Intellectual Erection

(Revision of It's Like Sex... For Your Brain from March 16, 2012)

For those of you who have read my recent post on Pas·sion, you know that I'm looking for a little bit of fire in my life.  But fire comes in many shapes and sizes.  Though most of our brains skip immediately toe-curling, back-scratching heat when we think of "passion," it's a package that can present itself in the most unlikely of wrappings.

I once described my art history senior seminar on the art of ancient Gandhara as "a weekly three-hour long mind-fuck."  And I stand by that original statement.  But my recent obsession with passion has forced me to reconsider precisely what I deem worthy of the term.

It's no surprise that at the end of the day, the last place any student wants to find herself is on campus.  As long as there is nothing requiring us to remain there, we book it home, with a little extra bounce in our step.  After spending long hours pulling out our own hair in Bailey-Howe, glancing at the clock every three minutes in lectures that seem to drag on forever and downing coffee like there's diamonds buried at the bottom of the mug, we are done.

This is what we want to do on our walks home.

Unfortunately, the jaded attitude that so many of us cannot help but attain after years of the same, stressful routine, prevents us from taking part in one of the most exciting and commonly overlooked perks of being an undergrad:  free lectures!

I realize that doesn't sound exciting, but bear with me here.



As students, we are often blind to the incredible intellectually stimulating surroundings of our every day lives.  We become numb to anything ever so slightly reminiscent of academia because it immediately reminds us of sitting in a boring classroom listening to an ancient professor dribble on about the Boston Tea Party that we've all studied since 1995.  But the fact of the matter is that the University of Vermont holds fantastic mind blowing lectures on an almost weekly basis.  And if you didn't know this, then you, my friend, are missing out.

Originally, I could not have been more turned off by the thought of attending a lecture outside of the classroom.  That was, until I was forced to try it.  It took some very much needed extra credit points from my Philosophy professor my sophomore year to push me into my first academic lecture.

I'd love to tell you that it absolutely blew my mind into a thousand new particles that I now had the tools to analyze and understand.

But I'd be lying.

I found it boring, irrelevant and damn near impossible to follow.  I avoided such lectures at all costs for the rest of the semester.

But upon my entrance into my junior year, I began to feel a new sense of maturity brewing within me.  I felt as if I was finally entering my (dare I say) adulthood.  So , rather randomly, I began attending lectures that I'd discover through random fliers that were hung in Old Mill and Williams.

They were like crack.

I was addicted.  Not only do they make you feel like a true college student but they finally provide you with something that most classes fail to give you:  the desire to learn.

Example:  Artist Fred Tomaselli's Lecture, Fall 2011.  "I named this piece Super Plant.  It's made of marijuana leaves, ephedrine and other psychoactive materials.   Because let's face it.  If it existed, it'd take over the world."

Cliche?  Corny?  Perhaps.  But true all the same.

I don't have regrets in my life.  Personally, I believe they're a waste of time and negative energy.  However, I am willing to admit when I could have done something differently.

Go to lectures.  Learn.  Enjoy yourself.

In the endless cycle of taking notes, studying those notes and "applying" those notes by filling in scantron sheets, it's easy to forget why we're even here in the first place.

Let these incredible lecturers and their mind-blowing theories on the intricacies of life and secrets of the Universe remind you.