Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Life of Semantics

University is a brilliant way to further one's education. That said, it is in intimate interactions that the true education occurs. That may necessarily include conversations with your professor or instructor, but depending on the forum, it may not. For me, it comes down to the front lines: Students.

We are the ones who stay up burning away the midnight oil and we are the ones who are your future. Can you handle that? Here is a small insight into the mind of a university student. Here you go, and may you enjoy.

Identifying a university student is not as simple as one might think. We are chameleon's at times, one day wearing ripped jeans and a wrinkled shirt, another day we may be perfectly styled in today's "acceptable" image, and at others we may be in business attire.

But, if we have anything in common, and in this thought I attribute only to the studious person, it is in the fact that we look hurried. Our eyes are absorbing everyday scenario's and applying classroom lectures to mainstream situations. We move with a crisp saunter, habitually check our celluar phones for calls to arrange group meetings, and are seemingly forever behind in our course work no matter how diligent we may be.

School. Work. Study. Books. Papers. Assignments. Analysis. Application. Social life. Booze. Parties. Sometimes sleep. And not necessarily always in that order.

To be honest, I love the life of a university student; I truly, truly love it. Creation of theories, application of ideas, and moral development of well-tested phenomena. It is in that gap between theory, definition, and explanation that magic occurs.

Learning, my friends, learning is what it all comes down to. Stretching intellectual thought past boundaries of impassable depth; destroy, create, and rebuild that ideology of old and surpass the new.

Marxism. Republic of Plato. Fundamental Questions of Philosophy. Virtue Ethics. Media influence on public opinion...and the list could continue on into the wee hours of the morning. Ironically, it is in the wee hours of the morning that students are awake and hurrying to meet deadline.

Which brings me to the topic of next week's posting: The Art of Procrastination.

But, for now, if you have the time and if you are not happy with your direction in life, then why not look into a higher education? Why not learn new ideas, why not learn new theories of the past, present, and future? You will never be bored, and yes, you may pull your hair out at times, but the opportunities to grow as a person are endless.

Go on. Take a walk to your local University and pick up an academic calendar. See the wide array of choices and see that maybe, just maybe, you find your eyes widening at what life has to offer.

Learn Spanish, learn French, learn German. Taste the exquisite beauty of coming to terms with time constraints and seeing you can do whatever the hell it is you want to do. See that we all have a limitless capacity for knowledge and that one step in the right direction can be a simple step in bridging the gap between knowledge and wisdom.

And we all know that wisdom is the ability to see knowledge as experiences that open up in an entirely new light. Go ahead. Take the plunge. You might just find you are falling into some of the best years of your life. Until we meet again, my friends, until we meet again.

"The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done; men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept everything they are offered." - Jean Piaget