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VPR's coverage of arts and culture in the region.

Young Writers Project: Philosophies

Courtesy, Fiona Goodman
Fiona Goodman, 13, of Brattleboro writes about the questions we all ponder. She is 'writer of the month' for the October issue of YWP’s digital magazine, 'The Voice.'";

When or if somebody asks me,

“Why do you think we’re here?”

I’ll probably reply,

“Because we’re so self-centered

we think we’re more important than the rest of the world

and therefore that there has to be a reason for our existence.”

If somebody asks me,

“What happens after we die?”

I’ll probably say,

“Nothing.

The brain stops functioning,

the heart stops beating, the things that make us

us

become something else.

We become compost.”

You might argue that

because energy cannot be created or destroyed,

the essence of our existence must go somewhere.

I’ll give you that, I suppose —

but wherever it goes, it doesn’t go as our consciousness.

I’m not very philosophical, really,

considering that my answer to traditional philosophical questions

is that humanity is so self-centered that they invent existential crises that millions of people can spend their whole lives grappling with.

I’m not very religious, either, belief-wise, favoring the practical and logical approach, rather than the one that it might feel good

to believe.

When I put it that way, I’m a little scared of myself,

of my ability to be practical and logical,

like if I turn my head away for too long,

I’ll turn around and find out that I’ve turned into

Spock-Sherlock-Holmes-unfeeling-logician rather than

me.

Or that I’ll find myself instead as the most bleak, glum cynic

the world’s ever seen, since, after all, my view of humankind and existence is not exactly cheery and favorable.

But yet, time after time, I find myself cheerfully sardonic,

nonsensical, fully capable of enjoying most things I do.

(School being exempt from that category.)

I suppose it simply doesn’t bother me

that my view of existence is from an outlook

that I find practical, rather than pleasurable,

that I’ve accepted the fact that I do not believe only the things

that make me happy.

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