Alex Clark: Choice Topic: conversation

Three of my best friends are in this course with me, and one day we had a conversation walking back from class, through dinner, about the class and related topics. We originally walked out just reveling at the abstractness and uniqueness of the material. The studies of the sacred and of wilderness have terms or words that we have never even heard of before, concepts that go deeper into more levels than typical philosophy, and wordings that take us multiple re-reads to understand. Many times we will look at each other portraying that we have no idea what is going on, and other times simply have our minds blown. On this day we were trying to solidify our own definitions of communitas, liminality, existentialism, and ephemeral so that we could actually understand them. It took the four of exchanging our opinions and viewpoints for quite a few minutes before we all felt like we actually had a grasp on the terms. We discussed how different the class was from how we were expecting it to be, and the surprising breadth of information to cover in the class. Originally it was, “how much is there to say about spending time in the woods,” and now it is “I think it would be impossible to cover all the information there is about these topics in a lifetime.” My personal opinion is that much of the topic is conveyed in a somewhat unnecessarily difficult manner, but the material is extremely interesting and worth learning. The class has driven me to deeper thought about spirituality, greater desire for nature, and a greater curiosity for subjects unknown.