The end of history

09/05/2016

Today was the end of history. Well, not literally "the end" because the history will not end as long as...I don't really know what was I supposed to write. The point was that today was the last lesson of TOK in history. 

"Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will"

That is one of the quotes we were to discuss on today's lesson. I liked this one the most because it was (in my opinion) the most truthful of them all. I mean, people are born it different societies and families with different traditions and issues but it is up to us how we "play" our lives. No one has the same cards (opportunities) but when you are brought up it a similar environment chances are cards you have to play are the same. With that being said, when you are complaining that your classmate has better grades or is having better time or is "cooler" than you have to stop dwelling in self pity because we were all born naked and ugly and probably crying and screaming. We all went to school and it was only up to us what approach we will take from the beginning and the same goes for the other two; we are constantly working on our character and unless you are too lazy to do anything, you can be everything you want to be. Obviously you won't be as fit/social/hard working as somebody else but that is what is amazing in our life. We have the power to be whoever we want to be and even though we are starting with the almost identical set of cards as somebody else  you can grow up to be a totally different person. I think it is pretty amazing. 

Enough of my thoughts, let's get into some important definitions. After reading sad, alternative version of "Billy Elliot" where instead of following his dreams boy and up as a beer loving 35 year old corpses "squelched into the shape of a pancake". Not very optimistic or even not optimistic at all but we tried to determine what were the causes of Billy's tragic end and as we spoke we discussed two terms.

Accidentalism-the idea that everything is a result of random events we are not able to control. 

For example Billy wasn't accepted to ballet school because one of the judges was earlier that day swimming in the river where a mosquito bit her and while Billy was presenting himself instead of watching she decided to scratch her arm and she missed the important part.

Determinism-everything is a result of something that occurred before.

Billy died because the driver was lacking sleep because his baby was crying all night, because it was hungry, because it's parents could buy him food because shopkeeper decided to finnish his work earlier yesterday. Therefore the shop owner killed Billy.