Angel Existentialism

POSTED BY: Declan
UPDATED: Sunday, May 21, 2006 15:19
VIEWED: 7389
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STACIALY

Saturday, May 20, 2006 6:04 AM

I just stumbled onto this discussion after googling "Whedon existentialism." Maybe I haven't hit the web lately, but i've never heard anyone talk about the existentialism that I always saw in the Whedonverse.

If you are interested, a great person to read is Viktor Frankl. He's an existential psychologist. His basic premise is that man's basic urge is the will to meaning. Meaning is relative. We all find it in different ways, but the desire for it is the only thing we all have in common.

If you are interested in existentialism, he's the most readable.

Check out this video I made from all Buffy quotes with an existential theme. It's only an excerpt.
http://www.staciayeapanis.com/appropriatedtext.html

www.staciayeapanis.com

GROUNDED

Saturday, May 20, 2006 11:14 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Declan:
Dear Grounded:

Yes, this is the exact quote!

Yup. I did remember it, but I also did some Googling to make sure I didn't slip up ;) Typing in Angel Transcripts and then searching the episode text (in this case I searched for 'matters') tends to work fairly well.

DECLAN

Sunday, May 21, 2006 1:21 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
I take it as a bit of a paraphrasing of a quote variously attributed to Confucius, Ghandi, and even Oscar Wilde:

"Nothing that you do is very important, but it is very important that you do it."

You know, I'm still struggling with where I heard or read a variant of this or the Angel quote. At the time I said to myself, "Gorram thief, [Confucius, Ghandi, Wilde, _______] stole that line from Angel [and Joss Whedon]!"

I'm leaning toward an Ancient philospher saying something similar. Tom Wolfe in A MAN IN FULL got me interested in Epictetus and later Seneca. Epictetus is fascinating and easy to read in short bits. These Stoic's are nothing like what you learned about them in high school or very much like what the word "stoic" has come to mean in English.

Or, I may have heard the saying on the History Channel, of which I watch way too much.

If anyone has a reference to a similar quote by an actual person, I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks.

***************
"'Course, there are other schools of thought."

KWICKO

Sunday, May 21, 2006 3:07 AM

Here it is attributed to Mahatma Gandhi:

"What you do is of little significance, but it is very important that you do it."
- Mahatma Gandhi

That comes from this site:

http://www.democracy.ru/english/quotes.php

Now I'm not too sure how accurate a Russian website on democracy quotes in English is, but there's one source...

And here it is again, likewise attributed to Gandhi:

http://www.hdis.hc.edu.tw/html/famous_words.html

So it's starting to look most likely that it is indeed a quote from Gandhi...

A baby seal walks into a club...

DECLAN

Sunday, May 21, 2006 3:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Kwicko:
[So it's starting to look most likely that it is indeed a quote from Gandhi...

I Googled and yes, it does appear, that this particular quote is from Gandhi. However, not to disrespect Gandhi, I still think there was an earlier expression of this idea. I just can't find it. Is there a philospher in the house?

I'm mainly a Firefly fan and am pretty close to knowing the series dialog verbatim. Due to sheer volume of Angel and Buffy, I've only made my way through that universe one complete time with a couple of exceptions ("Once More with Feeling", "Smile Time", and "The Girl in Question"). I do plan another time... and this time in the correct order.

I did watch "Epiphany" again last night and was surprised that I had forgotten how dark and intense some of the Angel episodes were.

***************
"'Course, there are other schools of thought."

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