Philosophy Project

1. Philosophy Project Paul Lee, Alysza Permalino Ian Chiang, Jina Kim Jeffrey Tai

2. What is our philosophy? • Meaning: Yoloism: You only live once, so live life to its fullest taking everything life has to offer. • YOLO : “You Only Live Once” • Origin: Carpe diem • It’s a Latin poem by Horace • translated to “seize the day” • carpe originally means: to pick, pluck off, cull, crop, & gather • but used as: to enjoy, seize, use, and make use of

3. Leader of our Philosophy • Inspired Leader: Zac Efron, Drake, • Zac Efron • Tatted “YOLO” on his hands • When his acting role called for singing and he never had professional singing lessons before, he practiced and practiced for the role • When his acting role called for dancing and he never thought of dancing for a movie role, he practiced for the role

4. Why join our philosophy? • Why? What if you didn’t know you were going to die tomorrow, wouldn’t you lived your life today to the fullest? You never know when you’re going to die, so live everyday like its fullest. • Motto: “Everybody dies but not everybody lives”

5. Leader of our Philosophy • Drake • Preaches Yoloism in his songs • Drake started out as an actor in Degrassi: The Next Generation, playing the part of Jimmy Brooks. He took a risk, following his dreams of becoming a hip-hop artists. He signed with Young Money Entertainment in June 2009, and from there forth, did what he enjoyed best. He is now one of the highest-paid rappers, earning around $11 million a year.

6. Allegory: A Beehive A beehive is seen as a well structured, civilized society, each bee playing a specific role. Worker bees “travel approximately 55,000 miles in the summer to collect one pound of honey”. They are industrialist and they strictly live in order to adhere to the wellbeing of the society. Drone bees are “the most expendable” type of bee since they do not collect pollen or nectar. They are driven out from the hive in times of winter and starvation. The Queen Bee functions as the most important bee of the colony since it’s function is to lay eggs. More importantly, she is the leader of the colony.

7. What does this all mean? As a “colony” of people, most of live as worker bees, contributing to the different needs of the “hive”, which is society. • We grow to believe we must become useful to society by becoming a doctor or a firefighter or a lawyer. All worker bees live to fulfill a specific purpose, as we do in our own lives. • Drone bees are our society’s “useless” people, those considered by society to be a waste of space or lacking in purpose. Those with dead end jobs or without jobs can be considered as a drone bee.

8. The Queen bee is seen as the leaders of our society who control the way society is run, designating our purposes as a “bee”. However, through this allegory, we hope to show how the monotony of life can be seen as a “beehive”. Our philosophy encourages us to break away from our designated roles and live life for your self-fulfillment. We do not condemn the drone bee for it represents a neglected group. When we take control of how we want our lives to be, we become alive.

9. Our Philosophy In Depth • “Everybody dies but not everybody lives.” The motto is constructed by two major foundations of philosophy: Carpe Diem and nonconformity.

10. Man: Men are all equal, supported by John Locke’s views in the following quote: “Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper void of all characters, without any ideas. How comes it to be furnished? To this I answer, in one word, from experience.” With a blank slate, it is our life’s goal to fill in the blank spaces and make our “blank slate” vibrant.

11. God: Our school of philosophy believes in a higher being, and we are all born equal. However, life is based on one’s self-motivation to “stand out” and truly “live”. “ Here is my creed. I believe in one God, Creator of the Universe. That He governs it by His providence,” stated by Benjamin Franklin. Similar to Deism, we believe a higher being exists only to maintain the functionality of society, but does not govern how our lives are controlled.

12. Nature: • Our human nature is predisposed to conform, and our philosophy’s duty is to challenge this nature. We define conformity as the desire and state of agreeing to the roles we’re or encouraged to receive. (Ex. Become a doctor) ““To envy others is ignorance” and “imitation is suicide,” stated by Emerson. Our nature puts us at a disadvantage, but like Emerson, we must escape conformity and “find ourselves.”

13. Free Will: • The philosophy highly encourages the concept of free will as it focuses on the individual. “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”  Emerson, a pivotal, founding philosopher of our ideas, believes that we should regard ourselves as the holders of our faith. We DO NOT believe that our future is determined by a higher being, although we do acknowledge its existence to oversee the basic functions of life and society.

14. Truth: Our philosophy is derived by the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard, who is a key figure in the idea of “subjective truth”. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments: “Subjectivity is truth" and "truth is subjectivity." Objectivity is important, but how we act and how we respond to those “facts” is a far more important element to truth. Thus, subjectivity is truth.

15. Life: Our life begins only when our mentality solidifies a devotion and commitment to breaking the conforming norms, that constrict our ability to “really live”. “But to live doesn’t mean your alive,” states Nicki Minaj in “Moment for Life”. Life may exist physically for all individuals, but true life cannot achieved with the desire to live against the society’s constraints.

16. Morality As cited by our previous characteristics, morality is entirely based on individual responses, but has some reverence to a “higher being’s code of law”, supported by Kierkegaard.” “This distinction means that God does not necessarily create human morality: it is up to us as individuals to create our own morals and values. But any religious person must be prepared for the event of a divine command from God that would take precedence over all moral and rational obligations.”

17. Death: “Everybody dies, but not everybody lives.” What does this mean? Our school of philosophy does not specifically indicate a future that follows our death. Living in the present, we believe that death is inescapable, but true life is not granted to everybody. The life we live now is the most important aspect of our philosophy.

18. Beliefs and causes that we support • 1. “Strike while the iron is hot” • Meaning: Act decisively and take your opportunities when they arise. • This proverb alludes to an imagery of the blacksmith at his forge. If he delays in shaping his iron when it is hot and pliable, the metal will soon cool and harden and the opportunity is lost. That piece of metal will then become a waste.

19. How does this apply? • Once in a lifetime opportunities allows people to stand out and be unique. • Grasping these opportunities will rather place you in a much different category in society comparing to those people who typically just conform.

20. Beliefs and causes that we support • 2. “The early bird catches the worm.” • Meaning: Success comes to those who prepare well and put in effort.

21. How does this apply? • Our philosophy is that our purpose in life is to stand out and be unique, since we believe that you are not “alive” when you conform to the monotony of the word. • Those who prepare well and anticipate success as they take a chance of life and win the game of it. • They then become “alive” above all who are living but still are dead to society.

22. Example: Lady Gaga • She has a UNIQUE image that enables her to STAND OUT amongst the other artists. • It wasn’t only he strange songs that led her to her billion dollar fame… Example: • “I want your ugly, I want your disease” - Bad Romance • “Cause I’m bluffin’ with my muffin” - Poker Face

23. Example: Lady Gaga • ..but also because of her bizarre outfits and dramatic entrances that enabled her to stand out in a flood of norm.

25. WHO DOESN’T LOVE MEAT?

27. Beliefs and causes that we support • 3. "You are not the momentary whim of a careless creator experimenting in the laboratory of life. . . You were made with a purpose.“ • We spend too much time wondering WHAT IF but we need to learn to say WHAT IS. • People drift their entire life going through the same normal routine.

28. People end up doing this one day at a time, one week at a time, one month at a time, and eventually; unaware of it, they start to slip away from life. • We disappear in life with our hands empty and our faces looking like everyone else. • We eventually become clones of society.

29. Example: Jeremy Lin • Now famous Jeremy Lin A.K.A the “Yellow Mamba” and known for “Linsanity” • His mother received a lot of criticism for letting him play basketball from her friends, but she allowed him to play what he enjoyed.

30. No one expected that he would lead his Alma Mater- Palo Alto HS to a 32-1 record. Outranking Mater Dei in attaining Div II State title. • He was named All State and Northern California Div II Player of the Year. • He totally did not defy the stereo type of the Asian community, for he still graduated HS with 4.2 GPA and attended Harvard and majored in Economics.

31. However instead of carrying his college degree and fame from Harvard, he instead continued on with his love for basketball and took the chance of being drafted to NBA. • Now defying the typical route of an Asian descent like of a doctor, business man, etc.

35. Fact: He did not get a basketball scholarship out of High School.

36. What our philosophy does NOT support • Communism • Bee Movie • Kafka and The Metamorphosis

37. Communism • Our philosophy does not support Communism and its ideas because it restricts people from being themselves and from living an individualistic lifestyle. Instead, communism forces people to do the same thing and act the same way under the same conditions. There is no room for independence and individualism.

38. Quotes against Communism • "Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.“ – Frank Zappa • “Communism is in conflict with human nature.” – Earnest Renan • "Communism is the death of the soul. It is the organization of total conformity - in short, of tyranny - and it is committed to making tyranny universal." - Adlai Stevenson

39. Quotes against Communism • “I have a high state of resentment for the conformity in this country. If you're not married and having children, it's like your life is empty or you're a communist meanie.” - Bill Maher

40. The Bee Movie • In the Bee Movie, Barry B. Benson discovers that all bees have to choose one job that they will stick to for the rest of their life. He decides to go against this because he feels he is going to be restricted from doing anything else and his life will not have any freedom in it. Thus, our philosophy goes against this idea.

41. Quotes from the Bee Movie • “We know that you, as a bee,have worked your whole life to get to the point where youcan work for your whole life.” • “But choose carefully because you'll stay in the job you pick for the rest of your life.” • “One job forever? That's an insane choice to have to make.”

42. Kafka and The Metamorphosis • In The Metamorphosis, Gregor’s family sees that Gregor’s transformation is a difference and abnormality to society, and this is not accepted. The family is showing conformity to the rest of society, resulting in the alienation of Gregor Samsa and their eventual neglect of him. We do not support this conformity, as well as some of Kafka’s quotes on freedom.

43. Quotes from The Metamorphosis • "If it were Gregor, he would have realized long ago that it isn't possible for human beings to live with such a creature, and he would have gone away of his own free will.” • "What the world demands of poor people they did to the utmost of their ability; his father brought breakfast for the minor officials at the bank, his mother sacrificed herself to the underwear of strangers, his sister ran back and forth behind the counter at the request of the customers; but for anything more than this they did not have the strength."

44. Quotes from Franz Kafka • “It is often safer to be in chains than to be free.” • “You are free and that is why you are lost.”