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One Small Kindness — A Life of Curiosity
There is more to a word than the definition
When I tell someone that my college degree is in philosophy I nearly always get the head tilt to the side look of “really?” Despite the quizzical looks or the quick, “I could never study that” response, I’m confident that my deep interest in philosophy is not weird or special. It’s one of my defining characteristics. However, if not for a small kindness shown to me when I was in High School, I may never have allowed myself to pursue my natural curiosity and find my ‘love of wisdom’.
My wife and I have been watching the show, “The Good Place” on the recommendation of our 17-year-old daughter. If you are familiar with the show you might have already guessed that I’ve become particularly fond of the character, Chidi Anagonye. Chidi is a (fictional) moral philosophy professor at St. John’s University in Australia. The criticism he gets from the other characters is that “nobody likes moral philosophers.” The joke works because of challenges Chidi presents to his friends but more broadly because many find philosophy both boring and impractical — if not downright nonsensical.
Philosophy, which from Greek means ‘love of wisdom’, was not a word I remember being uttered in my home growing up. Our blue-collar parents encouraged us to read and do well in school and to the extent that they encouraged our intellectual pursuits — I ignored them. Our extracurricular activities were focused on building tree forts with friends, riding our bikes through the woods behind our home, and organized sports. I got by in school — with mediocre grades. The result of mediocre efforts.
In my final years of high school, I took some karate classes with a family friend. I enjoyed the experience at first and the teacher recommended I do some reading outside of our sessions. After a few months the karate fizzled out but my interest in the ideas I had been learning about persisted. I found myself at the public library checking out books to learn more about the ideas behind martial arts, the philosophy, and less about the practice of martial arts. This was my first exposure to ethics or morals outside of the church and it felt like I’d stumbled upon a hidden treasure.
