this week my philosophy teacher has been away on a university-visit trip with another class, and she left us with just one assignment: “read chapter 1 of the book.” to no one’s surprise, people did everything except that. with the exception of me. tbh, i felt a little stupid doing it. everyone was talking, playing around, and laughing in class, enjoying an hour of freedom in the middle of all the chaos of school, while i was reading the textbook. i didn’t do it to feel like a mysterious y/n girl or to get attention. i did it for two reasons. first one is that i like getting things done. and i hate disobeying. put like that, i sound like some kind of slave or something. but believe me, i’m not a slave. i’d rather die. but the thing is, i would feel bad if i didn’t do it, and i would feel sorry for my teacher. besides, somehow it would soften the telling-off she’d give us: there’s a huge difference between NOBODY having followed the only instruction she gave us and just one person having done it. now that i think about it, i’m such a massive goody-two-shoes. or rory gilmore, because half of the decisions i make are terrible. the second reason is that i have a certain interest in philosophy. it’s my first year studying it, and throughout my short life, many adults have told me that i’m really going to like it. some have even told me that i could go on to study it at university, but i wouldn’t go that far. anyway, i’m going off on a tangent. i opened the book and started reading. half of the things we had already covered: types of knowledge, different philosophical disciplines, etc. but there were two things that really caught my attention. the first was the classification of people into three groups: wise people, who know everything about everything; fools, who know nothing but are happy in their ignorance, because they probably don’t even know it exists; and philosophers. in the book, they were defined as people who don’t know everything, but know that they don’t know everything and question things. and let’s just say that, in some way, i saw myself in that! does that mean i’m like plato, thales of miletus, habermas, or hannah arendt? of course not. but i’m not a fool either. and i question things to such an extent that i can’t sleep. maybe socrates overthought everything too, just like me :) there was smth else that really caught my attention. it’s something i vaguely remember, and i have no way of checking it because i left my philosophy book in my classroom, so i’ll do my best to explain it. it talked about wonder. about how philosophers look for something beyond routine in everyday things. something that amazes us and, therefore, leads us to ask questions. and that amazed me (wow). then i thought: “sure, there are things that amaze me, but they don’t make me ask questions.” but by thinking that, i was already asking myself questions and proving my book right. look, i’m 16 years old and obviously a thought i had in a class where everyone is throwing paper balls at each other or acting like idiots isn’t going to change the knowledge of philosophers who were born before Jesus Christ, but, for a moment, i felt like a philosopher. i don’t know what i’m saying, honestly. i’m throwing out sentences that barely make sense, but i still feel like a philosopher because of it. to me, my scratch account is the "agora of the 21st century". a place where i can exchange my thoughts, no matter how complex they are, because someone will understand them. going back to the idea of wonder, i tried to think of examples where that “i look for something out of the ordinary → i am amazed → i ask myself questions” rule doesn’t apply, and i thought of shakira’s concert yesterday in madrid, where alejandro sanz made a surprise appearance. you might think, upon seeing him, “wow, what a surprise that alejandro is singing!” but if you don’t ask questions afterwards, then you’re a textbook fool. because the average philosopher would be thinking, “why did they choose for him to appear specifically in madrid?”, “why at that concert?”, “why not at the last one?” some people might think those are absurd questions, but somehow, the person who questions things has “philosophized.” therefore, the rule applies once again. and it reinforces the fact that i am a philosopher. - m⭒ song: mai - videoclub
