Although Yilmaz's book is supposed to be humorous in sort of a twisted and depressing sense, it really makes me wonder about my own thoughts about the meaning and purposes of our life. This can relate to Aristotle's "Poetics" because Aristotle states that in a well constructed plot, "The change in fortune should be not from bad to good, but reversely, from good to bad. It should come about as the result not of vice, but of some great error or frailty, in a character either such as we have described, or better rather than worse." (pp. 4-5). In this case, it seems as if the people who live a similar life have failed to find some sort of meaningful purpose and choose to focus on making money and leading materialistic lives instead.
This excerpt also makes me think about how people are in control how their lives turn out through their actions. This is similar to what Aristotle believes as he states "Now character determines men's qualities, but it is by their actions that they are happy or reverse."(pp. 2)
I found your post to be very interesting. Especially in the title, since those few first lines of the text is how life seems to go, but most of us don't see that as the meaning of life. I think the author acutally created a sort of life outline, but really it's the small things that make up all those steps that are the true meaning of life.
ReplyDeleteI think this text is a great example of Aristotle's ideas concerning a constructed plot. I also think Aristotle would've liked this, because if I only had what was written in the text to look forward to in life, I would essentially feel pity for myself.
That text is really interesting to me too. Often times I feel like that is all my life is set out to be: make money, get married, and then die. It’s especially frustrating because the social pressures that encourage us to conform to that lifestyle are so strong and those that encourage the opposite are so few and far between.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most interesting points in that list, for me, is the part about making money. Sometimes I think that a life without money would be really fulfilling. And I don’t mean that in the sense money should be outlawed and that would solve the world’s problems and thus solve my problems. I mean it in the sense that it would be liberating because it would be a way to live outside the determined structure. Maybe in that sense Aristotle is right. Going from having money to losing it would be an example of going from good to bad in the traditional sense, but I don’t think it would be all bad.