Listening to Podcasts...

Anyone else impressed with Ryan's video yesterday? I mean, wow. Just the openess, the honest truth, that Ryan gave was very... stong? Maybe emotional is the word I should be using but I don't know if I really want to acknowlege that I can feel emotion.

Anyways, I've been listening to a bunch of podcasts lately. And yes, there are great. And yes, I love listening to them and may or may not do extra cleaning around the apartment so that I can retreat into this private world of podcasts. I mean, there are many great points brought up and, most of all, I love the people who run these podcast's perspectives on life (and Mormonism) (and on being gay) (and on how being gay impacts young Mormons) and I'm again amazed that I did not actively seek these type of discussions out. Mainly, I'm surprised that I'm not what I use to be (or imagined myself to be); I'm not seeking out intellectual discussion, I'm not wanting to examine new people's perspectives on the universe, I'm not trying to challenge myself.

I had a friend introduce podcasts to me. The same friend that reminds me almost everytime I see her what being an intellectual should really be.

I need this reminder because, I think, I lost my sense of being an intellectual and instead settled on just being "smart."

Being smart generally just means getting the grades that can label a person as smart. It means winning arguments. It means intellectual superiority.

In my case, it especially means taking a tone of arrogance. I see all these Mormons around me who put blinders up and use the prophets/scriptures to justify that they will always be right. They are more holy (they are part of the one true religion) and thus they will win any argument. They are on a high horse and will not be knocked down.

Well, I seem to have gotten on my own high horse recently but I don't perceive it as such because a lot of people at BYU (including my douchey/unthoughtful roommates) have high horses that are way above mine. I am surronded by that steriotypical Mormon who can't hold a "real" intellectual argument because, in the end, they cannot be proven wrong. I began to think I was always right because MY bias isn't as bad as the people around me. But I do have bias. I don't know all the arguements.

And that's why I'm loving the podcasts. And why I love when my boyfriend or this mysterious female friend I was talking about earlier get me into intellectual arguments. Because I now realize that I've changed since coming to BYU. I see the world as Mormon vs. non-Mormon arguments. This might be true for the a large part of my near future, but it isn't be true for all aspects of my life, and this Mormon vs. non-Mormon argument will be completely irrelevant in a few years from now.

So, keep me on my toes, podcasts (and  people in general). I've got to get back into the real world, a non-Mormon bubble mindset. Because my enviornment will be changing back to what it once was in under a year. Back to normal.