The Beginning of the End.

Classes began today. It seems funny that whenever I feel perplexed by a situation I do not know how to handle best, if I just concentrate on what is happening around me, I learn what to do. In a way, the universe seems to teach me lessons when I'm in need, or maybe they only make sense when I'm in search of the answer. Anyway, today I went to my first two classes of my last college semester. I've been calling it "THE BEGINNING OF THE END." The first was "The Idea of the Beautiful" and the second was "Politics of China". Earlier today I thought I was going to talk about the second lecture, but the last few hours of my night changed my mind. These are the lessons I learned today:

Firstly; Bonds are strongest when founded on genuine intent of mutual betterment. I am finding that in relationships, when you are genuine and truly concerned with the well being of those you care about, it will surprise you how many people will act accordingly towards you. It seems that although you are very lucky to find someone who fully loves and understands you, there are many that can love you in their own unique way and understand a part of you better than the rest. Accept this. Absorb this. They all help you learn to love better, the more people you learn the love, the broader benefits you will be able to reap.

Secondly; "In itself none...is better than any other; how it comes out depends entirely on how it is performed." The class titled "The Idea of the Beautiful" assigned Plato's "Symposium" for tonights reading. How fitting. Every so often my core beliefs are shaken and it makes everyday decisions hard to make until I rebalance myself. The Symposium is the story of a gathering of ancient Greeks including Socrates and a handful of other thoughtful men who express what they understand the deity "Love" to be. Each man gives a different account of love (besides Socrates, that's Thursday's reading) and how they interpret the God/s they identify with it. They seemed to agree that their were different degrees of love, some that were noble and others that were of a lesser quality. These are the ideas that stuck out to me:

Pausanias;

"love is, like everything else, complex: considered simply in itself, it is neither honorable nor a disgrace—its character depends entirely on the behavior it gives rise to...it is the common, vulgar lover, who loves the body rather than the soul, the man whose love is bound to be inconstant, since what he loves is itself mutable and unstable."

Side note: Don't several different philosophies/beliefs agree that the root of suffering is the attachment  to the transient? Or perhaps even, the "love" of the less relevant or ultimately unfulfilling as in superficial attachment of the body, money, or power?

"If someone decides to put himself at another's disposal because he thinks that this will make him better in wisdom or in any other part of virtue, we approve of his voluntary subjection"

Lesson one?

Eryximachus:

"it is far greater when Love is directed, in temperance and justice, toward the good, whether in heaven or on earth: happiness and good fortune, the bonds of human society, concord with the gods above—all these are among his gifts."

This makes me think of the ultimate goal of uplifting as many as possible.

Agathon:

"Love fills us with togetherness and drains all of our divisiveness away...In pain, in fear, in desire or speech, Love is our best guide and guard; he is our comrade and our savior."

Be guided.