What I learned from PHI 3310!

Holy hell, what I learned could hardly be fully explained with words. But I'm going to try. (DISCLAIMER: I'm not sucking up. Something tells me Dr. Bowery would ignore any brown-nosing, so I'll skip that crap and go right to real human expression.)

This is the only philosophy class I've ever or will ever take (sadly). I knew when I signed up that it would be a difficult class, but it was not challenging in the way I expected it to be. I mean, come on guys, admit it - this is not the most academically challenging class we're going to take here at Baylor. No, the only pain I felt was the severance of my umbilical cord - the one that provided me nourishment from the repulsively-nihilistic-Black-Eyed-Peas-college-party-world I so rarely notice I'm stuck in. Whether it was reflecting on my own in the journal, or discussing in class, I always felt like I was gravitating closer and closer to wisdom, a feeling which "I Gotta Feeling" does not normally facilitate. I'd leave class in such a contemplative mood, certainly something like the one Aristotle suggests. So did this class actually bring me closer to happiness? Yes, it did. Here's why.

As much as I loved talking, I loved listening more. So much of what you all said stayed with me and stays with me still. I liked the way Jennifer always commented, "This reminds me of something I just read/saw/heard," constantly reminding me that philosophy matters outside the classroom. I liked overhearing (not that it was difficult to overhear) Alan and Ray face off toward the end of the semester. I liked trying my best to decipher what the hell Shayan or Sterling had just asked. I liked that we're from all different backgrounds, from all over the place, and that we were actually teaching each other about much more than just philosophy. And I liked so much more.

I believed philosophers were terrible people. Watching Dr. Bowery answer my questions changed my mind. Even before I ask them, I sometimes think my questions are ridiculously, record-breakingly idiotic - but no one in the class laughed when I asked if Plato thought animals couldn't think about "the good." I will miss that respectful silence.

On the blog/pizza day, Sterling explained so much to me, in what he said and in what he didn't say, when we discussed the difficulties of switching from military life to an intellectual life. I learned more from that ten minutes than from any other ten minutes this entire semester - not just about war, not just about soldiers, not even just about Sterling, but about people, about life, about myself. It was a moment of condensed understanding I won't soon forget.

As I think I mentioned in another blog, this semester was supposed to be the one that told me why in the hell I should stay at Baylor. I was fully convinced it was not for me, and I was not coming back. I think if any class influenced my decision to stay, it was this one. I loved the different perspectives, the kindness, the subtleties, and not-so-subtleties (Ray, anyone?), the constant mutual struggle for an understanding in such a confusing world - these are all candied-up ways of saying I was and still am unable to describe how impressed and influenced I have been by you people. You made me believe in Baylor again, believe it or not. Dr. Bowery, Nathan, classmates: thank you for an awesome, memorable semester.