Essays That Worked

Essays That Worked Then, when I’ve finished, I go back and read my own insights. It would be all too easy to let my constant busyness and the distractions of daily life keep me from trying to understand the world and my place in it, but I won’t let that happen. I will forever be aware of myself and others, and I hope to never act on an unconscious bias. I know that Descartes was thinking thateverythingtold to him by his senses might be wrong, but I think his revelation applies more usefully to behaviors and biases we learn from a young age as well. However, my reading material has changed since elementary school. I appreciate nonfiction more than I did as a child. Ever since I took my first philosophy course, when I am seen with a book in my hands it is a philosophical work. The knowledge that this may be in my future invigorates me. There is not one book on its own that calls to me, but knowing they are on my horizon fills me with anticipation. I can see me, a year older, sitting inside, curled up around a book and blanket. When I finally learned to read, my love of books only increased. In elementary school I could always be found with a book in my hand. I read books about pioneers, astronauts, ordinary kids doing extraordinary things. The written word isn’t meant to be a solitary thing; it’s meant to be shared. For a long time, I bombarded my family with a constant but ever changing stream of chatter on my book of choice. The sun has set early, so a lamp is on, shining warm light onto the pages. A roommate is across from me reading the same book, and every couple minutes we stop to comment. This is my favorite quotation from my favorite book, The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela. I read this book for the first time in eighth grade while exploring the causes and consequences of the Mexican revolution. I am not simply interested in St. John’s; I am mesmerized by it. The thought of reading forty books in class over the school year excites me. The image of being surrounded by people similar to me thrills me. In my opinion, Ludwig Wittgenstein beats William Shakespeare any day. Sometimes the difficulty makes reading the book more rewarding. Then, in eighth grade I was introduced to annotations. At first I thought they were tedious and annoying, but given time, I grew to appreciate the exercise. Now, instead of tiring our ears, I work away pencils, marking when I find something powerful, noting my thoughts in the margins of the pages. I wasn’t quite able to read the original, so I was forced to resort to the “No fear Shakespeare” version. Lack of love causes loneliness, and I think the reason I have been lonely in pursuit of learning is because of a lack of love from the people who love what “I love”. What I considered important was different from what my school considered important as all their interest goes into exams. They talked about what the quickest way to memorize is and what is going to be in the test to memorize. Consequently, my interest and passion in other things only brought me loneliness in learning. There is nothing more satisfying than finally understanding a passage I couldn’t understand before. That moment of clarity makes the reading worth it. I loved tracing out the shapes and letters, turning the pages, pretending Icouldread. The only thing I didn’t like about books was when people would read them out loud .