Global Awareness: 

I speak Italian. I’m working on German. Classical Greek and Latin? They’re coming, I promise! Sooner or later. But if I’m being honest with you, the language I’d like to learn more than any other is Maori. The language of the indigenous people of the country of New Zealand.

Why is this important to me? Well, it’s important to broaden your horizons with…

Actually, it’s for love. And you know what, that’s got to be an absolutely fine reason, too. Global awareness is, at its core, something we try to build because we aim to forge stronger bonds with those peoples and cultures external to our own. We try to learn from one another, so that, perhaps, we can become closer with one another. I don’t know if my goal, our goal, of a cosmopolitan world bound together by love and mutual aspiration, is anything more than a dream, in the end; but the Maori have a saying, that goes like this:

“He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata.”                        “What is the most important thing in the world? It is the people, the people, the people.”

Original Inquiry:

“Smith and Jones are applying for a job.” That’s essentially how he starts, when Edmund Gettier sets about destroying the last natural, logical argument in favour of a self-contained, logical, valid definition of knowledge. Or, I should say, did set. Because Gettier’s paper, “Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?,” was published in 1963–fifty seven years ago.

And we still don’t have a good answer.

Some say yes; some say no; some say yes and no; and most of us healthy, sane people beat our heads against the wall when leathery, half-pickled philosophers start questioning things they have no business questioning whatsoever. Edmund Gettier is ninety-two years old, and he still hasn’t found the answer, either.

Is justified true belief knowledge? If not, what is? Actually, can we say that anything in particular is knowledge?These are hard questions, troubling questions. But they’re worth asking–

I want to find the answers.

Academic Enrichment:

“Academic,” in the common parlance, means “relating to education and scholarship.” But it has another meaning; a more idiosyncratic one; and, perhaps, a more important one: “Not of practical relevance; of only theoretical interest.”

Have you ever heard something so absurd in your life?

Theory informs action. Interest creates importance. Value. Necessity. The idea that anything could be ‘irrelevant’ because it is not physical, or tangible, would be laughable if it were not so widely believed.

Academic enrichment is the rounding-out of a scholarly experience; but it is also, importantly, the fulfillment of inquiry. A student is not merely waiting to become something else; in fact, we never really leave the academic sphere of life, even when we transition to the workforce. Or when we retire from it. To live is to learn–and learning is a life-long experience.

My academic enrichment comes in the form of loftier inquiry; of seeking knowledge as an end unto itself, and seeking it to its end, as far as I may mortally seek it. To breach the barriers of ignorance which hide the higher extents of human knowledge from the lowly student; to research contemporary problems with eminent scholars; to defend an undergraduate thesis on a philosophical matter dear to my heart.

The Urban Dictionary has its own definitions for “Academic:” As an adjective, “insufferably obtuse;” and as a noun, “an un-entertaining charlatan.”

If that is how the world sees academia; if theory has degenerated in status while practice has retained its hallowed place, then I know how I must seek academic enrichment. I will bring the knowledge that I find about me everywhere into the dialogue of the day, and be enriched with each and every inquiry, topic, defense and counterargument. I will join clubs and societies; I will write papers and essays; I will speak and I will argue and I will listen.

That is what it means to be a student.

Leadership Development:

The other day, I applied for BESST; the Baker East / Smith-Steeb council. Two days ago, I tried out for OSU’s collegiate Mock Trial team. Three days ago, I was stressing out of my mind because in one day I was trying out for OSU’s collegiate Mock Trial team.

I didn’t make the team.

But does that make me any less of a leader? I say, nay. It does not. Leadership is about how you comport yourself; we lead by example as much as, if not more than, we lead through communicating and directing. When you undertake something difficult, you are making a statement of belief in yourself. And that’s inspiring.

I certainly wouldn’t have tried out if I hadn’t been inspired by those in my life who were leaders to me. Whether they were my friends, or my family, or my heroes–they were leaders not because they told me what to do, or even showed me what to do. They were leaders because they showed me how to do it.

With pride; with dignity; with an endless spirit of hopeful aspiration bounded only in compassion for one’s fellow man. To lead is to follow those who have lead before, and to hope that your actions will help forge the leaders who come after you.

I will find leadership in doing. In every way I can apply myself, whether it is as an individual, as a member of a team, or as a citizen of a nation, and of the world.

I will lead in doing.

Service Engagement:

About a week ago, I found myself wandering around the grassy field outside of my dorm tower. Picking up litter. For minutes.

It felt like hours; but only because I was heading off to grab dinner with my pals and got side-tracked by the unacceptable state of our demesne.

The point is, serving is easy. It’s really easy. The hard part is remembering to! When something seems so easy and simple, it’s often expedient to dismiss it–you could always do it later, after all.

You could always donate to charity; so you don’t have to worry about this one guy, this one time.

We tell ourselves all kinds of little lies to make ourselves feel better; and it works, really too well, for too many people. Nobody is immune to self-interest, and it’s especially hard to want to do something that you won’t get much recognition or ‘benefit’ for, when you have to spend your time, energy, and resources to do it.

Plato knew well the troubles of the intemperate man. In order to be just, we must really desire to be just, as an end unto itself; according to the platonic-aristotelean model of virtue, true goodness is only achieved when a person is happy to do right, and does not merely do it for their own self interest. I want to be like that–to be temperate. I want to help those in need; clean up my environment; and give back to my community, not just because it’s good, but because it’s right.

I’m not sure if I’m there yet; my OCD plays a significant part in my litter-mindedness, also. But we do our best, day by day, to become the people we want to be.

The people we have to be.