Thursday, April 11, 2013

STOP and Reflect: How Has Philosophy Changed My Life?


It’s about halfway through the semester, so I’ve been studying philosophy for awhile.  The question is, has this study really changed me at all?   What’s been different since I started studying philosophy? 

First of all, there’s the learning aspect in general.  I’ve learned a lot about history and even things about science and religion.  One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that everything is more or less connected to philosophy.  Learning that has helped shape the way I think.  I’ve begun to connect different subject s and ideas together instead of everything being so defined.  There’s a lot of overlap, and sometimes I feel like it’s easier to learn things when you can approach it from many different angles, so approaching the same idea through many different subjects has actually improved the way I learn things.

Not only that, but the way I think has changed.  I’ve always had a mind that went a million miles a minute.   Trust me, my brain does not like to shut up.  But it used to be about trivial things like the next biology test or what I was going to eat when I got home from school.

 Now I find myself struck with random thoughts about life, and about the future.  I’ve been writing a lot more too.  I feel like I suddenly have all these thoughts in my head, and if I don’t find a way to get them out, to put them somewhere outside my mind, I’ll just explode. 

I’ve always loved writing, needed it even, but now it’s as if I can’t live without it.  I can’t survive simply going through the motions anymore.   I have ideas, and a desperate need to explore them.  It’s like something has awakened inside me… a curiosity,  a thirst for adventure and creativity, a hunger to do more with my life than just live the same routine I’ve been following for months.  I almost feel like everything about my life has suddenly been magnified in me.  I feel things more strongly than I used to, allowing myself to open up to vulnerability.

 It’s like all the walls I’ve built around myself to protect from pain, from yearning for more, or for dreaming too big are knocked down.  It’s not an obvious change.  It’s not anything that anyone could really notice, but it’s there.   It’s like there’s some part of me trying to break out of my body.  I’m stir crazy and frankly bored with this life and all the things that used to be so important.  It’s terrifying and riveting all at the same time.  It’s like reading about these big ideas has made my life feel smaller somehow, and I yearn for growth, for a way to break out of this box that I might have built around myself.  There has to be more out there, right?

 Philosophy has shown me that there’s just so much that we don’t know.  How can we sit here and live our happy little lives not searching for the truth?  Not asking questions and really opening ourselves up to answers?  I don’t want to be a shadow of a life.  I want to explore and dream and learn beyond the walls of school.  I don’t even know what I want.  I just know I’m searching for more than this.   

Learning about philosophy has been a crazy ride, and it surely isn’t over.  But it hasn’t been easy.  In a way, I’m completely rethinking the way I live and the way I see things.  Part of me is scared of the change.  What if this yearning is a bad thing and I’m losing part of myself?  But what if what I gain is worth more than I lose?  It’s like giving your heart to God.  You feel as if you’re losing control, but you know it’s worth it.   That’s how I feel.  I’m losing control.  I just pray to God it’s worth it.

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