HW #5

In David Banach's lectures, he argues that true happiness comes from within, "If we find ourselves isolated from external value by our own radical individuality, we can make a world of ourselves, a universe of our own experience". What David Banach is trying to say is that people should be less materialistic and less infatuated with external values in order to find true happiness. I disagree with Banach's idea because it is too radical. He is almost saying that we must be autistic in order to find true happiness. I do believe that that people need less materialistic and more realistic with what is important and what is disposable, but there are other external values that offer us happiness. One of them being the people around us such as our friends, and family. Those people are all part of our external value and create each of our individual happiness. How can somebody be truly happy without being loved by someone or without giving love to someone?

David Banach uses the story of "The Myth of Sisyphus" as an example of how everything we do in our lives is worthless since we will die someday. I strongly disagree because if that is the case, then why not kill ourselves right now? I know it sounds a little emo but life must have a meaning or else we would not exist. There are other things we love and bring us happiness that are not alive such as our careers. Even though at the end, everything does lead to death, we need obstacles to achieve in order to feel importance and happiness or else life would be very boring. There are many external things in our life that offer us inner happiness but we just need to find out which ones are the ones that truly have an importance and a purpose.