Seminar Reflection

Our seminar today I personally thought it went very well. I enjoyed talking to my classmates in depth on topics we are learning about in class. During this seminar, we discussed the deeper meanings on the topics we learned about class. Also we usually connected the meaning to current events even though sometimes we connected to current events a bit too much to the point where we got a bit off topic. Sometimes the topic was a bit one sided and I wanted to put more input in the conversation but couldn’t because it will lower my grade if I dominated the conversation.

The question that we discussed about was how does Tao Te Ching’s ideas relate to our lives and the world around us? One of his ideas was “The world is ruled by letting thing s take their course. It cannot be ruled by interfering.” I agree with this because wild fires, floods, volcanoes, earthquakes, and hurricanes are a part of what keeps this planet healthy and we shouldn’t get in the way of these things. I explained how people especially people in North America should build cities and homes in reasonable places were they won’t get in the way of nature’s way. Cities such as London, New York City and Paris are good examples of cities built in good places where they won’t need to worry about such natural disasters. However, cities such as San Francisco and New Orleans are examples of cities built in poor areas to build due to natural disasters will destroy the cities year after year.

Another quote he said was, “Knowing ignorance is strength. Ignoring knowledge is sickness.” He is saying that we should learn from our mistakes from the past so that we can make the world a better place in the future. Good example people doing the complete opposite of his philosophy what is happening in Iran when the president of the country who has now been building nuclear weapons, threatened “wipe Israel off the map” due to his anti-Semitic feelings thus repeating the painful mistakes of the Holocaust in WWII.

I really enjoyed the discussion that we had about this topic. I was interesting hearing other people’s opinions, thoughts, ideas, and questions about this topic. I really hope we do another seminar reflection because it was fascinating and entertaining.