Wednesday, December 03, 2008

my philosophy of life

I don't have a philosophy of life, and I think that that is just one more misuse of the notion of 'philosophy', surely, but am I wrong. I did philosophy (with a capital P) in first year at Monash University in 1984, and I failed because I dropped out, and I thought the discussions were OK but very unformed, because everyone seemed to be talking in foolish semantics (did we really argue about 'can machines think?')? Monash is a fine institution but it was not for me in 1984, and probably no university would be. When I went there to enroll, a man who knew my name called and waved to me across a room, he was old, I had no idea who he was then and never found out. It is odd to think I was doing anything in 1984, as it was a famous year and everyone was saying 'it really is 1984', referring of course to the book by George Orwell. I was 19 and for some reason believed I had better things to do, but on reflection I cannot remember what those things might have been. Now, when I see students entirely unmotivated by their 1st year courses, I can only reflect on how they might feel, and realise that how they might feel is roughly as alien to me as how I recall I felt in that position, perhaps less so, I don't know. The Huxton Creepers played on campus one lunchtime, and I saw them play, and they were named after something in Sherlock Holmes, though I am not entirely sure what, a kind of shoe probably. On my first day at Monash I took the train to Holmesglen (hmm - interesting - but it probably wasn't Holmesglen, it was probably Jordanville) station and then caught a bus, I met a girl on the way, who was very outgoing, and we talked in a not particularly interesting way I suppose, though I would currently enjoy reading a transcript of that conversation, don't think that's not possible, all sound waves continue to exist, as I learnt in Grade 5. And then when we got to campus she met some guy she knew and mentioned in a short conversation that the first thing she was going to do was join the Liberal Club, but I never saw her again, or if I did, I didn't recognise her, but more likely they killed and ate her, and serves her right, for being a Liberal Party supporter.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

/Users/dominic/Desktop/010_mitch-mitchell-is-a-great-drummer.jpg

the early 70s was all juxtaposition

October 1970, everyone had their arms out in the air, from Barbra to, um, whoever that is on the left, to Thumbelina. This is from the Sprin...