Sick as a dog

This is ridiculous. I think my seniors got a stomach bug, managed to give it to me and then take today off as senior skip day. F!

So this morning I was thinking of how we live in a culture that feeds vice, and feeds off of it. Not just the bad, or the intense, the small, mundane examples of vice. For example, I had read the Songs of Fire and Ice series, it's more commonly known as Game of Thrones, and while I thoroughly enjoyed it I was ruminating over it recently. I have to confess that while it was entertaining, and it's not poorly written, these books, ultimately appeal to the lowest common denominator.  I mean, these books aren't about the best of us, working together to create a more perfect union, rather it rewards the base in us. The stories appeal, not to the desire to better our minds and souls, but to the base, violent, mysognistic monster that lives within us all. It feeds these monsters.

There is a lot of media out there that feeds the monsters. All kinds of media, which is why I take exception to people insinuating (or flat out saying) that television is crap. Yes, television is crap. It's also wonderful. I often wonder if these people ever watch PBS. Or NatGeo. Or H2... regular history channel actually is total crap these days.  But books are just as bad. I'm going to go on a reading diet. No more literature that feeds the monster. I will read only the books assigned by professors, books on improvement of Latin and French and books on science. Beyond this I think I'm going to take this summer to focus my reading on the ecclesiastical works of people like Augustine, or even Boetheus' Consolations of Philosophy. I haven't read either of those in years. Consolations is honestly one of the most profound works I've encountered.

I wish the people I worked with were more scholarly. They are all fine well meaning people, and I enjoy their company but I find myself putting on a ridiculously childish demeanour just to keep them from seeing my true desire for serious study. They are great people, and devoted educators. But they are happy where they are. They have no need to strive further and to reach higher. It's so foreign.

Oh course, I'm not the healthiest human on the planet. I'm determined to slowly destroy myself. But even that is a study. I want to experiment to see how far I can take myself to nothing before that crosses into something new. People are so happy to be where they are. I want to see what's next, what's after.