I've Been Thinkin'..

I love deep conversations. The one's that I come away from and feel...full. Like I just added some substance to my soul. I love the conversations that make me think about ideas i've never considered. I love the conversations that remind me of why i love those people so much. I love conversations with people that understand where i'm coming from. I love the conversations that matter. Not the ones filled with idle worry and boring chatter to just fill the air with something and anything. I also love listening to people that have thoroughly thought out what they are saying, have a point, and have real truth backing them up. I love conversations that leave me thinking.

This year, i (stupidly) decided to take regular English classes. First semester was a joke. This semester, however, has seemed to make a greater impact on me. I've written a couple essays, had vocab and reading and all that good stuff. That's all just fine and dandy, but there's been differences between this semester and last. This semester I have Mr. Bonjour. This semester I have P of E 1.

Mr. Bonjour is a short bald man that finds great pleasure in his dry humor. (I guess i can relate to him because my humor is as dry as an Arizonian Summertime). He likes to single kids out and sometimes mildly embarrass them in front of the class. Oh, and every once in awhile he'll go off on random tangents about his childhood. Fun, no? Well, it sounds like a "no", but i disagree. Not with how i described him earlier, but with it not being fun. OK, ok...somedays i almost fall asleep (it's 6th hour, what can i say?), but it's the other days that i simply love.

You see, what i did not relate to you was that Mr. Bonjour is a master at deep thinking. He's read a bajillion books, i swear. It's not only that he just reads books though, it's that he reads the right ones and actually understands them. He just thrives off of knowledge and learning. His idea's are profound and have solid foundations. He will take full class periods to just discuss ideas about specific area's of life.

For instance, this happened today. We were supposed to do stuff for a short story he gave us, just the normal Englishy stuff. Except, he started on the Englishy stuff, then somehow segued into his "deep thinkyness". Today's topic was "greatness". According to him, it takes at least 10,000 hours of work at any given thing to become truly "great" at it. He gave it 4 levels, where you're 1.) competent at it 2.) pretty good at it 3.) Excellent 4.) GREAT. One of his examples were the Beatles. Can anyone really disagree? They were amazing and have lived as legends since. To him, the Beatles had achieved "greatness" at music. He then talked about the downside of achieving "greatness". One of those was pride, which basically is the fall of mankind. Then, he said greatness at one thing can make you lose focus of other things that are important to you. That made me think of professional athletes. Some of them are pure talent and hard work, I believe that a few of them deserve to be called Great. But the downfall that some of them eventually have could be cheating on their wife and all the crap that comes with it. But, then he posed the idea: what if you could become Great at one thing that helped you become great at other things? My example of that was Motherhood. If you were a Great mother that would mean becoming great at A LOT of different things. Like organizing, compassion, service, hard work, loving others, teaching, being an example, keeping a level head, and everything that comes from raising children. I think that becoming Great at being a parent could possibly be the most worthwhile thing out there. I owe a lot of who i am today to my parents. And i will strive to be Great at being a mom, so that my kids can say that about me someday too.