Episode 32 - Discovering One Of My First Philosophy Teachers Died 15 Years Ago.

Today I'm in the middle of processing some thoughts and feelings about somebody who died quite a long time ago, and I only found out about it yesterday.

So you may have seen the piece that I published a little over a year ago, A Tale of Two Philosophy Teachers, which was about two of the people that I had in high school who taught philosophy classes. One was called a philosophy class. It was intro to philosophy. And that wasn't very good at all. And the other was actually a Sacraments class, but it was taught by a guy who decided to teach us philosophy and to teach in a philosophical way. And that was very, very good.

You may have heard me talking about them in other places as well, because sometimes people ask me in interviews and video channels or podcasts or stuff like that. How did you get started in philosophy? Did you have it in high school? And I tell the story.

So I posted yesterday or rather reposted the piece that I'd written. And I included a little bit of a call to action as I was putting it in social media saying, you know, I never was able to track down this person who was a substitute teacher just for one semester, came from Seattle. I don't know where he went after that. His name was Mr. Lorenzo, but I don't know his first name.

And I never had any success in talking to people from my high school, who he was, where he went to, whether he was still around, because they didn't keep records about that sort of thing, not from what was happening in the 1980s. And so anyway, I put it out there.

And one of the people who I know from high school who has now become a friend, but was actually like my bitterest rival back in high school (there's a whole story that could be told there), he wrote me in LinkedIn and he said Oh I know that guy. I didn't even realize that this now friend was in the class, but I guess he was and it probably happened during our junior year.

And he said Yeah that was Perry Lorenzo. And I've thought about him a lot. And by the way, here is an article about him. He was pretty important out there in Seattle, and he died in 2009. And he was involved with all sorts of matters. He taught at a high school. He also taught in a college or a university. He was involved with the opera and all sorts of other interesting things about him. But he died only 51 years old in 2009.

And it looks like from the story that he came out to spend that semester with us and told us about Seattle at the time. He had had this Augustinian conversion, as he called it, which was part of why he was teaching us about St. Augustine. And in order to teach us about Augustine, he had to also teach us about Aristotle and Plato and Manichaeism and some psychology stuff as well.

So, it looks like he went back to Seattle after that one semester with us and went on to have a really great teaching career. Apparently he was quite gifted. He was very devoted to the life of the mind, to the Catholic and classical intellectual traditions. He was heavily involved in the arts and apparently an all-around great guy.

So it's very interesting me to read this because I got to know him, at least to the degree that a teenager who's bright but troubled and in somebody's class with somebody who's probably only 10 years older than him and is engaging in discussion within the classroom can get to actually know somebody.

I got to know him as somebody who was a genuinely well-motivated teacher, and not all the teachers were like that. As a matter of fact I would say less than half of them at my high school were people who I would say had that sort of mindset. I think a lot of them saw us as pains in their rear to process and get through and they wanted to not be bothered with things.

But this guy was genuinely interested in ideas. And if it wasn't for him, there's a good likelihood that maybe I would not have followed along the career trajectory that I did because I'd had an Intro to Philosophy class. It was pretty bad. It was dry, boring, dull. The teacher wasn't very good. Or maybe I wasn't up for it, but I think actually he wasn't very good!

And then the next year I had this guy, Perry Lorenzo, and he taught the class in an eminently philosophical way. He was like...Listen, we're getting rid of this textbook. I'm going to put stuff up on the board. We're going to discuss things. Don't worry about what's on the test. I'll just give you some essay tests and make you write some papers. The other students groaned and complained because they were all college prep kids who wanted to have, what do I need to do to get an A in this class? And they weren't very interested in learning, I would say.

But I found it fascinating. And that was my real introduction to the field of philosophy being done by somebody who clearly embodied philosophy, but philosophy in a broad sense, not in a narrow academic sense. Philosophy as what we nowadays call philosophy as a way of life. He made a big mark on me, on my soul because of that. So then later on, when I went to college and actually had the opportunity to study philosophy, looking down the list of possible majors, I saw it and I was like, well, this is pretty cool stuff. So maybe I should study this.

And, you know, I've thought about him a lot over the years. I'm Kind of saddened to discover, first of all, that he died so young. I'm now older. I'm 54 years old. He died at only 51 years old of cancer. So a life really cut short. I find that to be a source of sadness. And it looks like his community and his partner lost somebody whose life was vibrant and dynamic and rich and was contributing to many other people. So a great loss to him, a great loss to his community.

And had I been more on the ball, maybe I could have been in touch with him years and years ago and actually told him, Hey, you made a big difference. You made an impact in my life, and I'd like to thank you for that. And that opportunity is gone. I mean, I can certainly think of him as having a soul that has survived death and think good thoughts about him and say prayers for him and all those sorts of things.

But it's not the same as being able to at least send a letter that somebody is going to read or look them in the eyes or talk to them on the phone and say, You don't realize this, but you did something really good for me. And because of that, for other people as well who are affected by my work in philosophy for some sort of good.

So I've got kind of mixed feelings. There's a sense of joy in finding out who this person was and what a good life in so many different ways he not only had, but chose and built for himself and not just for himself, but many other people whose lives were positively affected by him. And there's sadness for the lost opportunities and the fact that he's gone.

I think I took it for granted that he was probably still out there somewhere and there could be time to track him down, although I had no idea how I might actually do that. It's also surprising that somebody who I've known for all these years had all that information right there at his fingertips. I'm guessing many of myother classmates did as well and could have perhaps clued me into it

So I'm going to do some writing about this in the near future, and I wanted to use this as an opportunity to maybe talk about it and in the process, clarify my thoughts while they're still fresh in my mind and my heart. And to share a little bit with those of you who listen to this.

Maybe there's a warning there. Reach out to people. Get the information about them while you have the opportunity. It could be a good idea. But it might also not be directly applicable to your own life. You might look at it as I'm giving you a little bit of a glimpse into a person who was important for me becoming a philosopher and maybe even the kind of philosopher I've become.

And if you're positively impacted by that, and odds are if you're listening to this, you probably are one of those people, then you can think of him as somebody who played a role in that. So that's probably enough for me to say about this at this point. And I'll just post this and see what people make of it. I'm going to continue thinking about what I want to say in a written form later on this week or weekend.