Saturday, April 20, 2013

A Product of Romanticism


While I have a lot or respect for the teachings of the enlightenment, I’m definitely more a product of romanticism than I am of the enlightenment. I love learning new things and I believe that logic and rationality are important when making decisions or trying to figure things out. But I am also a person of great feeling. I reject the notion that our emotions are worthless and need to be shut out so that rationality can dominate our lives. Instead I believe that reason is a tool we can use to balance our emotions and prevent us from going overboard with passion and making mistakes as a result. Ultimately emotion is how we experience life, and so emotion should be cherished. I love to listen to music or watch shows that make me feel something, whether it be joy, sadness, excitement or anger. To me it feels good to be sad when a favorite TV. show character dies, or to listen to a song that’s full of passion and energy.
 I also love nature and the untamed wilderness. Some of my favorite things to do are hiking and camping, because I like being outside among the trees and the mountains, the rocks and the hills. There is so much beauty in the world that man-made buildings and landscaping can never match. Those things can be beautiful as well, but they just can’t compare to the ordered randomness or nature, to a lichen covered rock with its many shades of green and yellow, or to the way the red mountains look in the evening when I’m hiking along my favorite trail. 

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