My Life With Homo Ignoramus

I can remember getting drunk as a teen-ager with friends, and then, rather than shagging me a babe for some extracurricular activities I would have this tendency to want to wax philosophical. It should be no surprise that I heard on more than one ocassion--'Dude, you are getting too deep. This is a frickin' party man. Lighten up!'

Of course, to me, in my own mind, I was not the strange one. I wasn't the wierd one. Hell no! The wierd ones were the one who didn't seem to give a rat's ass about the 'Big Questions' in life. The wierd ones were the ones who were happy to not know, understand, inquire, wonder, ponder, investigate, look, observe, pray, meditate, or contemplate anything, anyone, or anywhere. It floored me to no end to think about how no one seemed to care. No one even seemed interested.

It usually left me with myself--alone, walking out underneath the stars, looking up at the night sky wondering to myself why no one seemed interested in the world around them except to the degree that the world was able to satisfy some basic need for pleasure. 'Is he/she going to fuck me?' 'Will I get laid tonight?' 'Am I going to get lucky?' 'Does so-and-so really like me?'

Poor, pathetic Dave here was outside sitting underneath the tree, listening to the obnoxious laughter and hysterics of a game of quarter-bounce: 'Drink mother fucker! Drink up!'

Don't get me wrong. It is not that I am disparaging people I grew up--friends or family members, teenage acquaintances, etc. and so forth--as much as I just don't get how people don't seem to care about what strikes me as THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS A HUMAN CAN ASK!

Me? I desperately wanted to understand more. I didn't (and still don't) want to walk through life blind to so much of what is going on just because I didn't care to ask the big questions. I didn't want to stumble into a teen-age pregnancy... or end up in the hands of the law... or fall into a job that I was going to hate for 30 or 40 years or more. I felt something else and other stirring. I couldn't fake like I was having a 'good time' sitting around a table bouncing quarters into a shot glass just so I could get my best friend smashed (or the girl from the next town over to the West of us, the one none of my buddies had gotten to yet).

Besides, I felt like if I really cared about the world---about the people close to me, about my frends and family--then I had to become wise: I had to find a way to understand more, to grow in Wisdom, to discover the Truth, to find the Way. All of those rich metaphors for becoming 'fully human' were goading me out of the smoke-filled rooms and into the open air; in order to have a conversation with the Cosmos, simply because no one else wanted to dance the Big Questions of Life and Death with me.

And I still don't understand why so few want to consider the implications of Wisdom in our lives... or the disconcerting lack thereof. Especially when the world around us--those we love, cherish, and hold in our Heart all seem to be in such desperate need, need of Wisdom: in need of a species that will finally live up to its name: Homo sapiens.