I’m working through a guided reading of the Great Books of the Western World, as you know. Sometimes, not often, certain passages are not compelling. The author’s divisions feel forced and the destination blurs.

Because of my high literacy, I began noticing that the more I read the more I learned. And the more I learned the more I began wondering, more clearly than ever before, why am I studying this so fervently? I don’t want to be in politics. I don’t want to be a politician. It’s an interesting field of study, but there are many others just as interesting that may prove more practical, I couldn’t help thinking. But I kept coming back to the fact that Locke said that man first existed in the State of Nature on his own and only later, when it benefited him, gathered into political society. Aristotle, on the other hand, had started with man as a political creature. There was no isolated man. For Aristotle, no man was an island.

Obviously, Locke is right. But whichever side you come down on, the reason to study politics as a hobby is that everything (except religion) is post-politics. Your politics influence your decisions in every other facet of life (except religion). And the only thing that influences your politics is your religious beliefs.

Want to chat about the weather? Me too. But that’s not half as interesting as why you believe America is or should be a democracy. And it’s not one hundredth as important as why you believe that Qu’ran:Bible::Black Ink:Red Ink.

Will my study of politics help me in any measurable form or fashion? It might. That’s why I do it.