¡Feed Your Head!

At the risk of overindulging my reader, I recall that when I was in Kindergarten, I wanted to be an O.B.G.Y.N..   Forget what the job actually entailed (my later self interjects an emphatic “gross!”); I just wanted to be someone that knew about babies.  Perhaps I chose this response because my mother had just given birth to my little sister, Sophia; and naturally, I wanted to know everything about babies. (As Ximena mentioned, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” really was the most vexing FAQ when you either didn’t yet know or dreamed too big, god forbid.)  Reflecting on this odd career choice, I recall not really understanding careers to begin with.  It seemed like every profession was just an idea: O.B.G.Y.N.’s just knew about babies and presidents, for that matter, were just pretty powerful people.  It was as simple as that.  In either choice, it was an idea I was after—not so much the job description. (It didn’t help that my father was some liberal professor—something I hardly understood—and my mother was at home full-time.)  I suppose it was this same abstract logic—the pursuit of an idea—that I applied to college.  But ironically, now that I’m in college and in a position to better define my dream profession, I find the concept of a career to be more ambiguous than ever.  For this reason, I particularly appreciated reading today’s required material—most notably, the musings “…on the cultivation of the intellect, as an end…” (290). 

Let's all just feed our heads "for its own sake." Yummy.  http://www.sekaimon.com/i14041897173

I feel more comfortable meditating on the abstraction of pursuing intellectual illumination “for its own sake” and not necessarily as a means to a successful end (285).  This echoes what Grace Slick commands in her allusion to Alice in Wonderland: simply "feed your head."  In the spirit of comical illusions (and allusions) I would like to declare my major as the following:  "feeding my head for the next four years." That being said, perhaps I could learn to be a little less philosophical and dreamy and a little more goal-oriented.  (Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take a leaf out of Sadie’s book.)  The problem is that I am interested in an overwhelming array of subjects—from social and plant studies to art and dance.  Not surprisingly, this fact complicated my decision to declare a major.  I am only now beginning to embrace—and even further add to—this list of passions, because I do believe that “all branches of knowledge are connected together….” (287) This very likely explains why I see all my interests as somehow converging.  Perhaps institutionalizing this interconnectedness of knowledge is how the profession of art therapy came about—the merging of psychology and art?  Indeed, E.M. Forster reminds us to “only connect…[and] live in fragments no longer.”

"Some truth!": Relax, you neurotic undecided major.  "Everything is gonna be o.k."
Whatever you do, just keep "feed[ing] your head."http://davidmarshak.ca/drawing/

In the spirit of connecting (as only my spider self can), I can’t help but relate this idea to material I am reading for another class.  It has been debilitating for me, trying to digest pages of harrowing testimonies of genocide survivors in Guatemala.  The subtitle of the book is Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala, with an emphasis on the power of truth. Throughout the ethnographies, the personal power of knowledge and truth in an unconscionably violent reality is palpable.  Even the cathartic process of observing forensic exhumations uncover physical remnants of massacres is powerful in its own right—let alone the results they reveal.  In this sense, knowledge is an instrument as well—that is, as a means to an end.  The end is truth.  What I am learning is that as citizens of a highly developed first world country, it is perhaps difficult for us to understand the power of something as simple as truth and understanding.  So often our focus is not on values or the process, but on goals, on personal success—on the “end.”  John Henry Newman helped confirm this for me: “the attainment of truth…is the[] common end” for all types of knowledge (288).   

Seek the truth, reveal the truth, and the truth will set you free.Guatemala (and the U.S. government who financially supported you),
you cannot hide genocide.
https://www.tamilsagainstgenocide.org/Donate.aspx

Giametti so wisely articulates what I hope to adopt as my mantra for the next four years (and beyond): a quest to “get[] and keep[] an open mind, a mind flexible and tough in its powers, humane in its perspective, rational and imaginative in its operations…” (293).  Following this wisdom, we “keep [ourselves] free.” (294)  Whatever I study, I hope to find truth.  Whether I’m studying Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala or Alvin Ailey dance, I hope to seek universal truth as well as my own true inner beat.Perhaps we can all strive to find truth in a time where ideals of truth and freedom are often built on the foundation of denial, inhumanity, and slavery.  On this sobering note, I hope to continue this quest throughout college to find truth in every sense of the word and to free my mind.