In my English class, we were given the assignment of making an argument about Rousseau's "Emile" (italicized!). Unfortunately it was due on Vincent's birthday. This is the unfortunate, but very entertaining result (actually, i think it's one of the best things I've ever written):
This Is Where The Title Goes
It is 8:26 AM on a Wednesday and I am supposed to be writing a narrative which reflects my beliefs on a certain topic. Here I sit facing my computer screen, still drunk from the night before. How then is it possible for me to transfer my knowledge from the confines of my head to the complexity of the pixels arranged on my computer screen? I am unsure but continue to try. My party hat is on and I have already finished writing my philosophy paper. Somehow I have managed to make my thoughts so clear that my most intelligent friend, who is awake only because he lives three hours in the future, is able to understand them well enough to refine them into an intelligible utterance. In this paper, however, I have decided to construe my thoughts through a sort of metacognition.
As I sit here writing, I am learning about myself and the way that I learn. I am learning about the way that I express myself and thus the way that I express what I have learned. What have I learned? What am I expressing? Is it syntax and grammar and the frivolous usage of words? Is it the clever irony of writing only truth in the hope that that somewhere within that which is truth lies intelligence? Or is it simply a throwaway effort which leaves me missing five percent of my English grade? One can only live and discover. I also find in this almost existential of a quandary that each experience is entirely unique. Learning can guide and inform our decisions- but only probabilistically.
It is 8:36 AM on a Wednesday and I have spent ten minutes writing a paper for English. I have abided by its confines and still found a method of narrative that in fact breaks the rules- a paradox of sorts. I sit here and reflect upon my career choice. I wish to be a lawyer, a litigator to be precise. I chose this path not because of the money it makes or because I love reason. I did not choose it because it would make me happy or because I value what makes me happy above all else. I did not choose it because I love justice or the law. I did not choose it because I love language and its ability to retain whatever meaning I chose it to convey. I chose this path because all of these reasons are true and coexist as truths. I chose the path of the litigator because it is my passion in all aspects and passion itself is in a way my true passion. I love to love and live to live.
Recalling the words of one of my favorite characters in one of my favorite shows, a nearly androgynous female known as Radical Edward in the show called Cowboy Bebop, I consider the formula to happiness. Radical Edward says in a philosophical examination of the series that she only does things which seem fun. If she is forced to do something which is not fun, she tries to find some sort of fun within the task as to always stay happy. If she can't find something fun to do, she goes to sleep. This is truly all one needs to live, this is what it means to be strong.
It is 8:46 AM on a Wednesday and I have linked happiness, intelligence, and strength in my paper. Still hoping that my cop-out of a narrative is acceptable I decide to write for its defense and explanation, further diving into the rabbit hole of a paradox that I have constructed. I have written a narrative about the thoughts of an author of a narrative. This is a very real experience, as real as I can make it. Perhaps it is too true, perhaps it is all fiction. Either way I have accomplished the goal within its means. This is innovation and intelligence. This is enlightenment. This is only made possible through the observation of that which is clever and through the experience of doing clever things. Observation and experience is what makes us capable of all that we can accomplish. It is our humanity. That's what I learned from this experience and this consideration of learning. Learning from learning about learning. AHHHH! Onomatopoeia is an author's friend.
It is 8:56AM on a Wednesday. I think I am sober, but I can never be too sure.
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