems, and also some hydroelectric systems (145).

Here, we see a pretty interesting partnership being forged between a company (E+Co) that is the investor and local entrepreneurs and companies that serve its communities and target a need (energy – clean energy).

Another example of a successful partnership working towards sustainability is one I’ve highlighted in my research paper on social entrepreneurship I wrote over the summer.

A successful three-way alliance between entrepreneurial BOP business WasteConcern, large fertilizer company Map Agro, and the Bangladeshi government solved a waste buildup problem in Dhaka, Bangladesh. In short, WasteConcern identified the market opportunity to convert the majority of the waste generated – food – into compost for rural agriculture businesses to use as organic fertilizer to produce more food, generating a mutually beneficial and sustainable cycle. In order to implement the project, Waste Concern approached Map Agro, the largest fertilizer company in Bangladesh that had the resources and capital to transform and produce the organic compost.

In both of these examples, we see a partnership being forged through a market-based approach that BOP businesses to address a particular need within the communities.

I am personally really excited by success stories such as these, and I think it’s really important to remember that while global warming statistics and the situation in general is dire and sometimes seems hopeless, that is just more reason we cannot give up. Taking a social entrepreneurial approach to climate change is one that I am particularly interested in, although it is most definitely not the only solution!

Personally, I often feel like I don’t do enough in attempting to address climate change. I have made adjustments in my lifestyle to be more sustainable, and am (and have been) involved in student organizations that work towards sustainability. But I never feel like it’s enough. And while it is true that “something is better than nothing,” that’s not good enough for me. We should all be looking to be more sustainable in our lives and be more aware of the impact we have on our planet. Wherever we are now in individual progress now, it’s awesome, but that should not be the stopping point. I am going to make more of an effort to be more environmentally-friendly in my lifestyle, and strive even more towards sustainability in whatever I do.

Today, I’m starting off by this Blog Action ’09 post on climate change. Tomorrow, it will be something else–OK, I’ll be on my way to LA for the weekend..but carpooling with two other friends!

What are you going to do to make your lifestyle more sustainable? How are you going to address global warming today? Comment and let’s share ideas!