A stupid question, granted. But after toiling through tonight's homework I came to the realization that the entire purpose of my life is based on knowledge and the love thereof. I've always had hints of this throughout my college career (it certainly didn't manifest itself during high school). I will use this post to describe those hints, leaving you with a notion of where I am now in my "Art of Living" as related to meaning in my life.
Flashback: freshman year, 2001. I am a small fish in a very large, and very Caucasian pond. I knew that I was here to learn "stuff": facts from a textbook, places on a map, and the way of the number. In 2001, I was under the false impression that I was a film student. I thought that I could make a living by filming various real-life situations and make money from it. To be a documentary filmmaker was my dream for at least a year before I came to college. After four semesters of basic studies and a few film classes, I realized that not only did I not want to make films, but that I would probably be really bad at it even if I did. This, coupled with my general disappointment of the film program at UNCW, naturally led me to the field of anthropology. It's not as an extreme jump as it sounds: instead of simply filming society and culture I decided that I wanted to study it from a social scientific perspective. My camera would me my own eyes and my film will eventually be the pages of Nature magazine or National Geographic. Overly optimistic? Perhaps, but to not have lofty goals is to do mediocre work. But I digress.
Now, in 2005, I consider myself a devoted student of anthropology, or the study of humans. How I was led to such a field I do not know, but I can speculate that a large part of it has to do with my father, whom I still have vivid memories of (some from the past weeks) coming home from the library with the widest assortment of books that one could imagine. On any given night you could catch my father reading about the Civil War and the very next afternoon at the dinner table he would mention a book he picked up about the pencil (I kid you not, there is a book called "The Pencil"). Why in the world would I remember something like this? Because it was the environment in which I grew up and it has everything to do with the way I am now. I was raised by my father to love knowledge. Although I never sat on his knee while he described the beauty and power of the written word, I can easily imagine such a scenario should my life be adopted as a Broadway musical. Not only did I inherit from my father a penchant for late-night reading over a bowl of cold cereal, but I gained an understanding of life that can only come from experience. It is one thing to read a book about pencils, but it is a decidedly astronomical feat when you can read a book about pencils and have that serve as a milestone in your son's life, a realization as it were. That realization came several years later, but the mere fact that a book can be written about the history of the pencil and its historical implications is motivation for me to gain as much knowledge as possible about anything and everything. Knowledge is more than what is written in books. If I knew every word in an anthropology textbook, I have learned nothing more than the order of abstract symbols (letters). If I apply what I read to real life situations and try to gain some sort of understanding about what makes humans human and how this can be applied to today's world, then I have learned something.
How does this relate back to my Art of Living? My purpose in life is not to waste it believing in an entity that I cannot experience or observe. Some people are able to and this is where they find meaning. With this I have no reason to argue or criticize. On a personal level, as the Christian reads the Bible to find meaning in the world, I read the Bible to investigate what it can tell us about past cultures, and why people think the way they do. Likewise, I read history books not only because they interest me, but because I firmly believe that knowledge of the past can only benefit me in the future, both in a materialistic sense andon a deeply personal level.
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2 comments:
I don't have a blogger account, and not enough time or motivation to set one up, so I'll post anon but say this is Tommy from class (might know me, might not, but just to identify myself... whatamitalkingabout.motime.com).
I think the main thing that stuck out in your post is a combination of your desire to learn and the quote "but to not have lofty goals is to do mediocre work." I find myself to be the complete opposite, in some respects, so I guess I'll question your motives ;)
I would imagine that realizing your dad read such things as "the pencil," which from your description, sounds like a lot of stuff you'd never need to know, but it would be interesting to learn, lends to your desire to learn. That's great, and I think everyone should learn, or not learn, to whatever extent they want (as long as it doesn't adversely affect other people of course). But when you tie together your love for knowledge to something like God, which just begs for exploration, I tend to be a bit confused at your stance.
My own stance on God, religion, christianity, etc, stems from the idea that I think any current conception are of God, or, a creator of sorts, is doomed to be wrong through the influence of our own ideals. Sure, we can't experience God the same way we can experience the tree outside, but, as any good christian would say, that doesn't mean He doesn't exist. This is just about the only argument I tend to like from christians, as it's logically coherent and whatnot, and it's true - God might exist, or He might not, but either way, there's no way to know based on the fact that you can't see him.
I find myself to be the lazy type. I want to learn what interests me, and nothing else. This might be a bad way of life, or it might not - no one knows, but everyone will have an opinion on it. The point is, even with my laid back view on knowledge and "intelligence," I find the problem of whether God exists or not to be so completely filled with valuable information, even beyond history and culture, that it begs to be explored. Sure, you don't have to waste your time believing in something you cannot see, hear, touch... but if you truly want to seek out the most imtimate of knowledge, I think that's something you'll want to look at more deeply. Applying your knowledge is a great way to use it, but aquiring it in the first place, no matter what it may be about, is even greater.
That is to say, there may not be many situations where you could use knowledge of God in your daily life, but having that as a background of sorts for other knowledge would be invaluable. You might want to step back and believe for a moment that God exists, analyze your own thoughts, and take them from there. Or if you're already a believer, step back and think the opposite - there is no God, when we die, we're dead, and that's that, etc. I think you might be putting too much faith in knowledge of the "real" and not enough in knowledge of the "could be" real.
But that's just my opinion, cause I'm just someone who likes to question things that really have no true significance in day to day life =P
GOD. That's a mighty big concept and everyone seems to have their own opinion on the subject and that makes it absolutely fantastic for study! I gave up the "Is there a God?" question a long time ago because it seemed unimportant to me. It does not matter to me one way or another if there is or isnt God because there are so many opinions as to the nature of the "real" God out there I will never get bored going over them. As you well know, the real beauty ( I hope I may speak of beauty without defining it)of the God question is what it tells up about humans and the way we conceive of ourselves in the universe.
Although i tend to be rather lazy as far as school work is concerned, whenever I get my teeth into something that really fires me up to lean I just can't get enough and "God" is one of those things. My interest in the religions of the world can almost be described as a kind of voyerism as i never cease to be thrilled and entertained by the radical and frequently contradictory concepts of God conjured up by my fellow humans. the more i learn about religion, the further away God becomes, but the clearer the hopes, fears and dreams of mankind become. Knowledge of all events, inventions, and ideas in history are valuable in and of themselves and because they accumualte a piece at a time to tell us things about ourselves as a species.
john b. fellow lower of anthropology and knowledge
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