I suppose I’m giving this up because it never did come out the way I meant it. : ) Perhaps it is that I do one day want to be able to teach philosophy, or be able to discuss it somewhere over coffee, which sounds a bit silly.
It is all because of those philosophy classes that started early in school. One particular teacher had told me that he’d be very disappointed if I did not pursue it at some point, but the same goes for the English teacher who wrote a letter trying to get me to write something, but not let ‘it’ (whatever that is) go to waste. I believe I’ve done that to the best of my ability as writing is clearly not my strong suit, but when I do get the chance to, I will drone on and on about bits that don’t much matter. So that ‘it’ was simply a tendency for detail, which simply goes to show that I prefer things that way! But as for philosophy, I’m much more interested and haven’t been able to delve into that much other than in books and movies.
So I suppose I kept thinking about that silly philosophy teacher at university… and how he had to put up with me through 3 courses. Lecture after lecture, discussion after discussion, and, of course, paper after paper! I’ve no creative mind for paper-writing. If asked to write my thoughts on something which I haven’t necessarily got thoughts on, I just think of the next closest thing that I can elaborate with for hours about that might just have a relating point. I did a paper on Antigone, that I can recall. The common thought was that she was a hero for sticking up for what she believed in, which is what the paper was to be about… Instead, I went off on a fairly long bit on why Antigone was both selfish and foolish, and not precisely a model for the way emotions influence the human mind. Perhaps the truth was that I coudln’t see Antigone as a hero, no matter how much I tried to get that reasoning. Going against those ideas was purely out of interest, but I was certainly risking a bit for not going by the professor’s guidelines. I also thought, “dare I question!” which, in my opinion, no teacher of philosophy of all topics should object to!
To be quite honest, I still don’t know a thing about philosophy. I have learned some things, and topics give me such great ideas in thought, but nothing more. In fact, I doubt I could ever lecture well, to even the smallest of groups. This is partially why a goal from a year ago does not make much sense to me. I have and always will be very shy!
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