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Original Research

For my original research i talked to a good friend of mine who recently started a relationship. His answers helped me tie the biological and philosophical histories of love together and quite honestly, I was surprised how well what he said fit into my project.

Why bother with the relationship in the first place?

"Well at first i just saw her as someone i wanted to spend more time with because she made me laugh and we had things in common but after a while that just wasn't enough anymore. I wanted more than coffee and lunch here and there. I found myself looking forward to seeing her everyday and i wanted more than anything for her to feel the same way"

David's answer resonated with the idea of "Me to We" or wanting to fuse personal identities with one another.

Describe the highs and lows of your relationship.

"As a fairly new couple i cant say that we've had any serious arguments. But i know that its silly to think that we never will; but so far i haven't felt anything but happiness while I'm around her. I know that it happens to the best of us and I'm prepared to work things out if we ever get to that point but as far as lows go i don't believe we've had anything happen that can be called a low at this point in our relationship. As far as highs go its like i said before, every time I'm with her i feel the happiest I've been since coming to Hofstra"

David wasn't naive enough to believe he and Sophia would never fight in the future. But his willingness to work through what ever future problems they come across speaks to Gibran's "On Love" where he states falling in love is a struggle with substantial rewards for though who push through.

What is one word that describes how you feel around her?

Fulfilled

I know David and sophia are young but it isn't too farfetched to think they could spend the rest of their lives together. And from what he tells me it seems that that is the track they are headed down. And again fulfilled spoke to the idea of "me to we".

Personal Research

For my original source i want to conduct a series (no more than 3) of interviews. Each person i choose to speak to will be in a different stage of a relationship. Hopefully i will be able to water down the levels of love into "beginning, middle, and end". I will ask them 4 or 5 of the same questions regardless of their perceived stage of the relationship. I will compare the answers they give with the predictions i've found in my sources. I plan on dedicating one post to the interviews.

Annotation Two

"Lawless mind" ventures into thought processes and cognitive tendencies. When i chose this book as a source i wanted to see if these tendencies cooperated with the more metaphorical tendencies described in Hazo's "The Idea of Love". So far in my reading i have learned that there are changes in our thoughts and feelings when we begin to fall in love. Not the usual "sweaty palm" folklore but the scientifically proven kind of changes. The mind works in complex yet understandable ways and the way we learn to and fall in love have strong connections to cognition.

Annotations: Vocabulary

In the first chapter of the "Idea..." author Hazo discusses terminology in regards to love. He classifies all of his terms under two sort of baseline categories: Tendency and Judgment. Terms that fall under the term tendency follow the general consensus of "an inclination toward action" (Hazo 15). Likewise the terms that fall under Judgment all deal with esteem and valuation. In the book "love friendship and the self" The author goes into detail about the non-fungibility of love or describing love's foundation as being non-fleeting. I have chosen a two column theme for my web-based platform to cooperate with these categories of Tendency and Judgment.

Bibliography

Helm, Bennett W. Love, Friendship, and the Self: Intimacy, Identification, and the Social Nature of Persons. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2012. Print.

Hazo, Robert G. The Idea of Love. New York: F.A. Praeger, 1967. Print.

Abelson, Raziel. Lawless Mind. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1988. Print.

Toner, Jules J. The Experience of Love,. Washington: Corpus, 1968. Print.

Harper, Ralph. Human Love, Existential and Mystical. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1966. Print.

--Personal Interviews--

David P.

Victoria B.

Link

http://composition-of-love.tumblr.com/

This is my corny title for now.

Revised Research Topic

If we can’t understand love, then we can’t understand the nature of relationships; if we can’t understand relationships, then we can’t understand a person's instinctive need for intimacy.

What Im I Interested in Discovering?

For as long as i can remember I've had a soft spot for love. I am a hopeless romantic through and through: someone in love with the idea of love. If i could read some enlightening ideas regarding how you know when your ready for love or how people fall into love i would enjoy writting about what i've researched.

As far as my readers go, they would only be interested in reading if they were currently in a relationship or if they were like me a hopeless romantic. Love is an idea that is hard to read and understand without a natural interest to the topic.

The questions most associated with love are Why hasn't it happened to me yet or why does no one love me? These are the wrong questions to be asking. Rather than wonder about why you are unhappy focus your energy in learning to love yourself first because that it more important than receiving love. How can someone else love you when you don't love yourself?

Happiness Studies.

As much as i don't want to believe in something so sad, I can see no alternative. Our society is focused on achieving happiness that when we fall short we fall into a profound sadness. We've all seen it before in our lives if we haven't felt it ourselves. Because of this we teach ourselves to thrive and keeping moving forward toward another opportunity for happiness. But consistent failure has terrible effects on a persons ability to continue on. Happiness only gets further away for the failures. Bruckner says that a "contemporary hell is not knowing when pain begins or ends" (44). From that passage I'm come to the conclusion that the goal in life is to never be trapped in the contemporary hell. We have to work as hard as we each can to avoid the entrapment. Its scary to think about but its worse to live.

The Commercialization of Colleges

Universities and Colleges are forms of business plain and simple. But the dividing factor between universities and big businesses are the employees. The professors and faculty at a university chose their profession out of passion rather than pay. People seem to forget that when they look at how high their tuition costs are. Just today at Hofstra I was reminded of how much my professors care through an appointment at the writing center. As Derek Bok says in his article "“Roots of Commercialization. Universities and the Marketplace" after World War II colleges provided the higher level education many soldiers craved. With this new influx of students and revenue colleges became a more stable form of business (Bok). So it should come as no surprise that with more of the general public attending college more people began to realize the value of a college degree. Which in tern lead to even more students for the college and more money. Now this is not to say every college's sol purpose is to throw its students into debt. On the contrary most colleges charge such a high tuition so that they have the resources to provide a world class education and therefor attract students that will shine as alumni of their respective schools. I believe that Colleges have become a large business; but to say that they are solely concerned with money is one of the most erroneous statements i've ever heard.

"Imagining College Without Grades"

All through out my high school years i wondered why I was being measured and compared so intensely with my peers. We always studied, went to extracurriculars, took pre-courses. It wasn't until the beginning of my junior year that i realized it was because of the steep collegiate competition for admission. I never understood how my intelligence could be measure by the opinions of a teacher or by the SAT board members. But like the article says, its our system and it would be difficult to venture beyond the traditional grading scale. Still there has been progress in the right direction. With the development of narrative evaluation and other contemporary forms of seeing student progression we can eliminate the old scales. Even prestigious law schools today have evolved past the grading system. It is my belief that true intellect can be measured. Now we just need to find the proper way.

#universitystudies

Response to Bok's "Underachieving Colleges"

Underachieving Colleges addresses the many, fairly recent, complaints from critics regarding the value and validity of the American educational system after high school. Many critics believe students graduate with low satisfaction. But this negative attitude, according to Bok, is not helpful in increasing the quality of higher education. He cites a survey that shows the majority of students who earn a college diploma reported “being either satisfied or very satisfied with their undergraduate experience” (Bok 7). Bok raises several questions to shift the focus of the conversation from these negative attitudes to actually taking action improving the undergraduate experience.

Most students today are entering college for vocational studies rather than liberal arts and humanities. Bok believes that the adverse attitudes of the general public are turning people towards vocationalism. Preparing for the future is a part of college, but it is not worth sacrificing the rest your undergraduate experience to pursue a job from such a young age. Bok advocates finding the proper balance between vocationalism and ethical and reflective studies. The appropriate combination of the two is what brands a fulfilling college experience, as both are equally necessary. Students must stop focusing solely on adulthood and employment and take advantage of all college has to offer them.

-Bernard A Coles IV

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