22 Oct 2004
Time: 18:31
Mood: Cheerfully tired, tiredly cheerful.
I hope I didn't jinx myself with today's blog title. Titles are just lame things one must put in order to satisfy the form-filling format of blogging. And I don't like wasting brain cells thinking of titles of something as ordinary as today's blog.
I'm just ranting.
Erm, let's see. Between the last blog and this one, I've finally finished reading Sophie's World, a novel about the history of philosophy. I actually bought it almost a year ago, read part of it and put it aside and forgot entirely about it. I picked it up and begun again during the semester break. Yes, yes I know you've heard of it, I know you've read it. I bought it because I love philosophical rants, not the entire history of it. T'was a really difficult book to read, especially the first half, where Sophie's philosophy teacher spoke of the first philosophers like *insert name here*. Then he went on to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Still quite boring. Middle ages bought forth St Augustine and Rene Descartes. Spinoza. Kant. Names that now, one week later, brought little meaning to me. BUT, when he came to Darwinian theory, it was interesting, the story of evolution. Wow, we're here because we survived. We evoluted. We were relics of some ancient animal that stood through the test of time. It is a great thought.
But when he came to Freud and psychoanalysis, it became really interesting. So what we do and say and saw became subconscious, huh? There's Marx and his communism ideals. But it was the end chapter that was the most breath taking. It talked about the universe, how our Earth is just another planet rotating our sun, which is just one of the stars at the edge of Milky Way, our galaxy. How far one light-minute truly is, much less one light year. How, as you sit in front of your computer screen, enclosed in a small room, incredibly huge, incredibly, incredibly undescribably massive our universe really truly is. How that when we see the lights from stars, we're really looking back in time, for light take time to travel to our eyes. We'll always be looking back to history before us when we see the stars at night. How most people will never fathom that we too are stardust, brought forth through the Big Bang, shaped from nature of chemical accidents and went through evolution and became who we are today.
The book reminded me how the only certain thing in life is death. That how little we, as individuals will matter in 40 years, 400 years, yet if we left part of ourselves behind in our children and in what we did on earth, 'we' will be preserved for another few hundred years, at least till your lineage ends. No matter how much we fight, how rich or poor or if you're a nobody and I'm a somebody, the end for each and every of us will be the same. No matter how much we change the world, what impact we do to the face of the earth, our solar system, our galaxy and the universe is the same. It'll always be the same. We're just such a small, small speck in a true sense. We're just part of existence. Weird how some philosophers also believe in God, how some believe God is great in creating Earth is we know it today and then there's some who believe God is truly incredible in creating existence and let nature take its course. Because what he shaped then change into today without Him moulding intentionally, that is the greatness of God.
There's an opinion as well, that we might not exist. We're just an everlasting thought in the mind of a greater Person. God. No matter how independant and how individual we are, how complex and how incomprehensible life is, we're just a product of a Someone's idle mind.
Philosophy is great. I'm hungry for more. I truly am. Again, too bad no one can major in Philosophy in any universities in this country. We're just too technologically and scientifically inclined. I don't blame the education system...yet. We're chasing after one man's dream towards being a developed nation. We NEED people with IT skills, engineers, doctors. We need them. Social science and stuff like philosophy, psychology and writing and political science and economics...those will come later. Just that it's unfortunate I'm born 20 years too early. But I'll be there. I AM there. To witness Malaysia going through changes, become a developed nation.
What can I say about college life for now? It's coming in fast and hard, group assignments. I hope my group don't drown in them yet. We've yet to start anything, ever. In fact we're just done with individual presentation about a public figure who've contributed to the society. I chose Helen Keller. Why? Well, I remember reading about her when I was a kid. She was a public figure and she contributed. End of story.
Comments:
A visitor made this comment,
Philosophy can be interesting and all, and I'd like to reiterate the fact that well, philosophy is also being taught in universities, well in mine anyway. They do not come under big bold banners like "Philosophy", but there are classes like Moral Ethics, Thinking Philosopy, History of Thought, and others. Next semester I'll be taking Science Philosophy. And physochology students have many major philosophy classes under their major.
So there, stop complaining that philosophy is as dead as a dodo in Malaysia. It might not be a major course by itself, but there are still classes in it.
I'm sure college life will be fun once you really get settled into it.
Jun Hoe
Alvin Choong made this comment,
Philosophy and all that is fun, admittedly, but surely you don't mean to study philosophy full-time? Interesting it may be, putting the bread on the table it may not.
Anyways, I love astronomy and wanted to study it full-time. But alas, the Asian mentality of doing some professional course proved an obstacle I couldn't overcome.
A visitor made this comment,
Wow, u finished da darn book! Me yet to get there. Ahahahaha... ;p
Kenny
Lo0py made this comment,
finally finished the book eh....
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