Bachelor of Arts Major in Introspection

Raphael's "The School of Athens" general information

In undergrad, note-taking also involved a lot of drawing and coloring---I would occasionally joke about being under the program Bachelor of Science in Biology major in Coloring Book. Anyway, it was during my required liberal arts terms when I began to appreciate the arts & humanities. I remember my first humanities course where my prof flashed a slide of Raphael's frescoe (above) and was captured. It's a busy picture, that's for sure. But you can see that every character interaction was deliberate and not just background filler. Yes, Plato and Aristotle seem to be the foci (being right at the center beneath the arc), but everyone else matter as well. 

Imagine walking through the picture and attempting to interact with everyone; or at least eavesdropping on the conversations. Topics may be very specific---even jargon-infused. One could get lost in the minute details of specialized concepts. You move from one group to another and find your levels of confusion and self-doubt increasing almost exponentially. That's because you have allowed yourself to be consumed by the superficialities of knowledge. You then reach Plato and Aristotle and realize that all this was aimed at answering the basic questions of "Who am I?", "Why am I here?, or "Why am I self-aware

?" 

Ancient people go to school to understand one's place in this world; the modern purpose of education is to get a better job, earn, owe, earn to pay what you owe until you retire etc etc. It's not worse these days---just very different. Don't get me wrong, I'm okay with the role of education today. I don't really want to be a woman in ancient Athens---women were commodities and never regarded to have brains. Plato and Aristotle only liked their kind. I mean liked as in like.

Not going there. I ain't an ancient gossip monger.