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It has been a long and an enriching trip, don't you think?
And what a nice way of ending a book of ethics has Savater chosen: "After all, it is probable that it may not be a real book of ethics..."!
And I have to say that I do love it simply because by doing this he wanted to show us that there is no "User's Guide" in terms of Ethics and this means that it is only inside of us that we will find our own Ethics...
We may perfectly listen to many different people, opinions, advices, experiences but, all the same, the only way is "to think it over", to reflect... to analyse and, what I think is the most important thing, to be coherent and honest with ourselves. It is our duty from now on to keep on thinking and although it is only through (and with) others that we will be able to achieve a Human Life, we don't have to forget that we are the ones that can take our own choices. No one will come and tell us which path to follow or what to believe in...
Difficult? Yes! Impossible? NO WAY!
Everything will sooner or later be possible if it is something that pursues HAPPINESS, JOY and LOVE...
And finally, as Savater wrote: "Good Bye, my friendly reader, and try to avoid wasting your life hating (no matter whom) or being afraid"
In this chapter Savater talks about plenty of ideas and conflics between Ethics, Politics, politicians... but I would like to concentrate in some few ideas that I find really interesting... There is one thing that he says that for is crucial: Ethics cannot wait Politics. We have to know that we can not wait until politics solve all our problems in order to start solving our own ones... It's the other way about: since Politics has to do with the harmonious coexistence of all the human beings, we cannot expect Politics to function perfectly if every single individual within the society do not care about living their lives ethically... We have to start the change from the most simple thing and not the other way about... We know that our every day situation, especially in Argentina, is not the most desirable or the best one, but we have to be aware of the fact that we still can do something to improve our lives and our society... the fact is that sometimes many people tend to say that as our country's situation is not good, how can they possibly be good if within a society so unfair and violent? Well that's exactly where the answer is: the only way in which out country can start becoming a better place to live in is by giving our best as indiviuals who at the same time form part of something else (the society) and try to keep on believing in our own capacity of choosing, deciding, sharing, helping, guiding and living our lives in the best we can: living a Human Life (with all the ideas we have been discussing so far while reading this beatiful book)... We, as teachers or teachers to be, have to be aware of the fact that we can be one of those who have that incredible and challenging mission of showing others that the change (in our country, society, school, and so on) is something that will only we achieved if we first start the change from our own every day lives... Ww don't have to forget that it won't be something easy to do, at all... but we are the ones that can show our students that the best way of living your life "humanly" is by means of assistance... i.e. being willing and ready to help, guide and accompany others when they need it... Help, guide, accompany... doesn't it sound familiar to you? Yes, we know them... these three words are the most important roles of the teacher... So, don't you think that being an English teacher, or a teacher of any subject, is more than that? Well, I do... We are more than teachers... we are Educators, Guiders, Helpers... So when someone come and ask you "What is your profession?" or "what do you do?" just answer "I am a Teacher"... and be sure that that is something you'll be always proud of...
"Nothing is Bad JUST because you feel well doing it"... I really find this quote very telling of what is discussed in this chapter, and I think it is like that... I mean, many times we find people saying that something is bad or that we cannot do this or that just because it's "badly" seen by other people...Now, the question is: Is something bad just because someone else says so? What a question! With all this we are going an step further since we are talking about what is Good or Bad (ethically speaking)... Well, I think that the only way to answer this question is to see if what we want to do is something that will help us to live the Human Life we want to live or if is goes against ourselves or someone else... and if it does go against one of the keys of a human life we can say that it is something bad... There is nothing bad in doing something for pleasure... the only problem or the only reason why we tend to reject anything that gives us pleasure is because of what Savater calls the oldest fear of the human being: Our Fear of Pleasure...the fact is that we don't have to be afraid of it but to be aware that as well as it happens with everything else we have to be very careful in order to avoid going into extremes...As long as it doesn't go against ourselves, our lives or someone else's life any pleasure will be (ethically) bad...The idea is that if you are hurting someone else or making him/her feeling like they are not humans your pleasure will automatically stop being something good (at least from the ethical point of view). We don't have to forget that the only thing we can get from any pleasure is joy...and if we happen to lose it as a consequence of some pleasure we have we may be doing wrong and not acting according to what we really want... Do you remember? Yes, the difference between what I think I want and what I really want... So, don't lie to ourselves! If we stop being happy by doing something we believe gives us pleasure, we will have to realise that that is not actually a pleasure simply because for it to be so it has to make us feel well, happy, joyful...
So, now, our job will be to be able to put pleasure to the service of joy and happiness, something that won't be an easy task at all but it is not impossible either...
There are two ideas that I like most from this chapter...
The first one has to do with the comparison that Savater does between the ones that are born rats and the ones that are born lions... I do live the idea of the rat asking itself "what is going to happen to me?" and the lion asking itself "what am I going to do?"... I really feel identified with such a comparison since it sometimes happens to me that at some moment I ask myself if what I'm doing is because I want to do it or if it has some external reason...
It's true that there are meny things that I simply do because I want to and I'm willing to do them at that moment, but it's also true that sometimes I found myself suffering what I'm doing instead of enjoying it... The fact is that it is very difficult for to draw a line between what I do for pleasure and what I have to do, e.g. the fact that I have to get up too early in the morning to travel every day to the place in which I'm studying is a direct consequence of my choosing to study in that place and not in some other one nearer my home... So, if I decide to live my life as a lion I'll have to say that it doesn't matter because it's a consequence of my own decision, but if decide to be like the rat I'll claim that it's unfair and that I do not deserve it because it has just happened to me and I have nothing to do with it...
Now, if I decide to live like a rat I would have a terrible problem since I wouldn't be living my life but suffering it... however, if I decide to live like a lion I'm going to be proud of what I'm doing and feel satisfied since in spite of the fact that all that I'm doing is not something easy I'm doing it because I want to, because it's the life I want to live...
What a difficult issue! Well, at least it is so for me as I'm in a period of my life in which I don't know where I'm standing, if I'm the lion or the rat... I think that at least most of the time I'm like the lion but, as I'm not perfect and I'm just learning how to cope with everything, I have to say that sometimes I found myself thinking like a rat...
And finally I want to say that I do believe that the best way to live our lives (if we want to be loved and have a good human life) is to be able to empathise with the others, the main idea entailed in this concept is to be able to feel what someone else feels. So if we feel sad when someone feels sad and we feel happy when someone feels happy we won't make them feel sad or bad but, on the contrary, we will try to make them feel well, happy, joyful... As we are all humans, we are the only ones that can understand and feel what someone else (another human being) is feeling, so don't miss this incredible oportunity to live the human life we are aiming to... don't forget that the only way of living a good human life is to share it with another person, with another human being!
"I think there's something more, life's worth living for
Who knows what could happen
Do what you do, just keep on laughing
One thing's true, there's always a brand new day
I'm gonna live today like it's my last day"
(Avril Lavigne, "Who knows". Album: Let Go)
I love this song and I think it expresses clearly what I'm trying to say...
("I'm gonna live today like it's my last day", I believe in this line she wants to say that she will live her everyday life cheerfully and enthusiastically... and I think it also related to the fact that if we want to do something why don't we do it today instead of posponing it...)
I know that it's very difficult sometimes, but... just keep on laughing!!!
Our obligation, according to Savater, is not to be "imbéciles" (I write it in Spanish since I believe that in this way the meaning is clearer)... What calls my attention is the true meaning of this word and where it comes from... I really love the connection between being "imbécil" and a walking stick... I really believe that not being able to decide by yourself, or not being able to realise what you really want and, as a consequence, not being able to go for what you want mean that you need a walking stick for your soul since you cannot go on without the help of someone else, without relying on someone else's decision, behaviour or will... I have to say that unfortunately there are times in my life when I need (or maybe I make myself believe that I need) a walking stick to go on... those moment in which I would like not to be able to decide... and it is in those moment in which I behave as an "imbécil"... So we need to find a cure for this... we need to find a solution for this... and the secret is in accepting our duty as human beings: taking decisions... we have to take our decisions, we cannot ask someone else to decide for us (well, at least that wouldn't be the best thing to do if we want to live a good human life)... Your decision, You decide... After taking the decision we have to be sure if what we are going to do has to do with what we really want; and then, finally, we will have to develop what Savater calls "good moral taste" in order to be able to reject anything bad (such as telling a lie) almost automatically... But, what happened if we don't follow this advice and we do something "stupid" (something done by someone who is "imbécil")? Well, we feel remorse... we feel guilty for not having done what we know we had to...And here it is when "Pepito Grillo" appears... when our conscience tells us that we have done something wrong, when our freedom makes us feel guilty simple because if we weren't free we wouldn't be able to feel remorse and guilty... that's why when we know we have done something wrong or shameful we tend to excuse ourselves by saying that we have done it because there wasn't any way out, because it hasn't been our decision... All that we have to do is to be honest with ourselves and with the others... and no matter how hard we may try to convince the others and ourselves about something that is not as we want it to be, our "Pepito Grillo" will let us know that even though we might lie to the others we won't ever be able to lie to ourselves...
We have already talked about what is it to give ourselves a good life... But, of course, there is even more to say about this, and it has to do with the decisions we make and their aim... When we take a decision regarding what we really want to do, are we thinking about the implications of that decision? Is it really going to give us the good life we want? The question is: can we say that everything we do because we really want is going to give us a good life? Savater's talks about something very interesting and concrete: treating people as if they were objects, and unfortunately we have to, or at least I have to admit that this is something that heppens quite often simply because we tend to concentrate so much in what we want that we tend to forget two important things: First of all, we usually forget to see if what we want is something good in itself (i.e. not only good for me but also good -or not bad- for someone else so that we can have a good human life) and secondly, we forget the most important thing about giving ourselves a good life: we are so commited to do anything to get what we want that we end up going against someone else (or against ourselves) or treating someone else as an object... In order not to treat people as objects we will have to take into account not only what they can give to us but also what they want, what they need and who they are... We don't have to forget that only human beings can give us those human "things" (such as love, friendship, advices and so on) that we need to have a good life... There is one condition that is a must if we want to live our lives as human beings... we have to be sure that we do not to want to live in anyway, we have to know that not everything is valid for giving us a good life...and that we will only be able to live a good human life if we let others (and help them to) live their lives "humanly"... "There are many ways in which we can live our lives, but some of those ways will not let us live"
As I've written in my previous post, we don't have to forget that orders, habits and whims are just one aspect of the complicated art of taking decisions...
In fact if we decide to make all our decisions giving too much importance to these influences, I would say that we are not going in the right direction, at least if we want to live a good life...
The question here is to being able to distinguish between what someone else wants me to do (orders, customs and so on) and what I actually want... and the only way of knowing what we actually want is to take some time to think about it within ourselves... The only one that can tell you what you really want to do is yourself...
However, we don't have to get confused with "what I actually want" and "the first thing that come into my mind" since we tend to find ourselves giving too much importance to something that does not really deserve it and we end up realising that what we really wanted was not what we have chosen...
So, going back to what Savater says about "giving yourself a Good Life" (Date La Buena Vida) I have to say that he points out something that I find really interesting; he says that the secret of giving yourself a Good Life is to give yourself a Good Human Life... What does it mean? Well I believe that a Good Human Life is one in which we are not alone and we can easily find us exchanging, interacting, sharing and enjoying what we are... Human Beings... And all this can be realised only if we are aware of what we really want and not only if it is good for us but also if it is good for others too, or at least if it does not go against another human being and against the Good Human Life that we want to live...
Finally, there is one thing that I want to add... I really love what Savater says about our Cultural reality and the huge importance that it has in all this issue of having a Good Human Life... There is no humanity without a cultural learning, and there is no cultural learning without the Language... How Nice!!! And at the same time how shocking it is to realise that we are such an important link in this chain! We are Teachers of English (or at least we are doing our best to become teachers)... we are Teachers of a Language! So we don't have to forget that we are a key part in the act of building the cultural learning... and from now on... we will always remember and bare in mind that all the decisions that we take are crucial not only for being a Good Human Being or for building our Good Human Life but also for showing our students that we are all part of this cultural world and as a part of it we all have something to do and something to give...
