Fab Feb - Philosophical Discussions

It's O Week

✅Fitness - #28bysamwood 'Battlefield' (adapted)
✅Alcohol Free
✅Philosophical discussions with friends

You know when you meet a friend for coffee and the conversation is superficial until one of you makes a move to go? I had both that and the reverse in one day.

As part of buying our new house I had to find a JP (Justice of the Peace) to witness me signing a form. I normally call on an esteemed colleague from my first school. In the last few years I think we have met more often for his JP duties than purely social reasons. I feel a little guilty about that. 

I recently learnt that another good friend is also a JP. I asked if he had 5 minutes to spare, more if he wanted to be shouted a coffee. We agreed on a time to meet at a cafe, bought coffee, signed the form and chatted idly about mutual friends. The conversation was becoming stilted so we were about to depart when the conversation went deeper. The central topic was philosophical approaches to life but particularly in regards to religion. That will happen when your friend is a minister of religion. I remember many years ago when he was at ministry college he struggled a little with viewing the world in grey, wanting the seemingly simpleness of black and white. We have both matured in this regard and although our beliefs may differ a little we approach relationships with people very similarly. It was so nice to catch-up. I'm glad I had the JP excuse.

After my coffee date I drove to university and before I even turned on my PC I was into another deeply philosophical discussion. This time it was with a fellow student and the topic was the philosophical underpinnings of my research into enterprise education. We examined questions such as who really chooses what students study and what is the purpose of school education anyhow? The Department of Education research students in my building tend to have lunch together and hunger had hit the crowd. The discussion was with a part-timer who was going to head home but sat around with us in the lunchroom, foodless, in order to continue the conversation but the moment was lost. Ah well, it was fun while it lasted. Besides, I had work to do.

Not that I was able to work for long before my appointment with my librarian friend. She showed me the best databases to search and we had an interesting discussion about the poorly sourced paper from the other day. Apparently it was in a well regarded journal. She showed me how to assess journal quality but that bit of information didn't stick in my brain. 

Coping with loud music and drunken voices belting through my office window (it's O Week), I worked through to 9pm to make up for the time lost to these philosophical discussions but it was worth it. Today's conversations made me appreciate again the freedom and flexibility I have in my daily life now.