After I graduated from the University of New Mexico in 1997, I applied to the masters program at St. John's college in Baltimore, the sister college to St. John's in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I would get a masters in western civilization, which meant I would basically read books and live a college life for two more years. I enjoyed college and I miss college, so the prospect of two years at St. John's, a master's thesis and the "great books" education offered by the school really appealed to me.

Then I thought: I can read great books on my own and I'd have a better time if I went to Ireland for half a year than grad school for two. It was the right decision. I needed more life experience and less book experience, I needed to be some place foreign to see how I'd get a long and I needed to be out of school, which I had come to rely on as a safety net. But I haven't been back to school yet and think I have suffered a bit for it.

First, I haven't slacked off on my reading. Since college I've put a whole lot of great authors from many times and cultures into my brain. I've found stuff they don't show you in school and I think I'm a better reader and thinker now than I was as a student. But the brain is a muscle, and it has to be used repeatedly and used in certain ways in order to keep fit. That's what I realized last week when I opened up Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy and started reading on page one with the pre-Socratic Greeks.

Without philosophy class and after-class drinks with people interested in all ranges of esoterica, my philosophical prowess has dwindled. Now, I was never any great philosopher, but I always had a good mind for the issues and why they're important. Reading about Plato a few days ago I realized how little I know about the guy anymore, and I've read most of his dialogues and I've written long papers about him. But I either didn't understand him in my younger years or have let the relevant information about him slip from my mind. Is that a really bad thing? I think it is. Sure, I can survive without thinking about Greek philosophy, anyone can. Heck, a person can do better than survive without philosophy.

But it still tugs at my brain. Partly it's a desire I have to know everything. I am rather fascinated by knowledge, thought and expression. Partly it's a paranoia about my mental abilities, why have I been exposed to so much that isn't available for instant use? Why is my mind so limited and the universe so vast? How can I stand to have such a limited mind in such an interesting reality?

Yes, it is all about limits and about how I don't want them. Physical limits, I can handle, actually. I'll never be a Gap dancer. Fine. But mental limits? That there is personal. That there is me. Now, one thin I think about school is that it was great mental exercise and it was great fun. I didn't go to a great school, just the state university which, like all state universities, is good in some things and not in others. But I will say that 98% of what I was taught there was excellent and that most of the complaints I used to have were, well, my fault.

There's something about the environment of higher education that I miss. It's a time when ideas don't have to measure up to reality in order to have validity and where process is more important than result. I miss the process. I don't know if that means I'll go back to school but I've been thinking about it for awhile.

I do know that when I think about college in this way I am convinced that we need to do more as a country to make sure that everyone has the chance to attend college and that public universities remain places of learning, rather than job placement centers. I have a good job, after all, but my degree is irrelevant to what I do for a living. I think that's how it should be.

Michael Maiello doesn't owe any student loans.