Education

I'LL BE HONEST. There are days where I lose all reason and rationality of why I even bother to pursue greatness, attend school and stay morally just. Some days, I wonder what would happen if I dropped everything and curled up with the warm grasp of comfort. I realise then that later on, the warm and kind grasp of comfort and pleasure will soon transform into what it really was along: the lack of truth, sacrifice and love.

Comfort exists as an animalistic need. It distracts us morally and only assists us productively, but not in the way we'd like surprisingly. Productivity only benefits our material wealth. Like a good tree can produce only good fruit, productivity can only produce physical comfort. So, if such comfort can only enrich our physical needs, how can it help our spiritual and communal needs? It can’t.

When it comes to comfort, things like specialization can be a byproduct. I want to work in fashion publications which would involve a lot of innovative and original thinking for something--I say not easily--so materialistic. However the fashion industry unmistakably labels itself as a world of specialization with no serious attempt to contribute to the universal knowledge--another thing I say not easily. Understandably I would plan to stay strongly connected in a spiritual and loving community and thus not lost in the materialistic side of things. I’ve also been told that in this situation, it is not like I would choose between a spiritual and a specialized life. The two are merely on different levels in which the spiritual level triumphs. But like how I must strive for the best in a spiritual pursuit to happiness, I should also strive for the absolute best in fashion publications. Why strive for comfort and security when I can search for freedom and become the best?

If I want to become the best, education--the pursuit of universal knowledge--would be the way to go. And like Jacques Maritain said how greatness isn't only strived from intellectual knowledge, it is also virtue and self-sacrifice for others symbolizing the love we have for everyone.

So, education provides meaning and dignity. It provides a godlike personality. “Education prepares our given faculties and capacities to do what they are made or created to do,” says James V. Schall from On The Education of Young Men and Women. We were made to achieve wonders, and our tool, accordingly, is education. Schall acknowledges in his essay that Jacques Maritain possesses persistence when it comes to education. Maritain believed not only everyone can be educated, but they should be educated. Education would imply you have a goal.

In conclusion, if I were to give up and simply throw everything away for the means of aimless comfort, I do in fact lose all aim and goals, let alone future. It makes all the studying for finals, writing twenty-page papers and listening attentively to lectures all worth while, truthfully. I mean if it means truly succeeding and becoming the best in the end.

-MASR

#education #philosophy #socrates #maritain