"Apart from its utility in showing unsuspected possibilities, philosophy has a value -- perhaps its chief value -- through the greatness of the objects which it contemplates, and the freedom from narrow and personal aims resulting from this contemplation. The life of the instinctive man is shut up within the circle of his private interests: family and friends may be included, but the outer world is not regarded except as it may help or hinder what comes within the circle of instinctive wishes. In such a life there is something feverish and confined, in comparison with which the philosophic life is calm and free. The private world of instinctive interests is a small one, set in the midst of a great and powerful world which must, sooner or later, lay our private world in ruins. Unless we can so enlarge our interests as to include the whole outer world, we remain like a garrison in a beleaguered fortress, knowing that the enemy prevents escape and that ultimate surrender is inevitable. In such a life there is no peace, but a constant strife between the insistence of desire and the powerlessness of will. In one way or another, if our life is to be great and free, we must escape this prison and this strife.
One way of escape is by philosophic contemplation. Philosophic contemplation does not, in its widest survey, divide the universe into two hostile camps -- friends and foes, helpful and hostile, good and bad -- it views the whole impartially. Philosophic contemplation, when it is unalloyed, does not aim at proving that the rest of the universe is akin to man. All acquisition of knowledge is an enlargement of the Self, but this enlargement is best attained when it is not directly sought. It is obtained when the desire for knowledge is alone operative, by a study which does not wish in advance that its objects should have this or that character, but adapts the Self to the characters which it finds in its objects. This enlargement of Self is not obtained when, taking the Self as it is, we try to show that the world is so similar to this Self that knowledge of it is possible without any admission of what seems alien. The desire to prove this is a form of self-assertion and, like all self-assertion, it is an obstacle to the growth of Self which it desires, and of which the Self knows that it is capable." --Bertrand Russell
WHAT THIS IS TO ME...
For my EDGE project here at Southern Utah University I decided to take two study abroad courses with the Psychology Department. During May of 2018 I traveled throughout Ireland and Romania.
I had a couple of days between the end of my Ireland trip and the beginning of my Romania trip so I elected to stay abroad. I traveled to Amsterdam in between the trips and found Giethoorn which is the background picture of my 'More....' page -- go take a look.
Honestly, what this was for me was an opportunity for the 'enlargement of the Self' and my motivation was not much more than genuine curiosity.
WHY THIS MATTERS TO ME...
This matters to me because growing up I was under the assumption that there just wasn't anything more to the world than what I knew. Everything unfamiliar seemed frightening but what I was familiar with was not helping me to be happy. I began to spiral out of control losing myself for just over a year to substance abuse. Going to rehab I met so many genuinely good people yet they didn't adhere to the popular religious organization, in fact, they didn't adhere to any popular religion. I had to come to grips with the idea that religious activity does not equate to being a good person, there's just way more to life than that. I concluded that the only thing I knew was that I was an 'instinctive man' and I knew very little despite my "higher education". I was holding myself back...
I chose to stop using, I made it back to college, and I am now planning on Graduate School in Psychology. It has been a long journey from there to here -- now -- I will no longer yield to pain, nor fear, on my own.