02.03.2002 11:53 pm
saturday morning.

surprisingly, i arrived punctually at my philosophy class...

don ciraulo is the best teacher i have ever had. he is an older italian (sicilian) man who rants and raves with passion and vigor about the ills of modern soceity and the brilliance of the great thinkers as he deftly passes on their wisdom... and I LOVE IT! i love it SO much that this is my second semester of getting up early on a saturday morning (ouch) and i don't even enroll in the classes for credit because i don't need it. my brain gets filled until i think it will surely explode. there is soooooooo much to be learned in the subject of philosophy and i always feel very purposeful in studying it... it truly encompasses everything.

mr. c is also an accomplished jazz musician - a guitarist who played gigs for over 20 years while he taught part-time... so he also includes wonderful anecdotes and uses music in some of his analogies, much to my delight...

among many other things, mr. c talked yesterday about the importance of getting out of one's head, explaining how all major religions and philosophers have repeated in one way or another that true happiness lies in 'losing yourself in the greater self' - in the transcendental, larger self. he said that when students come to him complaining of personal problems, he usually just tells them, "go out and help others - volunteer! study art! learn music!"... to which i grinned as i thought 'well check, check, and check! - that's me!' i realized that i have sought happiness through doing these and found it when engaged in them... in fact, most things i do seem to have that outward, expansive intent and i shall hold that focus even more now...

when i take notes in philosophy, my notebook pages become quickly covered in both the teacher's words and my own emergent thoughts as i exitedly race to keep up with both. i don't think i've ever taken so many notes as i have in philosophy class. example, a page i scanned in... kind of what my brain would look like - a vibrant little mess of ideas, mostly unorganized:

<< priori - posteriori >>