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While flipping through the pale red book of course descriptions that LUMS provides with a prospectus, I'd decided enough SS units to have been a double major. All sorts of Literature courses - courses I discovered wouldn't be offered for the longest time, if at all; all the Philosophy courses; some history, sociology looked interesting, and oh, can't miss political science. I even attended Intro to Philosophy with a lot of optimism, when I did manage to take it. That was until I realized that I was unwilling to share, or change, and that this, for me, wasn't the liberating exercise I'd imagined it to be, but rather an exercise in a lot of knowing and a little bit of analyzing. I realized that my mind was stuck somewhere halfway - deeply rooted to the philosophies that I adhered to, and at the same time unwilling to share the experiences that those philosophies had brought me. I couldn't be like the people who'd learnt the ideas (and names) for the first time - I'd dabbled already - and I couldn't be wise and assimilative because I truly, honestly, was not. I watched the course glide by me, watched something I'd looked forward to since my first week here just slip away, and I couldn't do anything. The one consolation is that I did some of the readings, and that some of the points-of-view were so far removed from my own, sometimes even irrelevant personally, if that's possible, that I could study them for academic interest alone. I think I might have spoiled the course with pre-meditated expectations, but that's not the whole story.

I shy away from more Philosophy courses, even though I'd love to take another shot. A smaller class would mean more discussion - our class was more insipid than any other before us, we were told - but I don't know if I could participate. I know I'm borrowing imagery here, but it's like an unborn, or half-born child whose umblical cord is held but not cut, that turns blue and bloated and soft and dies without being anything at all, with the slightest bit of regret and not much more.

Comments

psnob said…
heh, you should've taken contemporary philo...was MUCH better than intro.

and thank you for the compliments! :D i use a very recently acquired cannon g5. =D
3:14 PM
decaf said…
Really? I guess I might give it a try. But I'm not even sure if I've changed any, see? So no point in going for it unless I treat it in the spirit of philosophy :)

I had a suspicion that it was a Canon. Canon cameras just have these warm-toned images - specially those taken at night. G5, huh? Nice :D
9:05 PM
sports freak said…
knowing how much you like [to dabble in :P] philosophy . . you could try to do something about the mental block of not sharing . . maybe not the personal stuff, but definitely your opinions on the matters at hand :) After all, if you have to fill up your SS units might as well do something that you like :P
1:57 AM
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