My sophomore year, looking back, was the result of a bit of a spiritual breakdown of sorts. I went away (not far) to school, found myself miserable a lot of times, and at the end of the year, decided I wasn’t going to return to school. I was seriously considering the Air Force, but didn’t follow through on that. Instead, I signed up for classes at the local community college.
It was a low point for me, because I had initially looked down on community college when I was in high school. But it was available and cheap, and it introduced me to two teachers I still remember to this day. More importantly, they introduced me to writers like Kant, Hegel, Sartre, and Heidegger, and the bigger questions that they had talked about.
I’ve been trying to get back to those philosophers, and reconsider what I was obsessed with when I was younger. I wasn’t a philosophy major (couldn’t face telling my parents that if I even wanted to try going that route), but read a ton in my spare time, and took classes in psychology that fit in when I could. Years of perspective has brought a lot to these thinkers as I go back through them.
A lot of what fascinates me is stuff that other people write off. Metaphysics, ontology, Big Question stuff like “Who are we?” and “Why are we here?” that is considered non-rigorous “liberal arts” BS. And maybe it is! That’s the path I’ll be exploring here for a bit, though I can’t promise there won’t be any diversions. For now, I’ll leave you with the subject of my next post: The Most Controversial Statement in My College Career.
