By Brooke C.
Worthwhile causes come about infrequently, and ones that I’m willing to fight for come about even less often. It was hard for me to think of many things I’d be willing to fight for. I wish that there were more things I was really passionate about. However, I know that passion has to exist and cannot be invented, so I’ll just go with what I have.
Since I was a child, I’ve always had a love for learning, exploring, and discovering. I’ve spent hours and hours in libraries reading, and still more time running questions through my mind over and over again in search of a real answer. Not only did this entertain me and give me true joy, it also gave me a real way to cope with everything going on around me. However, I did eventually find that the search, and not the answer, is more important. This leads me to my idea of exactly what I’m willing to fight for: the pursuit of knowledge, wisdom, and truth.
The reason that I would be willing to fight for the search for knowledge is because I believe it is absolutely imperative. Without knowledge to illuminate it, the world would be a dark place. The Earth would still be flat, with all of the planets orbiting around it; mental illness would still be treated like a crime, and sick people would still be thrown in jail. Little would be known of love, religion, beauty, or even ourselves. There would be no art, no self-expression. To think of what the world would be like without knowledge is mindboggling; without the information and insights that have been gained since the beginning of human history, we would still be living, and more importantly thinking, like cavemen.
It’s only through experience that I’ve been able to open my mind to new ideas, learn about different philosophies, and make a little more sense of human relationships, something I’ve never had the ability to understand.
The revelations that come from the pursuit of these things have made my life worth living. The moments when I realize that there’s something in the universe that makes sense, and that life isn’t a bunch of random coincidences, are the times when I can believe that life is something other than absurd. Pursuing comprehension of the universe and all its components has led me down a road where I’ve been presented opportunities to make sense of my life, and start to live in the real world as I believe it is meant to be lived.
I am willing to fight for all people’s ability to understand things on a deeper level because I believe it is necessary not only because of the results of brooding over philosophy—the potential answers—but because of the search. All beauty, love, and wisdom comes from the sincere search for the truth. Whether it is found in books, in history, or in God, the truth somehow needs to be found, even if it must be fought for.
