Monday, April 27, 2009

Existential Questioning

I find a lot of what Gadamer trying to tell me about the four core concepts to be very factual and relevant to my life. This weekend I had an interesting run in with questioning; which if I am correct in my understanding brought about authenticness. It wasn’t regular questioning it was existential questioning in my opinion. My friend was having a breakdown about how it was that he got into Drake when his back up school was community college. How it was that everyone around him didn’t seem like they struggled at all doing any of the homework. This was all brought about by the fact that a teacher wasn’t giving him a grade he thinks he deserves in a class. Because he feels like he challenges the professor too much. (326)-made me think of him and my weekend. “Contrary to general opinion, it is more difficult to ask questions than to answer them.” –To ask a question causes the questioner to come to grief. My friend is probably what I would consider to be a typical guy, not much is going on everything is fine; I was surprised to find him asking such hard questions of himself and how much anxiety it caused him once he finally asked them. I walked in one the conversation underway. But I’m sure it was something like this quote on pg. 331 “It is always the speaker who is challenged until the truth of what is under discussion finally emerges.” The person talking to him before finally got it out of him, I’m sure the conversation was really casual up until he finally started asking the questions of himself and I walked into the room.
Questioning causes an openness that in turn causes anxiety. Why is this, this way? Why can’t I change it? It causes us to realize our potential or at least ask someone else at 3 am who may think can help us with our questioning problems.
The question I had that I think would further help my development on the reading would be. Once we realize how anxiety and questioning and knowing where it is coming from, is it a good or bad thing to hold on to it. Should we get rid of it try to solve the problem as soon as we find out where it is coming from? Or is it possible to have anxiety that is not fixable?

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