In Voltaire's story The Good Brahmin he brings up the question of whether it is better to be happy and ignorant or knowledgable and depressed by life's sad reality. In the story there is a man talking to a wealthy and educated Brahmin. He tells the man that he lacks nothing in his life, yet he still feels unfulfilled. His knowledge of the world's problems and philosophical dilemmas has depressed him. He then looks to the Brahmin's poor neighbor. This woman has few worldly goods and no education, yet she goes through her life with happiness. She is unaware of any problems bigger than her own and can go through life simply and joyfully. The man then turns to ponder the question of whether it is better to be depressed and knowledgeable or happy and naive. Personally, I would like to believe that I would rather be knowledgeable and depressed than naive and happy. I feel I should value knowledge and intellect and awareness of our world above my own happiness. However, in reality I actually feel like I would rather choose to be happy and naive. In my personality, I have found that I struggle with toxic positivity. I hate feeling sad and often push away all sad feelings and pretend everything is going completely fine until I crack. I honestly don't know if I could handle complete awareness of all the hurt and heartbreak in our world because it would be just too much on my shoulders. In all honesty, I believe I would choose to be happy and naive, even though I feel like the "correct" answer would be to prefer knowledge over personal happiness
Rousseau
Rousseau had strong, somewhat unusual opinions on education and how children should be brought up. He believed that education is vital to the upbringing of children. He wrote, "We are born weak, we need strength; helpless, we need aid; foolish, we need reason. All that we lack at birth, all that we need when we come to man's estate, is the gift of education. This education comes to us from nature, from men, or from things" (Rousseau). He believed that education was the essence of living well, and a person can hardly survive without one. However, he did not believe in an education that involved memorizing facts and figures. Rather, Rousseau believed that education should be taught through experience and application to real-life situations. He believed that if we taught children only what they wanted to learn about they would be much more receptive to learning as a whole. He also believed that if children understood the real-life importance of what they were learning they would be excited to learn because they would be able to apply their knowledge for the rest of their life. Personally, I agree with Rousseau that education should be applicable in real-world situations. While it is important to know some facts and figures, school can often seem pointless if there is no connection to real life. There are many things we are forced to memorize in school that become completely worthless later on in life. Additionally, there are many things not taught in schools-such as how to pay your taxes or how to set up a bank account-that are necessary to live as a functioning adult. I believe there is starting to be a shift in the way our education system works, from teaching you to memorize and regurgitate facts for tests that will be instantly forgotten after the exam, to teaching you how to think. I believe it is much more important to learn how to think for yourself and how to work through unknown situations because this is what we will actually use later on in life. Like Rousseau, I believe education should be experienced and applicable, not just memorizing facts that will be useless to us later in life.
Beauty
Creativity is a beautiful thing that can provide an escape from the chaos and troubles of reality. When we focus our mind on creating something beautiful there is a sort of transcendence that takes place. Creativity can take our mind out of the present reality and into a noumenal kind of world. Personally, I find beauty and express creativity through dance. Whenever I'm dancing my focus shifts away from reality and gets lost in the music and movement. Dance is a creative outlet for me and it helps me to create beauty in the midst of any ugly realities. Schopenhauer said, "Life is never beautiful, but only the pictures of life are so in the transfiguring mirror of art." He believed that the only way beauty could be found in life is through art. Reality is too ugly to be considered beautiful just as it is, but through art and creativity beauty can be found in life. Creativity can also be used as a way to express the difficulties of real life. Many artists choose to create works with dark and real messages. In this way, creativity is helping them use beauty to convey the sometimes ugly truth. It is a way to share your voice when you feel you cannot speak. Beauty can be used to bring attention to the dark reality.