Seananigans

I want you to know that I love you.

But besides that, I've been posting very sporadically, but I hope to amend that soon. I have a lot of ideas I wish to write down. They've just been formulating in my head. Stay tuned.

What are we doing here? I think this is an important question to ask ourselves. We (I) tend to forget that college is only going to be a few years of my life, but then I have many, many more years ahead of me. Something Paul "the wheat" Wheatley told me is that this time now should be for building a foundation. A foundation for our later years. It's hard to think that far ahead sometimes. College is much like a dream world. Full of people, and learning, and ideas, and friends, and temptations, and much of it is spent making mistakes and for trying to discover who we are.

If you are like myself, and many of you may not be, then you came into college without a idea of what you wanted to do. So you take the core curriculum and you discover some areas that you have interests in. You dabble a little here and there, and something sticks out to you. English or Psychology or Music. You have a place to go from.

I am learning that we are not here to learn and try to pass tests to get to the next class and eventually get a job. School is just a vessel for building a foundation for later in life.

But i have to goto a meeting.. more on this later.

It's weird. I'm taking this philosophy course--Modern Philosophy after 1600--and it is very interesting to see what all of these philosophers were doing. ALL of them were trying to get to the beginning of what knowledge is. To try and find some kind of base with which to work with, or an understanding of the basic principles of life. And how they do this is to reject everything they have learned (pretty much) and start over. Skeptics.

It's safe to say we have all learned false or incorrect things throughout our life. Not everything we learned in public highschool was correct and not everything we learn in college now is correct. A lot our beliefs/outlook/general thinking comes from our experiences in the past and from our parents. Whether that be positive or negative. And I'm sure no one here has had a totally beautiful past.

So it is safe to say that we hold some, if not many, incorrect beliefs. And my thoughts are much like what these philosphers are going through. Where do I start? We have to have a clear picture of where we are going-much like a carpenter has a blueprint before he builds-to move forward.. except I have no picture..

Do we have a good understanding of what goes on around us?

Time - the ebb and flow of life... the organization we make of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years and so on. We have a lot of time. We are young. I am 20. I have a lot of time. I have a lot of time to figure out what I want to do with my life. Why do we often feel so pressured to think we need to figure things out? Talking with a friend, we discussed that maybe we should take one thing that we want to improve and work on it, rather than being dissappointed in the fact that we have a lot of things we try to juggle and wish we were better at. But if you think about it, wouldn't it make more sense to take just one thing and get really good at it, then move on to the next.

School - We are very fortunate to be getting an education right now. Right now we are building a foundation for later things in life. We are learning about who we are. We are learning about relationships. We are learning how to build a base for later things in life. We are learning ideas, we are learning principles, we are getting a grasp of the world around us. We should always be learning and challenging the way things are around us. If we have an incorrect way of seeing/viewing things, Change.

I have motivation problems and setting clear goals in the area of school, but the universal law of you reap what you sow is the x-factor. Studying with a friend from one of my Honors courses today really showed me how to look into things, to really do independant research to broaden your knowledge, and write down the different ideas. Brainstorm and seek different possible solutions. Listen to what people say, not just their image that they project. Try to figure out who the person is, not just the idea you have of him or her. Listen. Especially in politics where people use flashy rhetoric and tell you what you want to her. Be engaged, attend book readings, talk with people, question ideas.

Along with time, comes time outside of school. Time with friends. Time with family. Time alone. Time bored. Time with sports. Time with extracurricular activities. Time at work. Time talking with people. Time reading. Time thinking.

I go to go for now. Time I have to spend reading and studying to get an education and learn about this world and what goes on in it.

I've noticed I ask a lot of questions, but I have very little answers. Maybe this is a good thing. I wouldn't say that I am a very opinionated person, (I do have opinions), but I think I have realized that opinions should never get in the way of the more important things.

Often, I think, our opinions are ill-formed and then we base alot of our understanding of things/ideas/whatever on these ill-concieved formations of opinion. That's a tough one to tackle, but it's true. I have to admit my ignorance on a lot of things because I just don't know.. I've noticed in most of my classes, I really don't know a lot about the subjects at hand. I used to pretend I knew, or would like to have thought that I knew, but it was more of me taking other people's word for things. Or hearing other people's banter and taking it as my own idea.

This is why I probably have a huge draw towards philosophy because I never really thought on my own.

Yea, it sounds kind of sad, but coming from Highschool, thinking wasn't really required. I could get by just fine without forming any of my own ideas. And that is were I stood in a lot of ways. Having badly concieved opinions stemming from my friends and family and peers.

And a shame it is. One of the things that Plato stresses is an individual's thinking for himself. This is extremely important. Not to just take other people's word for it. Not to take your professors word, or your pastors word, or your parents word. But to really toss it around in your
head and apply reason to it. Apply Biblical truth towards it. Apply your own understanding and test it against other things experience, etc, etc.

“How can we remember our ignorance which our growth requires, when we are using our knowledge all the time?” Henry David Thoreau

I haven't updated this thing in awhile. I think i've attempted to write a new post a few times, but then stopped.

I wish, sometimes, that words could really express how I feel. Often I write, and look down at what I just typed and think, "this doesn't represent my own thoughts". I often feel stuck in my thoughts, unable to really express what it is I am trying to say.

I am not writing for anyone reading this. I am not curtailing my message so that others are pleased. I want to write whats on my mind. Fortunately, or unfortunately, this is a public "journal" so what goes on here is read. I wish I could write transparently, but I do care what others think. I do fear judgement.

I've been forced to think, rethink, examine, look around at- what I am doing on numerous occassions this semester.

Who knew how much you'd be forced to think taking Philosophy courses. So much so that I am challenging all preconcieved notions. I feel like I wish I knew "how" to think. What to think. My thoughts are often all over the place that who knows what will bind them.

I keep getting the idea that I need some deep central truth underlying all the other stuff I am reading. I think this is where the Bible comes in. There does need to be a lens under which the rest of the things I do are looked at and examined. The Bible would say this lens should be Love. We often don't see things as the way they are, we see them as the way WE are. You can look at a situation differently based on how you feel at the present moment. Isn't that wierd.

Scientists say that we can never really know what a molecule looks like because as soon as it is looked at by someone it changes.