Welcome

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. Everything has been figured out, except how to live. One always dies too soon or too late. And yet, life is there, finished. The line is drawn, and it must all be added up. You are nothing other than your life. There is only one day left, always starting over. It is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk. We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are, that is the fact. When you live alone you no longer know what it is to tell a story: the plausible disappears at the same time as the friends. You let events flow by too.Suddenly you see people appear who speak and then go away; you plunge into stories of which you can't make head or tail. You'd make a terrible witness. It is true that people who live in society have learned how to see themselves in mirrors as they appear to their friends. Luckily, I only have a few...

Dr Shaw is a lecturer in Further Education at Edge Hill University, Ormskirk. She also offers philosophy courses at the School of Continuing Education, Lifelong learning, at the University of Liverpool. In 2015, she has completed her Doctorate in philosophy with a focus on existentialism, the equilibrium doctrine and narrative. She has worked as a teacher of English and Comparative literature and Philosophy at The American University in Cairo, Egypt where she also obtained her BA (Hons). Dr Shaw has an MA in Philosophy and Literature from the University of East Anglia where she also taught on a number of humanities subjects. Whilst working in North Wales in Further education, she gained a PGCE aimed at teaching in FE and HE sectors. Dr Shaw moved to Liverpool in 2010 where she now resides.

Interests: Existentialism, Narrative, Comparative Literature, Feminist Thought, Public Speaking, Arab Existentialism, Philosophy of Education, Art, Music, Film and Theatre, Greek Mythology, Existential counsellor and psychotherapist.

https://liverpool.academia.edu/ShereenHamedShaw


Thursday 28 July 2016

Loving and Being Loved





Are we being in Love or Being in Habit?



Parental love is as Alan mentions the most primitive form of love and our first encounter with the conception of love. So How can we detach ourselves from this kind of love to have what he calls a "mature" kind of love?



Do you love me or do you love how I love you? Such as huge difference, especially when the beloved say things like "I like how you make me feel" or "I love how you look at me or I feel when I am around you". True, we want a recreation of our lovely childhood experience of being loved. Can we ever fall out of this primitive form of love to put someone else ahead of us and be adults? Sounds almost impossible.



We live in a world where we look for the attributes that we lack, we admire the organised, the clever, the witty, the diplomat and the laid-back. Our "shopping list" of partner's attributes are not always as easy to follow as it may seem. We often fall in love with those who are unfaithful, selfish, cunning or even less giving than ourselves. These life partners have horrible attributes, we know that and yet they are familiar as we are already accustomed from our childhood with these attributes displayed by parents or relatives or close ones. Alan explains this point perfectly in this video...



#love #trouble