Some Bio Info from a Scholarship Form I'm Filling Out

Damn Graduate School Costs, but I guess it got me to write. The question was ' Why is the completion of a postsecondary program important to you, and what do you hope to achieve once you get a degree?' and the following is my answer.

'The completion of a postsecondary program is important to me because I believe that I have both a gift and and a duty to help people obtain self-knowlege, which is the foundation of any good and flourishing life, and also the accumulated wisdom that my teachers, coaches, parents, and role models have passed onto me during my 27 years of living. I truly believe that I have been fortunate enough to have some great teachers, maybe some of the best, teach me the sacred lessons and wisdom that life has taught them. I feel that I have been given so much, both spiritually and intellectually, that is is my obligation to try and give something back to the community that shaped so much of who I am.

After obtaining my degree, I plan on attending either Notre Dame University or Purdue University to get my Ph.D. Ideally, I would like a job at a small to medium liberal arts university in the midwest as a professor of philosophy and religion, where I can teach the next generation, possibly raise a family, and write these 3-4 books that I've had floating around in my head since my senior year of college.

In my first book, I want to examine the similarities and differences between Nietzschean philosophy and the religious systems of alchemy, gnosticism, and mysticism. I would like to write my second book on the idea of the transcendent unity of religion, put forth by acclaimed scholar Frithjof Schuon. I would like to write a third book looking at the Abrahamic religions critically using the latest methods of Biblical and Qu'ranic criticism. I believe one of the main problems in the world today is the lack of scholarship and criticism when it comes the religions traditions of the world, their holy texts, their practices and beliefs. I would like to focus specifically on the Abrahamic monotheism's of the world and their relationship (or lack there of) with one another. I believe that I have something signifigant to contribute to these continuing conversations. '