Scott Freeman

Confessions of a Twisted Mind

I’m different. I know that.

I always have been. You can ask any of my readers who have known me since my high school days: I march to a different drummer.

Somehow, God uses that for good, I think. But since, I’m in the mode of full disclosure, I thought there was more that I should tell you.

I was a horrible student. I hated directed learning. I loved to read, loved to learn. I just hated being told what to study. As a result, my mind typically wandered in classes.

In college I majored in Philosophy. Most of my classes I would listen intermittently while writing stupid stuff in my notebooks. I have a few of those remaining and thought I would share with you some of what I wrote. I’m not proud.
This is from my Greek Philosophy class (fall 1991, I’m 23, next to last semester of college):

• Why ask why? Because it’s my friggin’ nature. Why? Beats the heck out of me.
• Lucretius–wrote some poem I need to know about
• Legs do not a body make, but they are a good start
• I stand naked and bleeding with only my countenance for clothing. The old man in the coonskin hat points me in a direction I do not want to go. I’ve been there before. My fate sends me there again for man cannot return to a place he’s never been. I stumble forward using only the blood-red light that precedes me. Where life begins so must it end.
• If only I knew what he was talking about, I would take notes
• Why am I still sitting here? Maybe it’s because I hang on every word Dr. Frothingham says. Maybe it’s because I really get a rush for Greek philosophy. Maybe it’s because of the chick sitting next to me. Maybe it’s because I don’t want to stand. Maybe I don’t have a reason. That’s probably the most accurate answer. If I had to have a reason for everything I did I would still be sitting her. Well, I am still sitting here, but you get the point. What is the point? Is there a reason to anything? There’s no point to what I’m writing. I mean, why worry about the deficit? Let’s take some money, buy some more mints, print up a whole wad of cash and give it to the government. If we need more money, why don’t we just make more? Let’s take some of this new money, pay off the deficit and put the rest in CD’s. When we build up enough interest we can buy Japan. Then, after shipping them all to Bangladesh, except for any of the good-looking women, we can loot the place for anything that might be beneficial to us. Then we will have that much more money that we could put in some kind of federal reserve and we could all quit our jobs.
• Phythagora–used math–reason? He presupposes it would make my life hell.
• A Poem: Well, the Big Man’s coming and He’s looking for you/He’s gonna find out if you’re naughty or true/It won’t be pretty you can be sure/Only the good will survive The Rapture, The Rapture/Wafting to the clouds on the wings of love/Looking on the heathen down from above/People left on earth due to sin’s allure/Will be mighty confused during The Rapture, The Rapture
• If these guys are so smart, why are they all dead?
• Potential band names: Diaspora Solipsism, Dyslexic Epistemae, Tender Blender
• This is my third semester of philosophy. I have one more to go. How will I afford therapy? The strange looks when I tell people I am a philosophy major are, I believe, justified. Maybe the fact that I am the only declared philosophy majore I know of should tell me something. What it should tell me is that I have a sado-masochistic personality type that deviates dramatically from that which is perceived as normal acceptable behavior. What is the point of this stuff? What do I know now that I didn’t know two years ago, that is now a major difference in my life? Let’s take a quick review of the classes:

• Existentialism–Yes! I enjoyed it immensely and am using it in everyday life.

• Good and Evil–All I learned was that Nietzshe was an idiot and that women don’t have a clue. But I knew that beforehand.

• Effective Thinking–I learned that if you try to think effectively, you usually don’t. If I had been, I wouldn’t have taken the class in the first place.

• Philosophy of Psychology–I learned how to spell psychology, reaffirmed my belief that Freud was an idiot, and found out that I am not a narcissist. I didn’t need a three hour course for that.

• Philosophy of Social Sciences–Come On! I learned that I could fake my way through an entire semester and score an “A.”

• Greek Philosophy–Enough Said

• Psychology of Religion–My classmates make learning impossible

• Independent Study–This is fine cause I don’t have to deal with anybody. But I’m not doing anything I wouldn’t do on my own time.

• Intro to Philosophy–I almost forgot this one. Largely because I don’t remember it.

• Name: Plato of Athens Date of Birth 2/30/48 B.C.

Height: 7′4 Weight: 385

Favorite Soap Opera: Another World

Favorite Book: Decline of the West–Oswald Spengler; Any Max Lucado

Least Favorite Movie: Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. “I should have had that                 part but they gave it to that moron Socrates.”

Favorite Album: Soundtrack from Xanadu

Favorite Saying: “Hey, what’s the big idea?”

So, there’s proof in the pudding that my kids don’t stand a chance. I didn’t include half of what I wrote that semester. I even omitted the lyrics to my first country western song.