I'm just saying

I'm currently in a yahoo group dedicated to reading 'The Great Books'. These are the great works of Western civilization as outlined in Britannica Great Books of the Western World, edited by Mortimer Adler. We're reading the 54 volumes over a 7.5 year period. We just started Monday. Our first assignment was to read The Apology by Plato. I considered myself pretty well read, but I'm realizing the folly of that notion now.

Did any of you know that Socrates seriously kicks some ass? Why did no one tell me? Selfish hobbitsess. Go read it. It's Socrates' thoughts, but Plato's elegant writing. It's only around 19 pages and can be found online if you hunt for it. It's so... approachable. I thought it might be dry or intimidating or hopelessly boring - but it was truly fascinating. I'm not going to try and summarize here - I need to read it a few more times to really absorb it.

Oh, on a side note. I'm almost done with part 1 of Don Quixote! Cervantes also rocks.

I'll leave you with a quote from the book The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy. "You don't want simply to be at the mercy of accident in your opinions - for your views to be decided by irrelevant matters such as whom you happen to know or where you were brought up. You want to believe for good reasons."