I just felt like I read this short story by Hemingway, enjoyed it, felt the characters etc, but after class and talking a bit about it, maybe I didn't get it after all. Maybe there was so much I missed.

And I've been reading since I can remember SEEING. So how much have I missed over the last 25 odd years? Have I actually absorbed anything I've read?

Things I read have an impact on me. I put myself into the things I read. I'm there with the characters listening to their conversation. I'm there with the narrator listening to his/her voice. I remember things, I notice things. Sure.

But have I noticed and remembered enough? Did I miss the point in so many of the stunning classics and works of lofty literature that I've read? I guess I may never know the answer to that one.

Something else I was thinking about today.

The word nothing figured in two of my classes, independently of one another.

This phrase then popped into my head and I began to think about it in a different way.

"Nothing is Free"

You can take it to mean that all things cost something. You could also skew it a little and think that you can have nothing, but at least it was free. Do you know what I mean? Standing in a field (though that is something) having nothing to your name, nothing in your hand and nothing to obligate you - that's free. It cost you nothing to be there in that beautiful field. And it was free.

Also, you could say thing nothing is free in terms of freedom. YOu could say that everything is shackled in some way to something else. Everything is indebted or owes something or belongs to something. Or you could say that to have nothing, to owe nothing, to belong to nothing or be indebted to nothing is free, as in, it's freeing.

You are free of everything if you have nothing.

Does that make any sense to anyone? This is stuff that pops into my head when my philosophy professor is discussing an overhead detailing objective and subjective facts.

He had a definition for "What is philosophy?" and though it is accepted that there IS no accepted definition for philosophy, he had one that came close. But here's mine.

Taken directly from the etymology of the word: philia - love, affection (non-sexual) and sophia or sophos - knowledge. So it's the love or affection for knowledge.

So taking that idea - isn't it human nature to want to know everything about everything? The whys, whens, wheres, hows, whats of everything? We have an imperative to know stuff, it's built in.

So to me it's the biological imperative to strive to know everything and anything. I'm sure millions of philosophers will argue with me (of course!) and disagree and tell me I'm an idiot and have no idea what I'm talking about.

And to be frank, I can picture this idea in my head, but I cannot seem to explain it any better than what I said above. YET. I hope that I'll be able to refine this at some point.

In the meantime, I still get bogged by stupid, mundane, superficial things. Here I am suddenly thrust into lofty thought and reason, and I still find myself looking at my breasts and belly in the mirror and silently noticing that I think they're ugly.

Yes, I'm still me, and I suppose I always will be. Eventually, I will discuss this free-will thing we think we have. I have read some extremely interesting ideas on this concept.

Yay. School.