140

1. The world is boring, said the man who knew everything.
2. The world is a lovely and terrible mystery, said the enthusiastic fool.
3. I prefer the enthusiastic fool.
4. Unity, or number one, is so natural that we take it for granted.
5. Red, blue, and yellow are all around us. No big deal. And yet "qualia" are utterly inexplicable.
6. Sure, we have our mathematical models that relate them to x-rays and all the rest.
7. But this is a blindness to color as we experience it.
8. Color as we experience it cannot be reduced.
9. I mention it. I share it as something joyful. Others can argue it.
10. Argument has its merits. But it also tighten the skin of the mind.
11. We want to "win." We don't like learning as much as we pretend to?
12. Do we learn sometimes only to parade this learning?
13. Are we sometimes compulsive performers?
14. What about philosophy as an increase of wonder?
15. What about philosophy as an eye opener?
16. Once, I especially liked the notion of philosophy as liberation.
17. Kill God. Wake up from the idolatry of other humans.
18. I still think this is valuable part of philosophy, or shall we just say thinking?
19. "Philosophy" strikes many as a pretentious word.
20. Is this phobia somewhat justified?
21. I think it is. We readers of philosophy are eager indeed to tell it how it is.
22. It's our way or the highway, right?
23. The philosopher is the first cousin of the priest.
24. An intellectual is someone who knows exactly how you should think.
25. And that's exactly how I want you to think of an intellectual.
26. How funny it is that this role comes so natural to us.
27. Are battling to make our personal view of reality the official view?
28. Are we frustrated when others don't see the obvious merit of our superb worldview?
29. Why don't they just UNDERSTAND how unbearably brilliant we are?
30. Why can't they see that they just don't...see?
31. Father knows best. Right?
32. On the other hand, is it better to let the others steer?
33. What if we somehow transcend our vanity long enough to come from a place of love?
34. Then should we share?
35. I feel more like an honest man when I'm spewing my enthusiasm, as opposed to crashing threads with an intent to embarrass the "heathens without the light."
36. There are many of us on this forum who bring the not so good news to heathens without the light and end up finding out that they think we are the heathens without the light.
37. So we see who can browbeat the other. Sometimes they end up hating us, and we them.
38. No one has made any converts. No one has increased their daily ration of APPLAUSE.
39. This forum is a small scale version of the "big bad world."
40. We want to dominate more than we want to understand.
41. We want to impose our tyranny. Understanding our genius is their job. The poor sad others not as bright as we.
42. And this is the kingly We. This is the personal We of universal truth.
43. The radical skeptic is self-refuting.
44. The know-it-all ends up ignored. Or admired by the aspiring know-it-all.
45. I suppose one can get away with knowing something if one is friendly.
46. If we find ourselves compulsively sharing our opinions, perhaps this is a confession that we need one another after all, if only as an audience.
47. And if the know-it-all still needs an audience, then knowing-it-all is not the path to contentment. And therefore not the path of Wisdom.
48. Or does contentment have nothing to do with Wisdom?
49. I suspect that my introduction of math into certain conversations was taken as some sort of intimidation attempt. Our culture worships math while hating it?
50. Now there are some sharp guys on this forum who would never see it that way. But many young pups like myself still find ourselves barking near the fence.
51. And yet I only rambled on and on about math from a childish (in the best sense) enthusiasm.
52. I was good at math as a child without being in love with it.
53. I wrote poetry and love notes in sophomore geometry, was bored by proofs.'
54. I was an anti-social dreamer. Not much has changed?
55. But it has. At least out here in the real world.
56. A good woman. A damn good woman. And we learned over the years not to destroy one another, or ourselves.
57. If you never had to learn this, thank your mommy and daddy and your particular neck of the woods.
58. The tenderness between lovers keeps that all important inner child alive.
59. I simply can't believe in the man of steel.
60. We die without water. We die without love.
61. To love is important perhaps than to be loved, but the two are not often separate.
62. I have had enough great moments to surmise that saints and sages live in a state of love --which is also a world of beauty.
63. And I have opened my heart just enough at times to know that there is a deep sorrow to love.
64. How quickly I forget!
65. A dog returns to its vomit. And I return to my vanity, fear, rage, greed.
66. I shouldn't play it up too much.
67. I'm one of the happiest people I know.
68. But this happiness, and an exposure to great things, is a temptation to the vanity that annuls the greatness of these things.
69. What are these great things I speak of?
70. Marriage, friends, books, music, movies, the weather and the sidewalk.
71. At the core of all of these, making them work, is LOVE, a childlike enthusiasm.
72. But life is strange. Many times I have felt as pure as saint....
73. An hour later I am vividly fantasizing first degree murder.
74. Someone insults me out here in the real world, perhaps without intending, out of their own awkwardness, vanity, fear, etc....
75. And I fantasize their murder.
76. A cold thrill, the fantasy of murder. Perhaps you know it?
77. I don't think of myself as strange in this regard.
78. Under our prudent personas lurk dragons and whores.
79. Man is a wolf to man. Man is a bleating lamb to man.
80. At least once a week it occurs to me that I must die, that all this beauty will be taken away from me.
81. At other times I'm frustrated with the way of the world enough to almost enjoy this thought, that there will finally be an end to all this noise and strife.
82. For me, the afterlife is not real.
83. I admit that it's possible just as I admit winning the lottery is possible. It's not something I expect.
84. So annihilation then! Zilch zip nada!
85. How does one deal with this? When one is in love with life?
86. I remind myself that I am not myself.
87. This face and even the particular faces that I love are not the essence of life.
88. The same love will shine in the slightly different faces of another pair of lovers.
89. The same joy in philosophy will swell a slightly different torso.
90. Am I my face or am I the joy that animates my face in those moments that make me resist death in the first place?
91. And isn't this the same joy that animates all of us?
92. Do I identity with my thoughts?
93. Yes and no. Are they my thoughts?
94. All of my best thoughts are thousands of years old.
95. The men who sculpted the Buddhas over yonder were filled, I think, with the same joy that I feel at my best, the same radiant contentment.
96. All the paintings of Christ are the painting of this joy, this "transcendence" of death.
97. A flame leaps from melting candle to melting candle.
98. Are we the melting candle or the flame?
99. I feel a sense of rightness whenever I use whatever talent has been given to me to express such thoughts.
100. The best art is religious or philosophical or call it what you will. That's heartfelt opinion.
101. Has anyone seen Requiem For A Dream? That is a vision of Hell. That is a mirror for us.
102. We destroy ourselves and one another in ignorance.
103. Hatred is hell. Vanity is hell. Greed is hell. That's hell enough to go around.
104. Love is heaven. Wisdom is heaven. Art is heaven. That's heaven enough for anyone.
105. Or is it? We cling to our exclusive Church, whether this church is a university, a backstage pass, a steeple tipped palace of self-righteous fury, a swollen bank account, or our own sneering face...
106. And yet all these "churches" will rot, rust, and fade.
107. I'd be a hypocrite if this was about accusation. Bad! Bad ! Bad!
108. That's the terrible danger in all religion and all philosophy, I think.
109. A man learns just enough to despise his fellows...and this contempt is a well made grave.
110. I know that it's funny to hear this from me, a big mouth asshole. But I am always bothered after indulging myself. It's not in the least fear of some monster in "heaven."
111. It's simply that my joy is gone.
112. Like I said, I'm a happy person. And I consciously associate joy with virtue.
113. So I know that I've lost my way when I've lost my joy.
114. But I'm the firstborn son of a proud father, so it doesn't role off my back like it should.
115. Off with his head!
116. Caligula and Nero (in Seutonius) are portraits of our dark human hearts.
117. Dostoevsky knew all about this. Stavrogin in Demons. A sublime novel.
118. It's my view that we should be conscious of the terrible cruelty within ourselves, if only to help us make peace with the terrible cruelty in the world.
119. The world's injustice is a mirror image of the injustice in ourselves.
120. If we embrace righteous rage, are we not becoming the violence we deplore?
121. We all have our limits, and perhaps this is right.
122. We don't forget how to kill those who threaten our loved ones. And I think we should.
123. A time to kill. And a time to accuse.
124. But not all the time? Not much of the time?
125. Slow to wrath is good for the blood pressure.
126. And because it's so destructive to this forum's potential, can we not cramp the good vibe of others?
127. Why should but in with our righteousness and negativity when the other is just enjoying him or herself? How errant can they be if they are enjoying themselves without insulting others?
128. And can we not just stay out threads that do not interest us? Must we play the superior soul? Are we so desperate to air out of infinite knowledge that we can't just find the sandbox of our preference?
129. I'm suggesting that if we can't make our own joy or join in another's, we should probably save our grumblings for blogs like this. Where participation is voluntary.
130. So there you go, dear reader. I tried to avoid the pretentious terms that often hide not so difficult thoughts.
131. I'll end with a little anecdote.
132. At 16 I wrote a 3 page "book" on the miracle of existence. I wrote that color was a miracle, that three dimensional space was a miracle. That sound was a miracle. All color, all space, all sound. I hadn't read philosophy yet.
133. The point is that here I am again. Certain philosophers have touched on just those things, but I knew it at 16. And forgot it! The point is not my "wonderful precociousness" but only that perhaps the best aspects of philosophy are child's play. (Of course my younger self entirely overlooked the miracle of words, numbers, the human smile.)
134. Are we so dazzled by our immeasurable sophistication that we can't even FIND the damned mystery?
135. Are we so eager to pose as the Master of Great and Difficult Thoughts that we are blind to the greatest thoughts precisely because they are not difficult enough for our vanity?
136. "Be astonished at nothing"? WTF!
137. Ideally we should perhaps escape fear. But what is this dodge of wonder?
138. Look at me, ma! No feelings!
139. But the Sex Pistols are did that one. And only the small bit of irony in the tone keeps it from being 100% adolescent vomit.
140. So screw it. I'm going to turn away from "it's oh so difficult to understand" to a simpler vocabulary. I should have stayed closer to Bukowski and Fante.