Heather Mauch
Philosophy 1
Fairweather
1 July 2007

Module 1 Short Essay
“How little do we know that which we are! How less what we may be!” (Lord Byron)
After reading the first chapters of Robert Nozick’s The Examined Life, it is harder for me than I thought to begin writing this essay. It’s strange how I must delve deeper than I already thought possible into my thoughts in order to pull out the strands and match them to each other in order to make complete (or nearly) thoughts. I suppose then, this would lead me to conclude that I do not know many things, and in turn do not know my self as well as I should like to. This I have been aware of for quite some time. It seems to me that Nozick’s mission in his book is to help us to examine our own lives, as he has done his, so that hopefully we will not have to suffer through as much confusion in the world as we would have to otherwise.
In the introduction, Nozick mentions that our lives are not like theories, but more like pictures. Not just any picture, in fact, such as a photograph, but a painting – a portrait that we create of ourselves over time rather than in a single instant. It is through this process of longevity that our paintings become far more accurate and eternal than any flash photography could ever be; we can incorporate not only what is seen in a single moment, but what is observed over thousands of them, as well as things that we say, hear, do, feel, and anything else that comes along with being a human being. In this manner, the Self in the painting is not only more accurate, but also a deeper representation of who we are; we are more real when we can paint our own portraits and be satisfied with the end results – when we can more truly know ourselves.
The twelfth chapter is devoted to the idea of being more real, which could be confusing to most people. It makes sense, however, with some thought. Nozick says that we are all “real,” yet at varying levels. This is where mathematics is brought into the equation in order to measure the realness of a person, using curves and graphs. This part I believe to be a bit trivial and insignificant, perhaps because it brings premature thoughts into some sort of physical form on paper. But then again, math is also only a series of abstractions of thoughts. In any case, this chapter stirred up more thoughts for me and seemed to be of a slightly more intense subject. Nozick says that “the self is constituted by its processes of change” (pg. 128) which implies that we are beings meant for changes, which we in turn choose and bring about. There are, of course, going to be outside influences, but they do not have to change the Self necessarily. Parts of this chapter I still am trying to understand, like how some people can be more real than others yet that this fact does not matter. Celebrities and famous characters from books are the most real to us because they embody the sharpest of details in human nature. There are no fuzzy lines or ambiguities; for the most part a character in a novel is what they say they are and does what they set out to do. This, as I understand it, is because these people are in focus, vivid, and therefore beautiful.
I found that the two chapters were unified largely in part by the aspect of the portrait. In chapter one, the portrait itself is emphasized, and in chapter twelve the focus and detail of the portrait is emphasized. The sharper and brighter we are ourselves, the more real we become. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we cannot make mistakes or change our minds, for that is what we are meant to do so we do not become mechanical beings. Instead, it means that we are to choose our choices and then go after them with all that we have. Every brush stroke must be made with confidence, but not too much. I’m not even sure what all of this means yet, to me, because I am only receiving this information from another source and not finding it on my own, completely. There are parts that were made more clear through my relating it back to past experiences, but that was only a few. And this is why self-examination and reflection is so important; we cannot learn fully what we are told by others. To become more real, we must do these actions, good or bad, ourselves and then go farther on from there. It sounds silly, doesn’t it? Doing things that we know we are not meant to do. But I believe this is important and necessary. We act, reflect, learn, and live. If we were to do things blindly or miss any of the steps in between, then we would not be as real as someone who understood their own actions. As now I have nothing else left to say, I will end with a quote: "I, also, would like to look and smile, sit and walk like that, so free, so worthy, so restrained, so candid, so childlike and mysterious. A man only looks and walks like that when he has conquered his Self. I also will conquer my Self." (Siddhartha)