So ... I'm sitting in my parents' car at a red light, right? It was an unusually weird day for me, and I don't do weird at this point in my life. Pretty much a clockwork path laid ahead of me: Transferring to University of California at Berkeley in a semester's time, majoring in God knows what (though there's no God at this moment) and a job I despise at a bank vault counting other peoples' money. I needed the job because I had to help my parents pay for the exponentially increasing cost of university education and I was only going for two years. The first two (or at this point, 1.5yrs.) had been spent at high school part deux, or community college.

I had enrolled myself in a direct-transfer program as conciliation for being rejected by the aforementioned UC school, even though I had a really high GPA and did every extracurricular activity under the sun. As long as I maintained a 3.0 grade point average at the community college for two years, I was guaranteed a place at Berkeley as a junior. I was bored a lot of the time, but the experience wasn't a total waste. Singing base in their choir was awesome, and learned that I had hidden abilities in acting and writing poetry. I also had some truly exceptional educators, too. I had always excelled in the realm of academia, believing it to be my key to life's successes, yet it was a rare occurrence when I found anything in class to peak my authentic interest.

I knew from an early age that success in school had little to do with actual learning or depth of thought. It had everything to do with psychologically analyzing one's teacher, understanding their patterns, views on their subject, and subsequent meeting of their particular expectations that wrought achievement in their class. This strategy had worked for years, and I found, was equally applicable to community college.

I was hungry to challenge the established paradigms in every field, in every subject, because I had so many ideas and questions, and so many things in this world just didn't add-up. My professors didn't seem to have the desire to explore any further than their syllabi. Oh well, I'd sigh to myself, just a little longer until Berkeley.

I thought perhaps that Western Philosophy might be my saving grace; ambrosia and nectar against the wounds of intellectual iniquity, where free thought could examine every angle of every subject already perceived to be set in tablature. I had been looking forward to the class ever since I was introduced to Plato's writings in high school.

Its founder, Socrates, my hero to this date, was famous and heralded as wisest because he boldly declared that he didn't know shit. He was, in fact, murdered by his contemporaries because he proved repetitiously that everyone else did not know what they were talking about either, even though they thought that they did (my kind of guy). It seems, however, that I had been mistaken.

My professor (I use the term loosely) was under the illusion that the answers were set in stone, that he knew what Kafka meant, etc ... we argued all semester. I don't believe he was a lover of wisdom, and can you really teach what you don't love and therefore know?

Ahhhh ... modern philosophy. Endless, circular, intellectual masturbation with no pay-off or pragmatism.

I'll admit I had no higher hopes when I enrolled in Eastern Philosophy. I had heard of Buddhists and knew of them vaguely as a peaceful bunch. I admired this trait, and honestly, I was miserly with my admiration of anything even remotely involving religions. I was aware of the contemporary running jokes applied often to Hari Krishnas; their funny clothes and music, in-your-face evangelicalism, and cultish surrender of individuality. Though I thought they disturbed the general peace, I also quietly approved of their harmless demeanor.

I realize now that my believing this sect encompassed all that was Hinduism was roughly the equivalent of Hindus assuming that born-again, fire-and-brimstone Baptists represented the more than 300 varieties of Christians that existed, but I was nineteen-years-old. You don't truly realize that you don't know shit until you reach age twenty-five and Life has roughly handed your ass to you a few times ... but I digress.

Eastern philosophy was, well ... a revelation for me. Whereas the Bible seemingly had endless contradictions, cryptic codices and plentiful fear-filled admonitions, the scriptures of the East were clearly stated, and even more surprising, were psychologically sound. I enjoyed the mysterious hypothetical poetry that Taoism's Lao Tzu had recorded, though it made little sense to my reasoning mind.

Hinduism, I found, encompassed far more than clanging cymbals, incense, and chanting. Though they lost me with talk of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva (not escaping my notice, even then, that these Personalities of God were a Trinity), the Vedas' description of the cosmos sounded on-par with what scientists of today were proposing ... and they were written thousands of years ago? Krishna was supposedly an incarnation of Vishnu, and Hindus worshipped him the way Christians did Jesus, though he had blue skin and played the flute a lot. Whatever, I thought.

Then we studied Buddhism. Wow, I thought, this is Socrates minus the proving-everyone-wrong thing. Not only that, it was a guy who said (and I'm paraphrasing here), 'Please don't worship me as God or as a god. I'm a former prince (not the artist formerly known as) who realized there is suffering in the world and I sought the way to end it. After a long search and trying every known spiritual practice ... I achieved it in myself and attained perfect peace. The good news is that you can too. Please don't take my word for it; if you just do these eight things (The Eight-Fold Path), you too can be "enlightened" (know the Truth) and attain perfect peace (or Nirvana).' Oh man!

I loved it! Perfect for an atheist. No talk of soul, condemnation or fear! Scientists always said we only used about 10% of our brain cells; well maybe "enlightenment" was the ability to access the dormant 90%! The Eight-Fold Hypothesis, as I called it, couldn't be more scientific. Buddha actually went on to describe WHY and HOW each postulate was applicable and useful to life now and not in the hereafter. It just made so much goddamn sense I couldn't believe it, and I loved it because it didn't require unquestioning faith! Oh man! Thank you Siddhartha Guatama!

I realized that this was the fundamental problem that humanity faced: People feared a hell that awaited them after death. That their "Creator" might punish them for things they did or said or thoughht that went against the rule He might have set-up, not realizing that hell was on Earth the whole time. Suffering in "ignorance of truth" was hell. It was here, reflected everywhere in war, starvation, disease, pollution, and poverty. This man who sought no worship (though millions still do) said that he found the way out into the light, like in Plato's The Allegory of the Cave. Socrates left no map, though. Buddha did.

Doctorate, please!!! (Stephen Colbert voice with gimme hands)

Wow! A person, who not only loved wisdom, but used it, and (I was shocked to admit it) seemed to embody it. Could I truly become enlightened as he had? I pondered the question deeply, but with my usual skepticism (or intellectual cowardice ... yeah, that's a burn).

I really desired that peace. My thoughts...