David B. Calhoun’s Blog

Wow, I didn’t realize how late it became. I’ve been spending a lot of time at the Biola library recently, and I stayed till midnight (closing time) tonight studying. That was very interesting - I loaded up my PDA with Mozart’s Requiem and I listened to it as I read the Gospel of John, from a randomly selected middle part (it turned out to be the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead) all the way to the end. I had only planned on reading a chapter at most…

All this studiousness has been very unusual. Even more unusual, on the way to the library I saw someone’s trash in the parking structure. It was someone’s McFlurry or whatever from McDonalds, plus their Starbucks drink. This kind of trashiness is what I dislike most about Biola students. Anyhow, I took the bag, what I could of it, dripping wet with melted ice cream, and took it about 100ft over to the big trash bin, which smells terrible today for some reason (earlier in the day, I walked past it on my way to my English class, which finally met today!).

The first semester I was at Biola, I took this New Testament class, and we had to get in groups for a project or something. I remember my group walking from our meeting to class (we met just before class), and this girl saw some trash on the ground and picked it up. Now THAT takes a lot to do. Not only are you picking up someone else’s soiled excrement (err, hopefully not literally..), you are doing it in front of your peers, which makes you look like some cleanup person. You get the mental image of rolling around in another person’s garbage (or.. maybe I’m the only one that gets that mental image…). Only now, two semesters later, did I follow her example and cleanup someone else’s junk. On the way to the library I prayed that this would not be peculiar behavior for only today (i.e. if I’ve had an especially good day, which I have), but that this shows real change in me. I really hope for the latter, and I pray for that.

And I really enjoyed studying in the library. It’s becoming more comfortable, and I’m way too productive in that place. I’ll be going there often I think.

On a completely different subject, I just had the realization today of my sister’s philosophy of music being bad if it is enjoyed by the masses. In her mind, the music is good only if it is completely unique and unknown, and remains largely unknown to the wider population. Though I wish it was, this isn’t a peculiar philosophy that only my sister has. Yet it only seems to be present in the Arts. If you really think about it, it is the opposite of democratic - it is anti-democratic, even. Then the word “democratic” caught my attention. What if this anti-democratic principle was applied to governments? That is, the candidate with the least amount of votes is elected into office. I am almost positive that this would not be approved of, even by the Anti-Democratics. So this Anti-Democratic movement seems to be limited to the arts, at least for now (I might go into arguments about people supporting Raplh Nader, but I am so poorly read in modern politics that I would be pretending to know more than I do).

Alright, get to it! The Proverbs quote of the day!

“Take my instruction instead of silver,
and knowledge rather than choice
gold;
for wisdom is better than jewels,
and all that you may desire cannot
compare with her.”
Proverbs 8:10

Note: Not long ago I was forced to decide between two majors, and two futures: computer science (programming) with great profits or philosophy (teaching) with lower profits. For those who think that happiness is the chief goal in life, the world tells them that money brings happiness. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that this is not necessarily the case. But I go a step further - I say that happiness is a great goal to have, but contentedness is even better. Yet both happiness and contentedness should not simply be the one goal of your life.

Either way, money only allows you to buy bigger and better things, and to gain even bigger appetites. No thanks. I chose philosophy. I would rather live my life well than to live rich.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 31st, 2005 at 11:48 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.