Apologia Pro Vita Sua: A Personal Essay

ap·o·lo·gi·a ( p -l j - , -j ). n. A formal defense or justification.

1. an apology, as in defense or justification of a belief, idea, etc. 
2. Literature. a work written as an explanation or justification of one's motives, .. 

After carefully considering your assigned reading in Constructing a Life Philosophy, our studied understanding of the Big 8 Social Identifiers, your reflective reading of Man’s Search for Meaning and The City and the Stars; your reflective viewing of “Gattaca,” spend the next few days writing a literate and detailed apologia pro vita sua. Just as you were directed for the “survival” essay associated with Man’s Search for Meaning, establish the personal significance of your apologia in the first one or two paragraphs, and then build on the themes and ideas you establish in those paragraphs to explicate the motivations and beliefs that provide meaning to your life at this stage in your life. (A review of the table of contents from Constructing a Life Philosophy should help direct your thoughts and detail your essay. Go back over what you wrote or said in some of your other class assignments, too.) As always, I would encourage you to spend time in “hevruta” with one another over just how you might attack this essay.

Just to make sure you are clear, your compositional skills and clarity of thought are critical to your grade.

Pre-write the essay or outline it, with the understanding that you must reproduce it in its final form during our final formal class next Tuesday morning. Though your take-home test may be turned in after Tuesday’s class, this essay must be completed on time and by the end of Tuesday’s class without exception. I look forward to reading your apologiae.

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When I mentioned above that you should “A review of the table of contents from Constructing a Life Philosophy should help direct your thoughts and detail your essay.” Consider that suggestion this way:

• Paragraphs 1 and/or 2 = The importance of developing this explication and explanation of your personal code of living. What are the core values that you believe you live by or strive to live by.
• Central paragraphs of the essay = addressing systematically the core values you have stated in the previous introductory paragraphs in terms of how these core values provide meaning and significance to your experience of living. 

a. Is this sense of meaning related more to some system of philosophical or theological ideals that resonate within you as a result of your reading or thinking in this class? Is this sense of meaning related more to your understanding of where you fit within the systematic development of humanity as science teaches it? Is this sense of meaning more related to a combination of these perspectives.

b. Identify the religious tradition (or lack thereof) that you were raised in and how you have either independently embraced that tradition in part or whole, or how you have moved into a more independent system of beliefs. How?

c. How do you perceive that your core values and the meaning that you have derived from them effect your moral behavior. In fact, what becomes moral behavior, given those core values.

• Project, finally, how you can apply this “apologia pro vita sua” to your interactions with institutions and communities that will be new to you in the coming year, e.g. how might it guide you to choose new friends, new activities, navigate personal and social challenges? How can this strengthen, validate and underscore your individuality?

Good luck!

Mr. West