An Accidental Philosopher

I went to this school. One of three. I originally signed up for a degree in Business. Yes, business. Go figure. I am not cut out for business. At least not cut out for what they teach you in college... who teaches you how to kick ass and become your own boss? You either have this intangible quality or you don't. What is taught in school, in my opinion, is how to safely and securely climb the business ladder. How to secure your footing in the corporate world and become a profitable slave. It's a good position, but an unhappy position as well. It's the rat race everyone seems eager to join, but once they get on board, they find that it lacks lustre and that their lives suck. This sounds harsh, but think about it. How many people do you know that wake up every morning, and love what they do? Most will say, "My job's okay. It pays the bills. I get by. It's not really what I had hoped to do in my life..." There are even others who will say, "My job sucks but the money is awesome. I take vacations whenever I get the chance..." I've been there my friends. I hated being there. Never again. I am not wired to become someone's lemming. No one is. But how we compromise, how we sell ourselves short! Most of the time it's because we don't know what it is that we want. So let's pause, stop, and think. Check back in. Find yourself in your childhood dreams again. Figure things out. Work it out. Make the change. Or continue as usual, but with a renewed sense of purpose and energy. Love your life.

I love my life. If I make money I make it, if I don't, I don't. I know though, with what I have chosen for myself, I'll never lack for the basic necessities, and everything else has been a bonus. I think its because I know I can get by even when I cannot, that it keeps me keeping on. This is the real bonus. An unflagging spirit. My life is a bonus. And I sleep like a baby every night. How radical is that?

So, at this school, while I was still talking myself into enrolling in Business, I had signed up for a class online that I thought was Business Ethics. I had gotten the call number wrong and in my carelessness signed up for a class called The Philosophy of Love and Sexuality instead. I couldn't drop it, because it was too late by the time I caught the error. I bit it and took the class. It was an eye opening class. It was here in this room that I discovered a latent talent and love for esoteric philosophy. It was also where I fell in love with Socrates and another philosophy professor.

The first time I stepped into the philosophy department I knew that I could no longer consider a degree in business. Plus accounting was the DEVIL. It will be the one and only class I have ever found it impossible to find anything redeemable. No pun intended. When I walked in, there was no one there, but there were pictures, posters and such on each professor's door. The one I walked straight to and actually knocked on was the door which had a huge portrait of a Sufi hanging outside. It sent shivers down my spine. It was an amazing feeling. Previously, at William and Mary the professors were all getting off on Kant, Descartes, Hobbes, Rand, Berkeley, and the rest of the boring analytical gang. It was a Western thing. Moreso, it was a safe, rational, BORING thing. My experience at William and Mary helped cement my distaste for philosophy and the entire discipline within the "rational" Western domain.

But the school here with the giant Sufi painting and Love and Sexuality would break down any preconceptions I previously had. This department was on fire. We had radical thinkers from Harvard, SUNY, Yale, teaching classes on mysticism, esoteric erotica in religious scriptures, radical Nietzschean ideals, Hegelian dialectics, post modernism, and most especially, they offered classes on the notions from the East , like Sunyata, Nothingness, Buddhism, Sufism, Taoism... And not only were they teaching these amazing subjects, they were living their lives that way. I cannot begin to tell you the paintings, and other forms of art they were gifted in, half of them had already traveled to India on spiritual journeys, and on top of that, the majority of the department were vegetarians. Unbelievable to be part of these amazing human constructs. It was always such a happy place. And not tree hugger dirty hippie happy. But happy in the brilliant thought, eureka!, lightening ideas, deep love of life, happy. I was in my niche place. Up until then, I don't think I have felt as comfortable in any other academic environment.

Needless to say, I was deep awe of the professor that I would later meet who owned the Sufi painting. After meeting him for the first time, I was so blown away at having found someone outside of my family of like mind, that I signed up and took every class he offered, Space and Time, Philosophy of Sport, Chinese Philosophy, Japanese Philosophy, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Pleasure ... and that is how I became the accidental philosopher. It was never my intention. I discovered so much of myself in my few years there. He still has the doll I brought back to him when I went to New Orleans for the first time years ago. It is there today in his office bookshelf. Next to a book by Rumi. He told me he couldn't think of a better place to set it next to, and I wholly agreed.

Anyway, there went my business degree. I did learn how to play golf from the experience though. Golf is actually a super fun game to play. So all is not lost.

Here is a song I like: