I had enrolled myself in a philosophy class for the term, as is my wont.  I went to the first session but somehow it all went wrong. And I can’t figure out why, but I do know I am going to withdraw.

When trying to explain myself to my daughter, she asked was it the teacher, the material, the students, that late hour? And it wasn’t really any of those things.  The teacher is a young woman just starting out. She’s not quite finished her PhD, but she knows her stuff, and she is passionate about the subject so what’s not to like about that? The material (the class), I chose. It’s about the early modern turn in philosophy (and in western cultural ideas of itself) and includes personages like Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, all the way up to Hobbes and Mary Wollstonecraft, a nice range of philosophers, and I really liked the inclusion of Mary in the lineup. The students seemed a bit more educated than many I have shared a class with. Most of them had heard of Montaigne, for example. And although none of them had read the Essays, at least two of them seemed to have some knowledge of the atheism charges and Descartes’ response to what was perceived as the rebirth of the sceptics. All this is good. The late hour? Well it is true that I didn’t get home till gone 10:30 and that is rather late for me.  I was late to work the next day as well, but no one cares about that, least of all my boss, since I am almost always late to leave at the end of the day as well.

I think, really, it was the earnestness of it all. The students, the teacher, the battle for Truth and Knowledge… But this is just my mind grasping for a reason, any reason at all.

As I rode the bus away from the University, then sat on the bench in front of the McDonalds waiting for my connection — watching people buzzing around eating as they walked, rushing for cabs and express buses — the thought of sitting in that class for 13 weeks caused me actual pain.  But, sitting there, I couldn’t figure out why. I like philosophy, I am always reading it, I like talking about it, thinking about it. The dissonance between my visceral reaction and my knowledge of my past history and enjoyment in classes bothered me.

By the time I got home, I had made a bargain with myself, I would sleep on it, a good solution for much tension. So as the problem would crop up in the night I would tell myself, “no decision tonight” and drift off to sleep again. The next day, less tired and less tense, perhaps I could come up with some reason that would allow a rapprochement between selves.

But it was not to be. By the next afternoon, I was certain that I would not take the class. There was no reason offered by my viscera, just a sense of certainty. A reason, or at least some illuminating image would be nice, but it appears not to be in the offing. I could create one I suppose, but that would be cheating. In fact the only thing that my dreams offered up was a little film with me as the main character, covered in big black bugs (a dream cross between roaches and leeches), that while not dangerous, not biting, not threatening in any way, were truly gross — and I was covered in them. (there’s a particularly vivid scene with a big black curved bug stuck to the flesh of my upper arm, a bit like a leech sticks to a dog) I was dragging a blanket (also covered in them) and running for the door so I could pick all the suckers off and littering my house with them along the way. Not a particularly reassuring image and all it illuminated was the desire not to take the class.  Nasty, no?

So I will quit the class and I’ll just have to live with not knowing.