Happiness and Meaning: Personal Philosophy Statement, Proposal

and Artistic Piece

Essential Questions:

What is the purpose of your existence?

How do you define or find happiness?
How do you define or find meaning in life?

Part I: Personal Philosophy/Artist Statement (20 points)

Throughout this project, I have become increasingly frustrated with people who cant
handle themselves when confronted with the idea of existentialism. My personal belief is that
if you dont have a purpose, make searching for it your purpose. Who cares if youre just
going to die? Maybe you can make a difference in someone elses life. Or maybe not, and
maybe you just pursue what makes you happy, and live a full life. All I am saying is even
though we are all going to die, we are here for now, and so we might as well make the most
of it, whether that means just having fun, making as much money as possible, or filling your
life with meaning. How you decide to live and how you define happiness and meaning
depends entirely on you, and it is unnecessary to try to shape your life around the societal
expectations thrust on you and your acquaintances.
As Im sure you can tell, I disagree entirely with the idea of needing a purpose in life to
make your life meaningful. One of my dreams has been to travel once I get out of school,
and to not stop traveling until something prevents me from continuing, or until I finally feel
content. One thing connected to this that I feel very strongly about it the question, can
money buy happiness? Despite the fact that many people say it is impossible to buy
happiness, I disagree, and think that if you one, buy others things instead of yourself, and
two, buy experiences instead of wasting your money on material items, then yes, money can
by happiness. If you live your life fully and build up a strong base of incredible experiences
that you will remember for life, you will have lived a meaningful life, plus you will have
plenty of stories to tell! The ultimate goal of life is to live your life without regrets, and die
satisfied with your life.

Part 2: Art Piece Project Proposal (20 points)

1. Write your personal philosophy credo in 1-2 sentences
I believe that happiness and meaning is whatever you define it to be. You do not
need to have a purpose in order to find meaning in life.
2. What median do you want to use to clearly express your philosophy to an
audience at the all-school exhibition?
To express this, I am hopefully going to write a slam poem and perform it at the
exhibition.
3. How is this median creative and representative of your authentic or
unique self?
I love to write poetry and music, but I think it will be difficult to write a song for my
final project. I decided that I will be able to best represent my passion about this
project hrough a slam poem that I will perform.
4. What impression do you want to make on your audience? What do you
want them to remember most about your presentation/project?
I would like to be able to make the audience feel what I am feeling about this
project, or at least understand my perspective on it. I want them to remember me
for my awesome poem and performance!
5. Describe your idea in as much detail as possible

6.

7.

8.

9.

Because I am writing a poem, I cant really describe in detail what I am doing.

Writing poetry and music comes and goes, and as of now, I dont really know what
it is going to look like. It will have to do with the search for purpose and what
meaning and happiness really is to me.
What obstacles do you think you will encounter in creating this project?
Like always, I know I am going to struggle with writers block, but hopefully this
time I wont struggle as much with memorizing it as I did last year in Loris class.
What materials will you need to create your project?
As I do not think I will be doing an art piece, I will not need anything for this project
except inspiration and an open mic.
How much time will this project take you to create?
Again, I have no idea what this is going to look like, but I will most likely need at least
all of the class time given to me to write, and then of course, some overtime to revise
and memorize.
What do you need from Ashley to help you succeed?
Ill just need a lot of work time, but since it is just a poem, I wont really need
anything else.