Laptops Are Distractions

Blogging in the middle of class?  This can't be good.

I am currently in Philosophy 2400:  Ethics.  I walked into the class expecting a more concrete learning of what is ethical in today's society to succeed in business.  No such luck.  We just throw around ideas about ethical issues and I walk out of the class with my head spinning with more questions than answers.  It's quite enjoyable.

The current topic the students are vehemently debating about is this:  If we need to be just in order to do just actions, and the only way we become just is through doing just actions, how do we ever become just?

Most arguments I've come up with are very confusing.  But I think, according to this paradox, the only way we could begin to have the first inklings of "being just" is through assimilation.  I am awe-struck by the incredible ability that our brains and bodies have to take the world around us, internalize it, and become something new by it.  You eat a hamburger, and all the different proteins and chemicals in that hamburger are torn apart by your body into tiny particles that are assimilated into your organs and blood and so forth.  Quite literally, you are what you eat.

I believe that ideas are made up of equally weighty substance.  I am currently entertaining the idea that if everything is matter, that ideas are also made up of real matter.  I really think they take up space and can push and pull and act upon other things around them.  The same with light, balance, peace, passion...if you are aware enough, you can practically breathe it into you when surrounded by it.  This is a reason I love to attend religious services, classes at a university, and social gatherings.  In these settings, your body is then exposed to other people's ideas.  They change the molecular structure of your brain the moment they enter.

Don't you ever feel it?  Everything:  trees, glasses, cats, clouds, professors, fear, cotton, temperature, words, electricity, ink, motivation, truth, taste....that you are all of it?  That you are made up of everything around you, and that all you encounter is, in fact, you?  Maybe I'm crazy.  But I think we are far more connected to the elements around us than we perceive.  Pay attention!