Carlson, Brady, Lessing, Stalnaker, Armstrong, Mill, Feinberg, Montague, Neill, Carroll, Hume…

In case Mill didn’t give it away; these are some of the philosophers whose ramblings I’m reading at the moment.

You might detect a slight resentment in that sentence. Allow me to say that you are correct if you think you do.

I wonder how I’m going to feel when I wake up tomorrow morning. Considering I only read one philosophical essay yesterday (John Stuart Mill’s “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion”), I was surprised to discover this morning the instant I tried to sit up in bed that I felt like I’d been poisoned or exposed to some other evil; the world was spinning faster than it has ever done while I’ve been under the influence of alcohol, and when I finally managed to stand up I crashed into every bit of furniture in my room in my attempt to get to the bathroom. (And of course I will attribute this weird physical state to having read philosophy.) As I stumblingly found my way back to bed, I was determined not to let the swaying sensation keep me from studying harder than ever before for my philosophy exam (which is next Wednesday), so I fell back into bed, pulled the covers up to my chin, picked up the course reader and continued reading (Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s “A Propaganda Model” this time – it’s not even a proper philosophical essay, just a bunch of numbers). My attempt was stymied, however, by a sudden attack of drowsiness – so I dozed off for a couple of hours, and when I finally woke with a jolt it was past midday. Sigh.

Anyway, the instant I awoke I continued my perusal, and I just kept reading and reading and reading throughout the day. I didn’t even stop for the customary meal breaks, meaning I read all day without a single bite of food – unless you count three cups of coffee with a ton of sugar as a nutritional substitute. I didn’t take a break until 7.30pm, when I went to the local fish ‘n chips shop and bought a hot-dog and some chips to take home. (Unfortunately it takes just long enough for the food to be prepared for me to walk down the road to the liquor store and buy a bottle of wine and walk back up to the fish ‘n chips shop in time to pick up the yumminess.) So I got home, and read another essay on freedom of speech and the free press. Damnit, I actually decided today (I swear it was peer pressure – those bloody philosophers) that I’m going to spend a couple of years as a journalist. I suppose that’s what I’ll do to pay back my student loan once I’m back in Norway after I’ve been deported…

Guess what, I’ve decided to join Victoria’s student magazine, Salient. It totally kicks ass, and I feel way more confident writing in English for a larger audience now (I mean, I got an A+ on an English essay this year – not to sing my own praises or anything) than I did at the start of the year. That’s going to help me get a job at a newspaper or magazine at some later point in life, I suppose. Plus, I love to write, so why not?

But I digress. Back to philosophy readings. My brain has turned to custard. Information overload. On several occasions today I found myself laughing at something the philosopher wrote (Feinberg is exceptionally funny), and now I’m worried about my sanity. Is the philosopher actually funny, or am I completely missing the point? Also, what I fear now is how I’m going to feel tomorrow morning, considering the amount of philosophical texts I’ve read over the past two days increased by 400% in a single day. If reading one essay makes me feel like I’ve been on a sea voyage for the last four months and only reached land yesterday, I’m scared to think what effect reading so many more essays today will have on me tomorrow…

But even all this mad studying has its silver linings. It allows me to crawl into my own world of solitude without feeling asocial. Yesterday I did what I said I’d do a couple of days ago; I packed up my philosophy course book and my notes, and went to the Wellington Botanic Gardens, where I have found ‘my’ spot, which is rarely disturbed by other people, plus it’s relatively sheltered from the wind but gets all-day sun. So I went there and lay in the sun for a couple of hours while going over my notes. Sa-weet as. Turns out tanning and studying aren’t as mutually exclusive as previously thought.

All the thinking has also stirred my brain from its slumber, and last night, while I was trying to go to sleep, I had the most important epiphany of my life. I suddenly had a pre-conceived idea for a short film in my head, and I knew straight away that that’s going to be my debut. It just clicked instantly – it is my film, my idea, which no one else has come up with, and which no one else is likely to copy, in fact. I’m so looking forward to the time after my exam next week, when I can finally sit down and write it out, and even create a storyboard; I know exactly how it’s going to look. What’s so brilliant about it is that it’s so simple; I can probably make it without any funding whatsoever, which means that it’s the best kind of short film to be making as my first. I’m so excited!

PS. Facebook, consider yourself no longer part of my life. This separation is good for us.