Being is. Being is in-itself. Being is what it is.

So said my friend the philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre.

This man also said that freedom is what we do with what has been done to us. I think this applies to me, to us: though some of us may have been born with morbid obsessions, uncontrollable hatred for the body and in painful solitude, all of which was out of our control, we are free to do what we want with what we have become. We are not determined by our past, by our genetic heritage, by our upbringing or by others' expectations: we are determined by our choices and our actions, presently.

Of course it isn't all that simple, or we wouldn't be here. Our minds are prey to constant conflicts of interest, so much so that making consistent decisions- or making any at all- is quite a difficult task and often deemed impossible. Are we rational? Can we be free and irrational? Are we prisoners of our innate inability to reason?

Are we prisoners of society? Of our family, our friends, the people we love, respect and admire? Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in his play Huis Clos that Hell is other people. Without others, there is no right and wrong, no morality: one could even argue that there is no consciousness. However, the people who surround us pass constant judgment on who we are and what we do: since morality and the values promoted by society do not always go hand in hand, the people who surround us can sometimes alter our development as healthy, happy individuals. They can imprison us in their expectations; their weapons of choice are our emotional attachment, our ideals, gratitude and guilt; our executioner, disappointment and the subsequent sense of failure.

Sorry for all the philosophical nonsense: this consists of my humble views on life and achievements, clumsily supported by a few well-thought out quotes by my existentalist friend. I encourage you to learn more about Jean-Paul Sartre, he is an absolute genius. At any rate, I will try to spare you in the future, promise. Unless you somehow enjoyed this, or if it was in any way thought-provoking.

My exam session is over. I am done. In more ways than one. All the exhaustion from the past session is starting to catch up to me: I am off to some well-deserved rest. More of the usual strangeness to come, of course.

I love you all. Take care, please!