Usually when we watch Ted Talks in class, I can't wait until it's over- I'll literally be counting down the minutes. I'm not sure if it was his accent, his humor, or the fact that I had drank 20 ounces of coffee before coming into class that day, but I was really captivated by this lecture. Throughout this video, Alan de Botton discusses the human view of success and failure and how that ties into tragedy.
One idea that he focused on that really stuck with me was that fact that as humans, we have an unrealistic idea of how we want our lives to look- our careers, family, finance situation. Of course, no human realizes this is unrealistic until their fantasy comes in contact with reality and anxiety about their life ensues. It really brought to my attention to my own desires, and whether or not those are achievable in the reality I live in. Another part of the speech that stuck out was when Botton mentioned that some people are more fortunate and will therefore have an easier to achieving than those who are not as fortunate. And unfortunately, this means that bad people are at the top of our society and good people are at the bottom. It really opened my eyes to my privilege and how I treat people who may be less fortunate than I am. He connects these discussions with tragedy by stating the fact that just because someone lost, does not mean that they are a loser. He explains this further by connecting this to Hamlet, and how he isn't considered a loser by most because people sympathize with him, even though he had many losses in his life. This is relevant in our world, because humans don’t sympathize with others enough, we are too worried about our own desires and needs to care.
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I know that I know very little when it comes to tragedy. I use the word tragic sarcastically with my friends and family and I know others do as well, but I didn't think much of it until now. I know that the theme or element of tragedy originates from Ancient Greece, but apart from that I have no clue about the origin story of tragedy. I've never thought in depth about tragedy, I guess I've always thought that it was a word used to describe a sad event. Like when there is a mass shooting, or an epidemic spreads worldwide. Besides those specific examples, I am lost. Upon further reading, I have discovered that my previous belief was sort of right, tragedy is defined as a form of drama based on human suffering that pleasures an audience. It is basically of form of entertainment that relishes in people's sufferings, which seems rather sick to me (but oh well). I was also somewhat correct in that fact that tragedy originated in Greece, but in my reading, I also discovered that tragedy has been morphed throughout the years by Romans and various amounts of Europeans. I also discovered that there are different types of tragedy (i.e. revenge tragedy and tragedy of the commons) and that different authors can think of tragedy in completely different ways. For example, Aristotle thoughts on tragedy differ greatly from William Shakespeare's opinions, there is really no wrong notion to tragedy, as long as someone if suffering! Overall, I am rather impressed with the amount of correct knowledge that I actually knew, but am very intrigued in the new information I learned. Especially when it comes to how tragedy has differed from Ancient Greece to now. I am very excited to continue looking into this! |
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