Out of the Darkness
I watched I Heart Huckabees tonight while I was eating dinner. Very weird movie, but very interesting. I was expecting some sort of amusing story, but it actually an existential investigation.The characters (Jude Law, Naomi Watts, Mark Whalberg, Dustin Hoffman, etc) are undergoing existential crises, and hire "existential investigators" who actually spy on them and their lives to uncover the source of their despair and suffering. It's not exactly meant to be an affective thought provoker, I think it was partially meant as satire, but it ends up hitting on some really fundamental themes of what it means to be human.
Being and nothingness, interconnectedness, inevitability of suffering, living in the moment, and the fact that we have to live superficial daily lives where we can't always be obssessed with these kinds of questions and themes. That is mainly what I took from Heidegger: the question of being and existence is of course important - everyone has a vague understanding of the question of being - but when you're walking to class/work, you can't be concerned with whether or not the sidewalk exists, or whether or not you're completely distinct from the particles in the sidewalk. You just have to fucking walk on the sidewalk to get where you're going!
We can't live inauthentic lives where we never examine these deeper meanings, but we can't live a life where those deeper meanings become the sole focus and we can never do anything else. Dasein is what dasein does.
So, with that in mind: I've been officially accepted into the Behavioural Neuroscience graduate program at McGill. In like flint. I am a Behavioural Neuroscientist. I am what I am going to do. And I can't wait.
Listening to: Breakaway - Kelly Clarkson
I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly
I'll do what it takes til' I touch the sky
I'll make a wish
Take a chance
Make a change
And breakaway
Out of the darkness and into the sun
But I won't forget all the ones that I love
posted by Joanna @ 9:12 PM
3 Comments:
Nice blog. P.S. Psyc majors rock! :) And... I love neuropsyc/neuroscience. Gotta love those dendrites, axons, glial cells, etc. and how they play a role in our behavior, etc. hee hee.
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Hi Holly! Thanks for the comment, and yes, psych rocks :) My area of expertise is actually in memory and learning: my graduate projects will involve studying the role of atypical protein kinase C on memory and learning at a cellular level. My undergraduate has been more behavioural - examining the effects on memory by a certain dietary compound!
Dudey: no, I haven't read it. Sounds interesting, so I've written it down. And anything to do with mescaline sounds right up my alley... heh
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