Postal

So, how about this football season? Some surprises, eh? And let's not forget scandal- America's sweetheart Brett Favre texting wiener shots to a reporter? Tsk tsk. It was a sad day for all of us.

OK, you know what? I can't do this anymore. I can't keep it a secret any longer. I have to tell the truth!

Internet, I... I am a philosophy major.

Yes, I am an unemployable elitist! I confess!

I tell you this grave secret, Internet, because my brain has been wrung dry. Where once I had thriving, moist brain tissue, now I have dry, crumbling sponge matter. Philosophy has taken my formerly agile mind and bent until it could think no more, and now I am cast down to the status of a normal plebeian.

For those of you who are not philosophy majors or, indeed, have not taken a single philosophy class, let me give you a small demonstration of the mind-bending process described above. It's a little long, but necessary. Just bear with me- there is a picture eventually.

How Philosophy Ate My Brain:

Professor: Now class, Neu describes a tear as an intellectual thing. He goes through various scholars' views on crying and whether it is a cognitive or physiological process. This examination continues through other subjects to get to Neu's root point: expression of emotion is intended as relief.

Peer 1: What about our response to fictional expressions of emotion?

Professor: Excellent point! Neu discusses our responses to acting; our suspension of disbelief when we see a play or movie allows us to feel emotional responses to what we see, but is it the same?

Peer 2: Well, when I see a horror film, I have a reaction—racing pulse, adrenaline—but I do not react like I would if there were actually an axe murderer in the theatre. I don't run away screaming bloody murder.

Professor: Good point. 

Me: Sometimes I don't consider fear an emotion, though.

Professor: Interesting. Why do you say that?

Me: Well, it's a state, sure. I can be in a fearful state, but it seems different from anger or sadness or happiness.

Professor: How so?

Me: Well... I don't know. But if all states are emotions, then practically everything is an expression of emotion! Just talking would be expressing calmness.

Peer 3: Is calmness an emotion?

General murmuring.

Me: I don't know. Is it? Is fear? Is everything an emotion or is nothing an emotion? Is it all just cognitive states? Am I a robot? WHAT AM I? I'm in a swirling eddy of confusion and disorientation! WHY AM I HERE?! WHAT IS MY PURPOSE?! WHO AM I?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

End.

So you see I am now a worthless husk of a human, wandering about the Earth, lost and empty, just a shadow of my former self. All because of these so-called "greats": Descartes, Hume, Kant, Leibniz, Spinoza, Nozick, Rawls, Locke, Plato, Socrates... the list goes on and on and ooonn- strangers! Waiting! Up and down the boulevard! Their shadows searchi—

See? I can't even finish a simple sentence without bursting into random (but awesome) songs. 

^ An illustration of the crisis you will face in a philosophy class. I even gave you a soft example. It's a lot harder to come back from the "Ok, my perceptions of the world are suspect, such as when I see a landsharks in the shadows but really it's just my Appa doll). How can I confirm that the objects in the world I perceive are actually there and are the way I perceive them... Can I? I can't! OH MY GOD I'M A BRAIN IN JAR SOMEWHERE!!!!" breakdowns.

Dear Internet, this is my last will and testament, in preparation for the day philosophy renders me incoherent or puts me into a vegetative state.

I want my fiance to have my money and movies so he doesn't starve to death/ die of boredom. I want my parents to have... well, there's not much left. I guess my best friend can have my clothes. Unless my mom wants to sell them to pay for my tuition. That would be fair. And um.... I want to be cremated. The idea of my blood being pumped out of me to be replaced by preserving fluid so that my corpse can rot slowly under ground creeps me out. I'd rather go out with a bang and be spread all over so the whole country can live in a constant state of mild discomfort, wondering if that bit of dust that just got in their eye was actually my ashes.

Goodbye, world that might not even exist...