Here I am, sitting in my first philosophy class, (if you don't count the one day of philosophy I took last year, which I dropped like a hot potato.) But starting anew this year, bright and early at eight a.m., I sit in the second row, second seat from the back, awaiting what I thought to be my philosophical death.
The professor walked in and had a classic, movie-moment entrance. The room was silent. He came striding in with his coffee and wrote his name vigorously on the chalkboard without saying a word.
Here I was, quivering in my non-existent boots, just thinking about the tower of odds that are stacked against me. 1) it's philosophy 2) it's at eight o'clock in the morning 3) I'm bad at philosophy 4) it's philosophy.
The clock struck eight and the prof started class with his exuberant and passionate being.
Intrigued and relieved.
Lady Wisdom
As the prof read Proverbs 8 for some philosophical food for us to chew on, many interesting thoughts were provoked.
The professor brought up many good points, asking us the ever-popular-first-day-of-philosophy-class question of "Why are we here?" "Why are you sitting in this class?"
I almost got whiplash from the sharp turn he took to somewhere else I was not expecting. He sped right past the neighborhood of "What's our purpose in life?"
He held up a dollar bill that he got from a random kid in class. "You all want this, right?" He proceeded to talk about how, with a bunch of those, you can trade them in for a laptop or car, etc. U.S. currency is pretty ugly, so why do we want it so badly? It's because we can get something out of it. We can use it to take classes and get a degree and get a job to get more laptops and cars. We can trade it in to gain something else we want.
*presses rewind button with stubby little finger*
So how does this apply to wisdom? Well, most people treat wisdom like we treat money. We always want to get something out of it. We always want to trade it in for something better. We don't want wisdom just for the sake of it. There's always an ulterior motive.
WHAT THE HECK, HUMANITY?!?!?!??
Just like you shouldn't love your spouse just because they are useful to you, you shouldn't love wisdom just because it's useful to you. You should love wisdom (and your spouse) for it's own sense. Love it just because. Don't love Lady Wisdom the way you love money.
Learn the things that you love for the sake of learning and expanding your brain capacity. Don't learn because it's to fulfill a core requirement or to cram for a test. The professor challenged us to take a class just for the heck of it, just to learn something that we love, without wanting to get something out of it on paper.
{It all comes full circle, now}
As I'm sitting there, thinking about how stressed I am about my anatomy class, I am now inspired. A once pre-med, and now a possibly-communications-but-still-undecided confused college student, I am reassured in my decision to take this anatomy class for fun. It doesn't fulfill any requirements or make any sense for me to take it but I love anatomy, so I figured I'd take a whack at it. Leaving the lab at nine p.m. the night before, I wasn't feeling so sure of my decision since it will entail much more brain power than I had originally thought.
But now, I feel relieved and excited to learn what I love, even though it won't fit in my major's direction. I'm excited about my decision to grow in my knowledge and wisdom just for the sake of it. Maybe you should do the same thing too.
