A lot of my work is done quietly, in a coffee shop, with lots of books, thinking… That’s kind of a given for philosophy majors. Do I only think? No, sometimes I doodle:
Over this month I contemplated somewhat seriously dropping out and raising sheep in New Zealand. Dissecting pig hearts and the functions of hemoglobin are processes a little outside my comfort zone–I’m not a biology or chemistry major, I’m not premed… I’m a philosophy major writing a thesis on time.
I knew this course would be incredibly challenging when I signed up for it, not only because of the subject but because of the long hours that included both lecture and lab, one after the other, and all the work outside of class I needed to keep up. This is NOT an easy JanPlan, this is in fact a very challenging class that tested way more than my academic abilities. At times I found the subject hostile, like the cells inside my body were laughing at myself and my inability to comprehend my own inner workings. As if my brain were somehow smarter than me and had a sort of biological awareness of what it’s doing while my conscious self was completely in the dark. Most of the time we aren’t aware of what we’re doing anyways.
Eventually I made peace with the fact that drawing was the best way I related to anatomy, and I dedicated a lot of time to it. I took comfort in the words of the great designer Milton Glaser: “the great benefit of drawing … is that when you look at something, you see it for the first time. And you can spend your life without ever seeing anything.” So I drew on pretty much any surface, from chalkboards to notebooks to the little placards they have in Dana announcing new courses. However, I was very conscious that drawing by no means was an excuse not to know what was happening. In fact, I felt even more pressure to understand what was happening precisely because I was taking the time and care to render an image as close to the actual thing as possible. And I understood, eventually. Maybe not everything, but at least some parts of it.
– Amanda Sagasti