Overhearing Obama

This week, while I was finishing my accounting homework at the table in my apartment, I was eavesdropping on my roommates as they listened to Obama's Healthcare Reform Speech on Wednesday after our first session. While I am not a hardcore political activist, like all three of my roommates are, it moved me to hear them all so passionate about one subject: the fact that all of them want universal healthcare. While this is a very controversial topic, they all had different reasons for backing up the same opinion. It made me realize that while I might not want to have incredibly strong opinions on any given subject, I should at least be able to converse with my roommates on something so important to them. They could have sat talking for hours, if homework and life had not stopped them. And overhearing there debates and discussions, I realized that I wanted to participate, even if it was for the smallest side comment. I wanted to have a small snippet of information that I could offer the conversation.

One of the passages that made me think about how this conversation impacted me was stated that "the objects of imitation are men in action." This directly correlates to my desire to be one of my roommates: to imitate them and be a "man of action," or in my case, be of some use to their conversation and reaction to Obama's Healthcare Plan. Because of my eavesdropping and consequential motivation to know more about this one subject, maybe I am on my way to becoming a man of action. Hopefully, this feeling to participate will not abate in the near future, and help me on my way to learn something useful to say in the next apartment discussion.

A incredibly more relevant passage to my eavsedropping is the one that simply states that thought is "the faculty of what is possible and pertinent in given situations." I wanted to be able to comment and question and listen and reflect and be a "pertinent" part of their conversation. I was heald back not only by need to finish my accounting, but by my lack of useful information that pertained to the subject. My thoughts were unable to convey any sort of thinking that was useable to the conversation I wanted to join.

Though the converstation may have been brief, and I may have only halfheartily been paying attention to what my friends and apartment mates were saying, it obviously made enough of an impact for me to reflect on it here. And hopefully, as I pointed out above, in the near future I will be able to say something of consequence the next time I have the urge to participate.