There’s nothing new since the Greeks
One of my professors used to say
It took me years to understand
What he meant by that statement
Or at least
What I thought he meant
It was a statement I thought about often
As I walked to his class
But I never asked him about it
I wanted to figure it out on my own
He had given us the challenge
And it was up to us
To discover it for ourselves
His lectures spanned all the major thinkers
From Socrates to Kierkegaard
He preferred existentialism
At least that was my interpretation
Maybe it was just his passion
More so than the classical thinkers
Existentialism
Gets into the core of a person
It gnaws away at you
You want to see a meaning in life
From the time we were children
We were told life has meaning
Things happen for a reason
But once you’ve been confronted
With existentialism
The questions remain
No matter how hard you try
To dismiss them or not think about them
Maybe it was this
That appealed to him
I don’t know what pain he suffered
There was something nihilistic
In his nature
Then again it may just have been
A misperception on my part
What I can say for sure is
He was not romantic or idealistic
He was terse, harsh, and intense
He pointed out to us more than once
That we had the luxury to ponder
Questions of importance
Because we weren’t working
Sixteen hours a day in a factory
He said it in such a way
That no one took it as an insult
He made us realize
How lucky we were to be in college
He was the most dramatic speaker
I’ve ever seen
Sometimes he would get so worked up
During one of his lectures
Spit would fly out of his mouth
As he wrote words of wisdom
On the chalkboard
With such tremendous speed
As though it was boring
And trite to him
He had that much command
Of the most profound concepts
That left us baffled
Though I was only twenty years old
Something in me realized
That despite whatever shortcomings
He may have had as a man
He was undeniably brilliant
If someone raised their hand
And tried to stump him
With an arcane question
He always had an answer
On the tip of his tongue
It required no effort at all
No thinking or deliberation on his part
To deliver an astounding answer
That left the class in awe
He gave me a C+ on a paper
I was sure would earn me an A
I was ticked off about it
For quite some time
I felt as though he had been
Too hard on me
Didn’t he see the intellect
I delivered to his fingertips
To read?
He had a reputation on campus
For giving pretty girls A’s
Especially if they were friendly
In and out of the classroom
That’s why I initially suspected
He gave me a lower grade
Than he would have given
One of his female admirers
I thought perhaps he doesn’t
Care for my stoic presence
Maybe I didn’t react enough
To his wild, raging lectures
But it taught me a good lesson
And I am thankful for it
He gave me what I deserved
Not what I wanted or expected
He made me a better thinker and writer
You have to support your conclusions
He wrote in red ink all over my paper
That I was sure would dazzle him
You can’t tie unfounded premises
Together like that
Where is your evidence he asked me?
Years later when I went to visit him
The first thing he asked me was
If I was still mad about that paper
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