“WHY” IS A BEAUTIFUL WORD

CSPAN has this cool American Writers series.
Cable hasn’t turned off my CSPAN yet. I thought CSPAN was free, but no. You have to pay for it, and I am being ascetic.

But Cable is lazy in following through with my order to turn off my decadent TV programming. So today I got to learn more about Ayn Rand.

I first read Ayn Rand in the summer of ’93. What a momentous summer that was! I loved The Fountainhead so much that I read it at stoplights while driving. I couldn’t put it down!

Rand is interesting, because she is different than just a writer. She is a PHILOSPHER. She started this whole idea of OBJECTIVISM.

I don’t know that much about objectivism, but the essence of Rand’s philosophies is given all throughout her books. It’s a PHILOSOPHY, don’t bother about being realistic.

I had encountered the idea of philosophy once before I read Rand. I had read Francis Schaeffer’s book He is There and He is Not Silent. This was a Christian Apologetic book. That means, it was a book explaining why Christianity is right and true. Previous to my reading Schaeffer’s book, I had never really heard anyone address Christian apologetics. I had gone to chapel every school morning, twice on Wednesday, and then there were the regular church services on Sunday morning and Wednesday night. I had gone to our denomination’s seminary for a year. No apologetics. Just believe!

But Schaeffer…He should have been so over my head, but he wasn’t. He actually had read philosophy, and not just Aristotle. An educated Christian man! I had not encountered such a thing. I was 19 years old, and I was reading this man holding up the bible to the philosophies of Plata, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Sartre and Camus. I had never once heard of ANY OF THESE PEOPLE. But Schaeffer was bringing up their questions and addressing them as if they were important. I ate the book like a lit match eats gasoline.

When I look at it now, I understand it differently than I did then. Sometimes, you don’t know the answer, but just formulating the question can be so satisfying that you almost forget about finding the answer.

I was changed. The world became Eden once again. I laugh now, because I was in a Soviet era town in Yakutia Russia. I was surrounded by grim blank nine-story concrete apartment houses and grim blank grocery stores. I should have been terrified, but I was cherishing every snowflake and sunbeam, because I finally understood that I had a right to question the world and find out why. Everything was fascinating and beautiful, because I could fearlessly examine it.

That was ’92. The next summer, I encountered Rand, my first taste of Philosophy, directly experienced. I loved it. I did not entirely agree, which I also cherished, because I COULD disagree. But I loved her vision of personal strength and no barriers to achievement.

I didn’t want any barriers to my achievement, now that I was back in America. America is SUPPOSED to be a land of no horizons for the brave individual.

Later, when I got to go to the University again (how I love universities!) I took a philosophy class. It filled a slot in my schedule. My education has largely been determined by the convenient time scheduling of class times.

It was also beautiful experience. I remember enjoying the class so much, I thought of it as a lovely faceted diamond. All these beautiful questions and answers, lined up in contiguous sparkling symmetry. They were not perfect, but so much of them were, that you could forgive the flaws.

It was in that survey class that I met Anselm; he had derived the ontological proof of GOD. Philosophies worry about God a lot.

Anselm was from Britain, and he was the head of a monastery. His little monks were asking him questions about God, like “How do we know that God exists?”

Anselm did not bitch-slap them and tell them to have faith. He thought about it. He came up with a well-thought out answer. It is not a fully satisfactory answer, but it’s a pretty good answer. And it was an ANSWER to a question. He respected questions.

I love him for that. In the 11th century, in Britain, Anselm said, “That’s a good question. I will have to think about it.” I am so grateful to his respect of questions, I can never forget about Anselm. I have heard something about some people getting out of hand with the answers, but I will not blame later followers mistakes on the founder

Years later, when I visited Canterbury Cathedral in England, I sought out his grave. I wanted to reverence him.

As I was at the library today, I stopped and picked up a Career Helper newspaper. That’s not its true name, I don’t remember what its name really was. It was filled with advertisements for getting training to be a dental assistant, and for jobs with “unlimited earning potential—all from your own home!”

There were ads that said “Tired of your dead end job? Become a truck driver!”

“We’re hiring! Join a Security Team in your area! $9.15 an hour starting!”

There are a lot of jobs out there.

“Daily pay for Daily work! $$$$”

The American dream again. Maybe. Daily pay for Daily work. An honest day’s work and an honest day’s pay.

I wonder if I am being a snob because I am horrified and frightened by these $$$$ jobs.

I have a friend who worked at a bookstore as a clerk, and lived happy and free in San Jose at less than ten thousand a year. Her six-figure-earning friend had trouble making ends meet.

I went to the library to get more books to read. Happy happy me, reading books like a mad person now that I can. And I am such a serious little scholar that I’ve taken to making little synopsis notes of what I read, for future reference.

I was laughing at myself as I walked through the biography section. What does this really matter, anyway? Maybe I just need to be networking as hard as I can, to get a job $$$. But after I saw that newspaper, I thought, What’s the job for either?

Maybe I should be like my bookstore friend. I could sell my car, get three roommates and live with joy in between the covers of the beautiful books.

Just live with joy, somehow, I think.

As I’m shaking my hand out, to loosen it up at the end of the umpteenth essay exam, some of the earlier finishers slip out the door. School is finishing, and the people that I’ve shared my classes with are finishing and leaving. I feel a little wrench as I realize I will not see these people again.

We’ve learned so much about each other, while talking about the books we all read together. I feel the loss of their company as soon as they leave.

Then I feel silly, because after all, I didn’t REALLY know these people. We were just in a class together. The world is full of strangers that brush against me and pass– on the bus, in the stores, all around. They have nothing to do with me. Yet…It’s so amazing that I can get to know some of them, interact and talk and learn about them, and have the joy of telling them about me…And it works! They are strangers, but we are all tied together.

The tenuousness of human relationships astounds me. They feel so solid and permanent in the middle of that marvelous time or conversation you are sharing, when understanding is easy and quick. But small changes and the passage of time take those people far away, and perhaps they will never cross you path again.

People who you thought were a part of you are utterly gone, out of your life. They could be anywhere in the world, happy sad or indifferent.

When September 11th came, it occurred to me that some of the people who had meant a lot to me might even be dead. How would I know? There would be no mutual friend to call me and let me know. It’s a frightening thought.

And yet, though many people that I’ve shared great moments with, who have impacted my life just by allowing me to know them, wherever they are, are still very much a part of me. I remember them. I will not forget the times we shared. Even if I lose sight of that particular memory, I know because my life was impacted and I became a better person because of all those friends.

Well, I get to wear a loose-fitting black student robe for the first time. Graduation is Saturday! I will be a college graduate. It took me 12 years. I had started to think it would never happen.

Only 26 % of Americans over age 25 have “completed a Bachelor’s degree or more” according to the Census Bureau. I am one of those educated elite, now. As it happens, though, there is a higher percentage of young females that complete a bachelor’s degree or mare than any other group. Go girlfriends!

It did take me a long time to finish. You are “Supposed to” go to college straight out of high school and go through to finish, right? In some ways, I feel very odd about this circuitious route I took to the graduation ceremony. Like, maybe I took a wrong turn and had to backtrack to get to the place I should have been at age 22. Like I went three and a half years down a path, figured out I was mistaken and then had to walk three and a half years to get back to where I was supposed to have gone.

And yet…Those seven years were not erased. HUGE portions, seminal experiences we might call them in one of my lit classes, occurred during those times. I am a much better student for what I learned as a corporate consultant. I have a wealth of experience, and even some distance from that experience, to draw upon as I interpret the stories I love so much. I have a lot of…I don’t know if I would call it self-confidence…I guess I know myself enough to know that I must do what needs to be done, because no one else will do it, and no one is asking if I can, it simply must be done. I therefore do it. Whatever it is.

Some of my little early 20’s classmates are looking around nervously, asking what they are going to do with their lives now. “What kind of job will I be able to get? What should I do?” It is a scary question. I at least know that I will be okay. These poor little ones don’t trust that yet. I’ve been through the bad times, and I know I can handle it. I also know that there are many things worth more than security, although I have to remind myself of that a lot when I am low on security.

I want to tell these young English majors, “If you wanted security and money, you should have studied something else.” Maybe they didn’t know what that meant when they chose their major.

I at least knew it.

There is a new professor in the department. He went straight through, the way you are “supposed to”. He has his shiny PhD and all the awards. He was a fabulous student, 4.0 all the way. He is now about to be the head of the Shakespeare department. He’s the same age as me. And yet…I watch him, and often I want to take him aside and give him advice. He knows more than I will ever know about Shakespeare and literature of that period; his expertise is unquestionable. But sometimes, I really think I could help him by telling him a few things. Life is way more than what you can read in books.

I learned a few things sitting silently at corporate staff meetings, then sitting more vocally at meetings. Life skills are often like riding a bike; you can’t explain it, you just have to do it.

So I have learned to do a few things in my starting-out life. But I know that it’s not as much as I am going to need to know, not nearly as much. I have a lot to learn. And I’m excited to get going.

Now that I’m done with my BA, I feel like I will finally have the free time to study the authors and the periods that I really want to learn. I am anxious to get going.

There is just no way I’m going to get done.