While I was on the subway, making my way home, I couldn't help but overhear the conversation of some guys. One guy was talking, and the other guy interrupted and was like: "you know I don't understand a single word of what you just said. I'm an art student. I draw stuff. I went to college to play with paints and to draw pretty pictures." All I could think was: how sad.
I mean, it's one thing to know your strengths and to focus on and develop those talents, and another thing entirely to centre your life on something to the point that you exclude everything outside of your area of expertise. Sure, I'm a humanities student, I'm studying English and history, but that doesn't mean that I only know English and history, and nothing of math, science, computers, art, etc. etc.
It's really quite tragic when people close themselves off from things that they don't "do." There's so much in this world to experience, why limit yourself to just one, like visual arts, or science, or English. Maybe that's one of the problems with our attitude as a society. We push people to figure out what they're good at so that they can get the right education for the right job. When people don't know what their major will be, or their main area of interest, we see it as a bad thing. I know that I have--right until this very moment, in fact. Really though, what's wrong with not committing yourself to one program, or major, etc.? Isn't it better to test out many different subject areas before settling on one or two?
When I first started high school, I "knew" that I hated science. I told myself that after the requisite two science courses, I would never take a science class ever again. Well, during grade nine I learned that science was pretty cool. When we learned about density, I looked at my soup, with the floating fishballs and sunken tofu, and understood that the fishballs were less dense than the broth and that's why they floated, and that the tofu was more dense than the broth, and that's why it sank. It sounds silly now, but at the time it was a miny epiphany for me: science could be applied to real life. So I went on to take grade twelve physics, and grade eleven and OAC bio and chem.
See, I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do in university (I didn't figure it out until I applied for university) so I took as many different classes as my schedule would allow, just in case. I know that my life was enriched, my perspectives broadened, from this diversity. Even though three of my four suitemates were in life science, I could still talk to them about the stuff they were learning because I had that science background. If I had known, been certain, that I would go into English and history from the beginning of high school, would I have bothered with maths (I took algebra and geometry, finite, and calculus) and sciences? Considering how goal-oriented I am, probably not. I would have figured out which course would have been the most useful for my later education, and ignored everything else. So, looking back now, I'm glad that I wasn't always sure of myself and my goals. I think I would have missed out on a lot if I had been.
Speaking of not wanting to miss out, check out my "Plug of the Day": Enigma: a blog with a beautiful Kenshin theme/design! KENSHIN...! Best viewed 800 x 600 resolution, I.E. 5+
Oh, and definitely, if you haven't already, check out Ray's Blog too! ^_^ I think Ray's blog was one of the first that I linked, and it's still probaby my favourite. Very attractive site design, and it makes for a good read too!
P.S. - This is Chris Beveridge's signature on the Anime on DVD forum: "Anime is not a right. Anime is a hobby, not a religion. Just because you can't afford it, doesn't mean you are owed it." I thought it was a brillant and concise way of expressing all the feelings that I also expressed (in a much more lengthy manner) in my post on piracy, "Sticking to Your Guns."
