Reflection Paper Towards Confucianism and Socratic Thinking
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People have always been born as natural thinkers and have always have curious minds. And I, myself, am no exemption. Since I was a child, Ive always wondered how things work, why people work, and how people work. And in a broad sense, thats what Philosophy is. Or in textbook terms, Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental questions about existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind and language. It is the way of seeking answers to lifes big questions. In a compound sense, philosophy is closely related to wisdom; a search for knowledge.
We ask the big questions; who created us? Why are we living? Where do we go after we die? If heaven exists, how do we achieve it? Truly, we wont ever find the answers to these questions. But we can look back to the past, when there were people who lived their lives seeking answers from the universe.
Philosophy wasnt really a huge thing until the 6th century when there was a cultural revolution of 6th century thinkers such as Buddha, Confucius, Zoroasthet and Socrates.
Buddha is known to have created Buddhism, which emphasizes on spiritual awakening and emptiness. He believed that our attachment to the material world cause suffering. His ideas are perfect ideologies for those seeking the feeling of peace. However, in my opinion, his ideas seem rather insensitive. Buddha or Siddharta Gautama was a Nepalese Prince, h e was born with a silver spoon. The idea that one can only reach nirvana was to let go of materialistic things seems heart-warming, I suppose but he was born with everything. He was privileged. And yes, he did let go of all these materialistic things but he was in a position where it was easier for him to just do that. And that irks me, although I understand his overall philosophy. That one will be happy, if s/he lets go of materialistic things because essentially, what makes us happy are not physical materials. What is essential to oneself is invisible to the eyes.
Around 500 BCE, Confucius founded the idea