Search for Beauty

I remember the first day of class very vividly.  I can remember my anxiousness and my fragility.  Like the feeling of packing the day before you embark on a journey that you know is going to take you somewhere you've never been before.  I remember how alone I felt opening the door to my new apartment before the semester started.  Reality had sunk in.  I had left behind everything that was familiar to me, everything I knew, my job, my friends, for something unknown.  And for the life of me I couldn't figure out why I had to do this, I just knew that that was what I was going to do.  I don't think my experience was unique in any way.  I think we all have moments when we recklessly leave safety behind because whatever safety was wasn't cutting it.  It's a pretty simple concept.  It could just be called "going out on a limb".  But what isn't simple, is getting there.  Stepping out onto that limb.  This is what I realized on the first day of class.  Like I said, I couldn't for the life of me remember why I had decided to go back to school, or pick philosophy for a major.  There was no rational answer in my head.  And then Kip walked in, and without saying anything, wrote, "What is beauty?" on the board.  And then all the sudden this sense of relief and joy sunk in.  I remember having a powerful aesthetic experience.  That "aha" moment that almost made me laugh out loud.  I remember saying to myself, "oh, that's why I'm here".  It was just my search for beauty that had gotten me here.  I remember looking back on all the things I'd done to get where I was and felt like the hard part was over.  The unknown wasn't scary anymore, it was magical and ready to be explored.