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Writes Professor Richard Murphy:

“When teaching college students, I like to orient them so that they see the world as an artist might, so that they appreciate through experience (if possible) the world with and without conventions. I want students to see that life is larger than conventions. My first homework assignment is to send them into a field outside the city on a clear night and to look up until they know why I sent them. My hope is that they come to understand that the feeling of being overwhelmed is terror unless they understand that they are and are also somehow a part of what they are experiencing.

Then I introduce them to three concepts: The masculine, feminine, and postmodern sublimes. By doing this I stand the best chance at rattling them from comfortable positions. I use the black or white board to magnify my pointed understandings of these three concepts: The experience of being physically overwhelmed, the experience gaps or aporia that need mediation (Part 6 of Whitman’s “Song of Myself” works well), and the constant living with the knowledge of these facts day-to-day, moment-to-moment.

On the board, I place three dots in the shape of a pyramid. The top one represents the Intellect; the one on the lower right represents Eternity; and the one on the lower left represents the World. The Intellect has an energy called the Imagination and the Imagination is capable of orbiting all three from left to right beginning with Intellect. While the Intellect has energy of the Imagination, Eternity engulfs time before each of us is born, while each is here, and after each has died. I like to tell students it is when we know nothing very well, having PhDs in it.”