Psychology & Realism

It's already begun:
I have some kind of irrational emotion, and I understand why I'm having it. Well that's convenient and useful for emotional well-being, but it can happen when I have whims too, dreams, lovely sentiments... Reason and knowledge of the mind swoop in and explain away all mystery.

I've only taken two psychology courses at McGill, and the way of thinking behind them has already infected my mind.

I realize the word "infected" makes it sound entirely unpleasant, but really, it's not completely, and I use "infected" only because once this mindset grabs hold of you, it becomes difficult to ever let it go. Being able to explain human behaviour, or at least feel like you can, does have its perks: it helps enormously in conflict resolution, counselling, moving past harmful irrationality, understanding others... etc. etc. The trouble is, there are times when I don't want to understand everything, and don't want to unravel every mystery. Naturally, this begs the deeper question: is it wrong to want to avoid knowledge, to remain in ignorance?

Generally, my answer to this question would be yes, it is wrong: one should seek truth!
I do stand by that, but I think that when it comes to the human mind, there are times when explanations turn out to be inaccurate and/or unnecessary. Inaccurate in that they don't do justice to the mind's true state of affairs, and unnecessary in that they can stifle creativity and imagination.

Life is nice with a little mystery, with a few things that can't be explained away by logic, and humans are one of the more mysterious and interesting groups to observe! Human life and emotion in all its complexity is fascinating to wonder about and experience. Often, when realism kicks in in the middle of some imaginative train of thought, it kills it, and all you're left with is a feeling of "Oh. Well, I suppose that makes sense then." It can be quite the letdown.

The reason I'm so focused on psychology is because I'm considering studying both it and linguistics, and the time for course selection has arrived. At this moment, the thought of pursuing courses that try to explain and understand human behaviour and mental processes is a little disheartening. I feel as though it might quash some of my creative spirit. Maybe that's silly. Maybe, like the physicist who understands matter and goes on to research the possibility of string theory, I could use this knowledge to think past what is and consider what more could be discovered - that requires imagination!
(I know that physics isn't the same as psychology, yes yes, but allow me to draw the hopeful parallel.)

After all, isn't all education about seeking to understand more and more?

It really does change your perspective though, psychology. It applies to everything, making it hard to get out of your mind, because it's the study of, well, you, and everyone around you, which is why it's so popular! And important. Sometimes, this seems fascinating, but at other times, like right now, I feel as though I don't want to have a bundle of knowledge explaining away the wonderment and curiosity that comes from having mysteries of the mind to explore. Is it wrong to purposefully avoid certain knowledge and simply live out the human experience?

If anyone has an opinion, I would very much like to hear it!

There's Hope

To (very loosely) sum up these past few months in terms of school, I'd have to say that I've been somewhat disappointed.

I've always identified myself as a school-lover - I was never really a full-out studier, or one who did nothing but school work, but I LOVED LEARNING. Or thought I did...

This past semester has made me re-evaluate that self-description a lot, because, to be perfectly honest, I haven't felt nearly as inspired by my courses in this institute of higher learning as I had hoped I would.

I'm pretty sure that this is largely due to the facts that university is much harder than I had thought it would be (duh, right?), and that there is no one affirming your "brilliance" every step of the way in these classes filled with hundreds of intelligent students.

This isn't to say that I've had no moments of academic enlightenment, wherein I felt supreme inspiration and excitement for a particular subject, no, it's just that these feelings haven't been quite as frequent as I had rather naïvely assumed they would be. At times, I've felt like quitting; I've been wondering what the point is of my being here at all. Yes, McGill is lovely, Montréal is beautiful, I'm surrounded by amazing friends and am having fantastic experiences, but... I'm here not just for all these wonderful things, but also, and primarily I suppose, to gain an education of some sort. And I just haven't been feeling it.

(Though, I am still in my first semester, so no worries, I know that this meagre amount of experience doesn't exactly provide enough evidence to cause me to jump ship!)

Nonetheless, it's been discouraging.

But here's where the renewal of hope comes in; there's two parts.

Part 1

After talking with my uncle, who's a professor in educational psychology, I've become more and more interested in the fields of educational and social psychology. So today, on the advice of one of my residence dons, I visited a social psych prof because I thought his work sounded interesting, and wanted to speak with him in person. Unfortunately, he had had to end his office hours early for the day, as he was heading to teach a class, so I intercepted him just as he was leaving. Fortunately, on the other hand, this gave me the chance to simply chat with him as he walked down the hill.

He wore a long, rough brown leather overcoat, a hat that looked like it belonged to a lone ranger, and puffed up a storm on his cigarette as we moseyed down the street. He spoke like a lone ranger too - a cross between that and a private detective. There was quite the air of old-school tenacity and intelligence about him; "Come see me next week", he said, and so indeed I shall. I hope he becomes even more interesting the longer we talk...

Part 2

After that delightful encounter, I decided to finally check out the Islamic Studies Library, and is it ever a GEM! Pure intellectual beauty, a marvel! all right here in one innocent-looking building. I'm sitting here right now in fact, albeit in a study carrel reserved for an unknown graduate student.

"We ask that you please be ready to move elsewhere should the student to whom [this study carrel] is assigned need to use it."

I hope the graduate student doesn't show up anytime soon, because this study carrel is an academic inspiration.

Though thank goodness, there are other tables at which to work which are not graduate-student-assigned. So, I will definitely be back.

The woodwork, the tiling, the shelves and shelves of books in languages I don't understand.... Ah. This library is so silent too. One of those places with the perfect mixture of inspiring and thought-provoking gorgeousness and silence that makes one feel they simply must take part in intellectual pursuits. It makes me feel that I should do something important and innovative just because I'm here. Sitting in a graduate student carrel also inspires me to work, because if I were just on Facebook or browsing the internet, then surely someone would walk by, see, point, and cry out, "SHE can't possibly be the graduate student to whom this study carrel is assigned! She's wasting her time on a non-academic pursuits such as Facebook and looking up Harry Potter memes!" (Which is, of course, something a student in grad school would never dream of doing. ...)

Although I suppose all of this is somewhat ironic, considering the fact that I'm currently blogging... But hey, it could be worse. And you should've seen how productive I was JUST being!

Anyhow, these past two experiences, particularly the time spent in this library, have given me a little injection of hope - perhaps learning could be riveting and wonderful once more.

Let's just hope that this renewal of inspiration is enough to get me through final exams.

Classes

I heart physics. And deductive logic, because it's like math. Why am I in arts? Bonne question.

The first couple weeks of classes have been overwhelming, to say the least. I love my mash-up of courses:

French - Français fonctionnel avancé

Psychology - Intro to Psych

Poli Sci - The Government of Canada

Philosophy - Intro to Deductive Logic

Physics - Space, Time, and Matter

(I should probably start spelling French with "ph" - Phrench, so that it can fit in with the "P" theme!)

But, this mash-up means that there is next to no overlap in my courses' subject matter, and so my mind is constantly being yanked all over the place! It can be fun though.

My Poli Sci course may sound dry, but the professor is a gem - he brings in all kinds of current issues, and is passionate about the subject matter.

In Psych, our prof wants so desperately to find some way of connecting with his 650 students that he read through the entire class list, every single name! Something about how priming the brain like this will make him more likely to remember our names if any of us go to talk to him in person. He also looked at each of our pictures from the university database to get a better idea of who we are - you might think that that sounds creepy, but really, it's endearing.

And my physics professor is so friendly! He keeps telling us about his work with lasers, which sounds so cool, and is very open to questions. Plus, come on, it's theoretical physics for non-physics majors! How much better can it get?! Special and general relativity, time, light cones, quantum theory, time travel, matter and anti-matter, cosmology... :) :) :)

For Philosophy, I really have to read the textbook to make sense of anything, but I am always able to pay attention in class - the professor makes me laugh with how he mutters that certain propositions (or is the correct term "premises"?) would be "utter nonsense", and how "we certainly can't allow for that". And he says things in a such a dead-pan way, with a dry British accent. Win. Plus I get to learn a new language for the class: FOL! Points for philosophy.

And well French, need I say more? It's French, and I can tell that this year-long course will help me improve by leaps and bounds ... At least I hope! Plus the professor is completely comprehensible, with no difficult accent, and is so clear and organized.

Wow. Haha, I'm assuming that that would be a tad boring to the outside reader, but I do believe this has been a therapeutic exercise - I now feel quite fortunate to have all of the professors that I do, they're really quite a good lot :) Though I'll let you know how I feel once mid-terms roll around...