My Journal Entries
Journal Entry 1
Heraclitus of Ephesus was a Greek philosopher from about 540-480 B.C. He criticized the opinions of others about the way things are and attacked the authority of poets and others who were known to be wise in his community. He also stands for the thesis ‘Everything is in flux’, which he took this statement to be true. In my opinion this means everything is in constant motion.
Heraclitus of Ephesus wrote, “Opposition brings concord: Out of discord brings the fairest harmony”. If we break the quote down it says that resistance brings agreement: out of a disagreement brings harmony, and harmony is also like an agreement or a pleasing arrangement of something. I feel like a more simple meaning of his quote is that nothing can have one without the other. There cannot be a day without night, a hot without cold, or even a good without evil.
An example of this from my own experience would be joining the Marine Corps. I wanted to join the Marine Corps to be a force of good. With the world being in constant “flux”, that was my way to give back. I spent a period of time in Afghanistan aiding in the war against terrorism, in that time I learned my strengths while fighting through my weaknesses. So where I stated above, there cannot be a day without a night, a hot without a cold and a good without an evil; in my experience there cannot be a strength without a weakness. Ultimately, I learned to appreciate my comforts in the most uncomfortable situations.
Journal Entry 2:
“The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.” - Paulo Coelho
Paulo Coelho was born on August 24,1947, in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. He was raised by catholic parents who saw no future in him becoming a writer in Brazil. Since he was rebellious against his parents as a teenager, they put him in an asylum three times. After Coelho got out of the mental asylum, he went to law school. He did not complete law school because he chose to live a party life. He wrote music for a Brazilian band and was arrested, due to political views, three times. He was inspired to become a writer after visiting spain and walking more than five hundred miles on the Road to Santiago de Compostela, where he had a spiritual awakening. He then devoted his life to writing and stopped working any other job he had.
I feel that this quote means, if you only have your opinion or thought it will not be heard, it will not change anything as just that. If you show an example of your opinion, action, it will have an impact on a situation. For example, while I was in the Marine Corps I had a Staff Sergeant who did everything by the book. We had a situation where we had to offload ammunition on my truck by a certain time. The ammunition was supposed to be offloaded by using a different vehicle. Well, we couldn’t get in contact with the other marines for that mission to be completed. I had an idea to just offload the ammunition by hand so that we could meet our deadline. My Staff Sergeant said that it was a silly idea and that we wouldn’t meet our mission deadline. Instead of him allowing us to fail the mission I began to offload my truck. Eventually other Marines joined in to help me. We completed our mission before the time given and all of the ammo was put into a secure location. I didn’t change the world but I did change the situation we were in. Had I not done anything to meet our mission, nothing would have changed and we probably would have failed.
Journal Entry 3
"Justice is the insurance which we have on our lives and property. Obedience is the premium which we pay for it." - William Penn.
William Penn was born on October 14, 1644 and died on July 30, 1718. He is the founder of the Province of Pennsylvania. Penn was raised Anglican, but later in life joined to be a Quaker. In 1668 William Penn was put in jail from writing a tract that attacked the doctrine of trinity. He also went to a Christ Church School but was expelled for being a Quaker.
I honestly have no idea what this quote means. Maybe that we are born into justice. Since he changed his religious views he was thrown in jail on multiple occasions and he was expelled from a school. He wasn’t obedient towards his religion; therefore, he paid that price. i have no personal experiences that would tie into this quote.
Journal Entry 4
“All men are fatalists as they look back on things.”
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American Philosopher Richard Taylor
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Fatalism is the doctrine that all events are subject to fate or inevitable predetermination. I think in the quote above that he means that even looking back in the past nothing could have been changed, that whatever happened was supposed to happen. Richard Taylor was born in 1919 and died in 2003. He enlisted in the navy after Pearl Harbor where he found himself reading philosophy books. Another service member encouraged him to go to school for philosophy. He was a student of Roderick Chisholm and Curt Ducasse at Brown University. I think this quote relates to him because he made choices that had him on different paths and still ended up becoming a philosopher. His fate was to be a philosopher.
I think in a way this quote relates to me because I am on the path to becoming a dental hygienist, which I was completely against in the past. Growing up my mother always pushed me to be a dentist or something in the dental field and i hated the idea of it. I hated it so much I joined the military. Then my enlistment was over and I started looking into being an ammunition instructor. Long story short, school options brought me to dental hygiene. I feel like no matter what I would have done in life that this is where I would end up.
Journal Entry 5
Henry Ford was born on his father’s farm in Dearborn, Michigan on July 30, 1863. As a young man he was handy. He was Especially handy when it came to mechanics. Henry Ford did not like to work on his father’s farm, instead he worked with the machines. In 1879 Henry Ford left home to pursue his career in mechanics.
Henry Ford returned to the farm in 1882. He did not do much farming, instead he worked on the portable steam engines used by the farmers. In 1896 he made his first propelled vehicle, the quadricycle. He made his second in 1898.
Henry Ford once said, “ Whether you think you can or you think you can’t , either way, you’re right.” I feel like what he meant by this is that if you put your mind to something and know or think that you can accomplish something, then you can. If you say that you cannot accomplish something, then you cannot.
I feel that this quote relates to his life because he seemed to never doubt himself. He always knew that he would be able to accomplish anything that he put his mind to. Henry Ford became a very successful man just based off of his positive thought process. Like he said, he thought he could and he was able to accomplish everything that he wanted.
We were also asked how this quote could be related to our personal lives. This quote is related to me because I have had to say this to myself in sticky situations. I deployed to Afghanistan in 2014 with Combat Logistics Battalion 7. Our mission was to break down Camp Leatherneck, so that we could move out of Afghanistan and come home. We went outside of the wire a couple of times to take and bring back gear and marines from other camps. There were a few times where I didn’t know if I could do that job anymore. I felt pressured, scared, and lost. When I think about this quote, it is absolutely right. I remember changing the way I thought about things, like why I became a Marine in the first place. While I was in country I thought that I was going to fail a few times, and I did. Then after realizing my purpose, I believed that I was able to accomplish any task given to me. With a lot of work, I did. Like Henry Ford I put my mind to work and knew that I was going to be successful.