From Stage 3. Early adolescence – The Thespian at the Oasis,  Stanford overview and Stanford quarters.

Q4 Autumn 1964-65, Sep-Dec 1964
PHIL 5 Intro to Phil, 5, A-
PHIL 4 Chinese Phil, 4, A
ELFR 1 1st Yr Fr, 4, B+
POLS 150 His Pol Tht, 5, C   (GPA 3.2)

When I returned to Stanford after a year at home, my confidence boosted by my successful semester at UCLA, I took an ambitious load of 18 units, including two philosophy courses. I was inspired by both, although inspired in the direction of Buddhist thought, which I didn’t quite realize at the time. I was a diligent student, amassing my highest quarterly GPA.

I lived in a rented house at 2218 Oakwood Drive  in East Palo Alto with several ex-Burbank House residents, including Jon Manousos, Stan Muther, Dan Silva, and Richard Astle. In the year I was gone they had discovered Bob Dylan. His first 3 albums were a big part of the sound track around  the house  that quarter.

A memorable moment in Intro to Philosophy

In one of the first meetings of John Mothershead’s Introduction to Philosophy course he made a list on the huge rolling chalkboard  on the stage of Dinkelspiel Auditorium. In two columns he listed a series of dualities that he said constituted the history of philosophy to the present day. And then the punch line, which stayed with me for years, was something like:

“Every year I make this same list, always in the hope that, sitting in this auditorium is the student who will finally break us out of this bind and produce an integrated and transcendent philosophy.” Maybe that’s not exactly what he said, but it sent chills up and down my spine. I felt like he was speaking directly to me.

My successful paper for Nivison’s Chinese Philosophy class

For the Chinese Philosophy course that first quarter I wrote an enthusiastically visionary paper about Chuang Chou’s Butterfly Dream, illustrated at the top of this page. We read the translation by Burton Watson. The same volume contained a chapter called “Free and Easy Wandering”, a phrase that soon became a touchstone for me. The butterfly dream I wrote my paper about is:

Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called the transformation of things.

I really enjoyed writing the paper, Professor Nivison said he admired my writing, and I very much soaked up the validation. My second year was off to an excellent start.

On to Winter Quarter.