Social requirements

During our seminar this week,  we came across a cold read about a person who has all the money he can want but does not live a happy life.  This seems peculiar,  even if there is the cliche that money can't buy happiness most people still disagree with it.  They reason that they can buy things that make them happy or use their money to achieve their state of happiness. The passage counters this claim by emphasising the social aspect of happiness. In the psychology realm,  Maslow's hierarchy of needs states that after physiological and safety needs,  a human hunts for the sense of love and belonging. The author in the book obviously has the physiological and safety portions satisfies,  but he complains of not getting the attention or the treatment he wants.  Wealth probably made his life worse,  since in our society wealth is somewhat considered a status.  This status may have caused other people to distance themselves from him since they live different lifestyles and have different interests.  A wealthy person's idea of having fun may differ significantly with a normal persons idea of fun, since the wealthy guy has no budget for fun. Achieving the status of being wealthy can go both ways,  either one gets isolated from society,  or one becomes happier with the added wealth. The best way to become the latter is probably to be careful on how you get wealthy, since relationships with other people do play a critical role in our lives.

Lobsters in pain

The article that we read in class introduces us to the cruelty of killing lobsters in order to eat them.  More importantly,  it show us the disillusion that we pertain when judging other things. When we feel sorry for the lobster,  it is almost always because we put a human being in the lobster's position to get an understanding of the situation.  This connection is flawed,  since the autonomy of the lobster differs entirely from our autonomy.  Thus the feelings and cognition that a lobster pertains is different to what a human pertains. The person who feels empathy for the lobster feels sorry for the lobster because they themselves picture humans being cooked alive.  This does not mean that lobsters don't feel pain Like the author said,  lobsters can be organisms that feel pain in a different way.  Maybe pain does not bother them that much and it is just a mild discomfort such as an itch.  However, comparing it to humans is wrong. If a person lost empathy to human beings, then he or she probably wouldn't feel for a lobster. This is an un-fixable in human nature. We try to make a connection to objects even if it means making the connections illogical. 

Paraphrasing life

After watching the Mrs Dalloway movie in class,  I have gained a better understanding of the book and the story of Mrs Dalloway. The story doesn't seem to be about Mrs Dalloway as much as it is about the representation of an entire life of a generic person displayed in the events of one day. Woolf starts off the book with Clarissa all happy with buying flowers for her,  representing the happinesses of life that occur  in social interactions. Septimus's PTSD outbreaks represent the guilt and pain in life and how sometimes it can be so painful that people consider suicide. His death is Woolf's perspective of how there is no wrong choosing death in some occasions and how the death of one can influence those who are alive . Clarissa's reunion with Peter displays the joy, sorrow, and nostalgia of seeing someone again after a prolonged period of time. Elizabeth represents the feelings of having children, and Clarissa's quarrels with Ms Killman represents the conflicts with one's enemies throughout life. Richard and Rezia symbolize marriage and love for their spouse. Sally is the rebellious impulse that we have had in at least one point of our lives. Big Ben, even though not shown in the movie, shows that as all these events and emotions trigger in our lives,  time will always continue to flow.

Ignorance

PTSD is integrated into Mrs Dalloway through Septimus. He is a World War I veteran who lost his best friend in combat.  Septimus has survivor's guilt afterwards and feels like he should die like the rest of his comrades. His worried wife Rezia takes him to a doctor who gives Septimus advice in an extremely insensitive way. He acts like Septimus is an object and talks to Rezia instead of directly addressing Septimus. Septimus grows to hate the doctor and in his final moments screams "I give it you!" to Dr Wilson as he leaps off a building. The doctor could've successfully helped Septimus if he had shown a little compassion or sympathy.  Dr Wilson does not understand the reality of war.  Only people who have been in combat knows what it's like being shot at and shoot back to essentially kill a human equal. In conclusion the doctor did not determine Septimus' condition and approached Septimus the wrong way, ultimately worsening his intent to suicide. Dr Wilson represents those who judge others before getting to know them.

Pessimistic thinking

The book Mrs. Dalloway makes us contemplate about death, a theme which most people view as negative. The book also views death as negative from the constant allusions to the battlefield in World War I with flaming bodies and mustard gas; to Rezia's anxious denial that her husband, Septimus, is actually suicidal. In addition,  all characters in the book almost never think about or talk about the future.  Everything is about the past and how things are now in the present. The characters seem afraid to think about the future and thus present the likelihood that they are also suicidal in a way.  Peter comes back to see Clarissa even though he knows that it will cause pain and imbalance in his seemingly happy life. His life is ironic, though,  being a missionary in India he makes the wife of an Indian major commit adultery; after that he comes back to London only to regain his repressed feelings for Clarissa. All of this happens while he tries to find a lawyer to divorce his Indian lover. Clarissa also seems to be suicidal or at least self harming since she was obviously in love with Peter when he proposed to her but she rejected him in order to marry Richard. Now she grieves about how people only judge her by her face value of being Richards wife. All main characters in this book have severe problems in their lives that originate from arrogant decisions in their past or from incidents that caused trauma to them.
Death may seem like a solution but that is up to each person to decide for themselves. The idea of death is different in everyone's mind.