“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” - Aristotle

This quote, from Google.com/ig on Tuesday, jagged my attention, so I copied it to my prompt file. The marks of an educated mind are always remarked on by those who are educated. Is this something a dull and dim-witted person would do? Ponder what another might think on a given subject? Somehow I don't think so. This is what writers do every day, though. But does it mark one as having an educated mind, necessarily?

As I sit and write this my baby sleeps, my big kids make their ways home from various schools and my hubby sits at work experience learning about working with youth. My mind wraps around the thoughts of this great mind, Aristotle. I know little of him, except in reference from other sources. I've never felt an urge to study on him or learn more about him, until this moment. Was this quote a direct reflection of Aristotle's prowess in the intelligent department? Did he big-note himself for having entertained a thought and not acting on or accepting it? I've entertained many a thought in my time, not terribly educated thoughts; I must be honest enough to admit. Like the time I entertained the idea of murder.

This may shock my readers. Perhaps I should explain, but how much should a writer reveal?

At 17 I lived with my then boyfriend in a country area of New South Wales. It wasn't so much that he drank, it was just that he couldn't control who he became after he drank. His problems weren't made any easier by my own need to blur reality as often as possible with alcohol. The two of us also had an appetite for certain drugs. Life swung from tranquil to terrifying in one sip, toke or moment. I felt myself trapped in this situation with him. Certainly my narrow perspective came from living this extreme existence, but I believed it enough to think it true, at that time. In my desperate state of mind I contemplated murder.

Living with violence is not something I enjoy remembering, but it's a fact of my life. As a mature adult I can refer to that time and still learn. It's enough to say I know how it is to have two black eyes and make convincing sounds to cover the lie I lived. The time was crazy and hazy and parts are blocked out forever. To wake each morning and stare at the changing face of Mount Warning, not knowing how my face would appear in the mirror, or what story he had for the entire episode began to play with my mind. I felt the rope that anchored truth to my soul fraying. Insanity visited me briefly and I entertained her readily. That he did not remember doing these things, yet I could, made me doubt my own ability to know truth.

In this state of mind I toyed with the idea of murder. Surely, I could knock him off and began to work the ways in which I could do it. My mind employed logic and all the facts I knew about ways to finish him. In the end the only thing that stopped me was the fact that I would be caught. It was inescapable and brutal, but forced me to face the lesser "crime" of simply leaving him. Did I come to this conclusion because I was so educated? Would I have carried out my plan if I knew less? I'm not sure that it was only a choice of logic. Perhaps there is something about morals mixed up in there, too. Had I been less educated, I may have still come to the same decision, but only because I felt it somehow wrong to commit murder.

Perhaps I have not answered the questions I posed, but I have done my ten minutes of writing for the day.