I thought I would paste a little bit out of an essay that I had to write about myself lately. I hope you enjoy :)
I grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana, and I went to two different high schools. The first was a newer start-up private school called Walnut Grove. This school’s greatest aspiration was to be like something out of the movies “The Dead Poets Society” (Dead Poets Society, 1989) and “The Emperors Club” (Emperors Club, 2002). It was complete with a headmaster and uniforms for all. We were required to take Latin and ancient history. I remember having the distinct impression that these teachers despised teenagers.
In spite of all this, there was a bright spot I will never forget. Her name was Mrs. Bloomer, and she taught algebra, geometry, and trigonometry. These were not necessarily my favorite subjects; however, she was an exceptional teacher. Math became that of which I was subsidiarily aware. The focal point became instead the very essence of how to learn. Mrs. Bloomer was relentless in her refusal to allow the school to snuff out a love of learning and thinking for one’s self. On my last day at that school, she grabbed me and looked me directly in the eyes. She told me never to forget that it did not matter what I could memorize but only that I continually learn how to think for myself.
After my sophomore year, I transferred to Heritage Christian High School where I had an entirely different set of challenges. This was a typical private religious school complete with all of the modern conveniences and no uniforms. My senior year, I was required to take a class in worldviews. This class was to be the catalyst that sparked my love of philosophy. As the teacher began to dive into the subject material, I began to realize that I completely disagreed with him on almost every level. I began to get the class notes from students who had him earlier in the day just so I could go to the library to do research. Every day I would come into class with a legal pad filled with notes from my own investigations. It was during this time that I discovered the giants of philosophy and began sorting out the philosophical milieu into which I fit. It was the likes of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, Derrida, and Polanyi that filled my mind with wonder and awe. I nostalgically look back at my worldview class, and although I still disagree with Mr. Etheridge, I must admit I owe him a debt of gratitude for inspiring me to echo Socrates when he said, “An unexamined life is not worth living” (Socrates).
As my high school years began to come to a close, I started to think about my future. I asked myself what I wanted to do with my life. The more I thought, the more confused I became. I saw my friends getting ready to head off to colleges, and it did not seem to matter what they wanted to study. The only thing I saw in their eyes was dollar signs. They would talk about the prestigious schools and lucrative majors as if there was an unspoken formula to which everyone adhered. The assumption was the more exclusive the school, the more money one would make, and somehow this was the goal of all good education. Like I said, I still had no idea who I was and where I would fit in this world. I became increasingly disillusioned with the path my classmates seemed to be taking. I knew it wasn’t for me, but I didn’t know what was. It is here I must confess something; as a result of my confusion in high school, I was the classic under-achiever. To put it simply, I lacked direction and a sense of purpose. I decided I needed to somehow buy myself some time to figure it out.
After that, at the age of eighteen, I decided to join the United States Air Force (USAF). I went to basic training in October of 2003, and my whole world was never to be the same. I was specially selected to be trained as a Network Intelligence Analyst. After basic training, I was sent to Goodfellow Air Force Base for nine months of intensive training. It is here that I found there was a reason the USAF assigned me to this career field. The military intelligence community is filled with brilliant under-achievers who lack a sense of direction. Upon graduation, I was given orders to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. There I spent two of the most interesting years of my life. I will always remember the fascination of being exposed to entirely different cultures, languages, perspectives and ways of thinking which were foreign to my western upbringing. I continued to read and study philosophy on my own, although I still lacked an entirely coherent orientation to the world around me. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but something was beginning to take form. I began to see that I didn’t want the same things out of life as a lot of the people around me. I started to understand my culture was rich on systems and weak on purpose and meaning. I came to the conclusion that consumerism is like a drug that seduces us all and the opium used to pacify the masses.
In August of 2006, I was given an assignment to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio Texas where I have remained until the present. I have continued my quest for how best to contribute to my society, country, and the world that I find myself in. Like Socrates, I claim to know nothing with absolute certainty. I am in continual pursuit of those that possess the wisdom and knowledge I lack.
I have come to the conclusion that I have been given a gift for the love of wisdom and knowledge. Through all of my travels and experiences I have learned that our world has many serious problems, which require the attention of keen minds with new ideas and fresh perspectives. I have decided being an intelligence analyst is not the way I want to contribute to society and the world. I want to help encourage the people around me to learn how to ask better questions. I believe the practice of questioning is largely a lost art, and while we may not all be able to paint Rembrandt masterpieces like Jacques Derrida, maybe individual members of society together can create beautiful mosaics of helpful, creative, progressive, open source, and transformative questions. Thank you for taking this journey with me, and I hope you will help me to ask better questions and thereby perfect my art of questioning and increase my love of wisdom, which is what I believe to be the beating heart and soul of philosophy.
