Got the Reading Blues

By Eric Hanna, S.J.

macleans.ca

I wanted to write a lengthy and edifying article for you today, my friends. Something to inspire your souls and challenge your minds. But it's the close of the semester and things are stacking up. And what better way to ease my burden … than to share it with you.

As I heaped stacks of books in their precarious places on my desk and shuffled through sheet after sheet of jumbled and hastily-written notes, I pondered all the assignments I still have to write and all the reading I still have to do. And at this time the rolling rhythm of the blues came to my mind. And the following song crossed my lips.

Won't you sing it with me? And with all the busy students who are wrapping up their semesters?

truefire.com

The Reading Blues by Eric Hanna, S.J.

Well I need to read Nietzsche
And I need to read Kant
Gotta' listen to the teacher
Can't just do what I want

I'll look at the state of Plato
I'm cavin' in, 'cause it's so hard
All that is gonna' have to wait, though
Cause now I'm readin' Kierkegaard

I'll read Henry of Ghent
And then deceipher Descartes
I'm trying to be intelligent
But my method's not that smart

Well I read Sartre on my smoke-break
But all this Heidegger murder
How long's this all gonna' take?
Now I have to read Goethe

Next I'll peruse Rousseau
And I can't deny Freud
I wish I had the time to do so
But Aristotle's got me annoyed

Shut in the room with Hume
Sayin' there's no God and it's a shock
So it's safe to say I'm doomed
Even the doorknob reminds me of John Locke

Find the time for Bertrand Russell
Then I'll pick up Lao Tzu
What would make it worth the fuss' though
Is if I could talk, talk, talk about it all … with … you!

Thanks everybody! God bless!