Chinese whispers at dawn.

I know I penned a post about nostalgia, and the toxicity of wishing to relive the past...Buuut I'm going back on that just this once.

Wouldn't it be nice if  instead of some Chinese whisper style form of argument that seems to be the norm now between groups of friends/colleagues/family members/everyone, we just lived like any general community prior to 1800.... Back then it was a case of:  Problem-Anger-Argument-Optional fight-Resolve. All out in the open, everybody has their say and there is closure. The best thing about this avenue was that come the morning of the day following the argument, everybody was as happy as could be with every body else, because there were no hidden feelings to provoke malice. It was Honest.

Or maybe even pistols at dawn? It didn't always end in the death of the loser, and there was a clear winner. There are indeed examples of contemporary disputes settled through means that with very little confusion result in a clear cut winner (and without the involvement of lawyers). Rock, Paper, Scissors any one? Drawing the short straw? An arm-wrestle? Now they might seem primitive and childish but in my humble opinion they'd sort a hell of a lot more problems out than this social espionage that is so prevalent.

It is frustrating because I know that I myself am particularly guilty of this pussy-footing around sore subjects, cowering away from confrontation and allowing resentment to build without any attempt at resolve. We as a society have become so scared and horrified by confrontation that the person who dares to  rebuke a rude pedestrian or an inconsiderate commuter is now seen as the rude one, the crazy one, the un-necessary trouble makers.

When it comes down to it, it seems we are all just too sensitive to deal with any affront to our general sitting on the fence approach to life.

This is a call for honesty, at the risk of being cut to shreds by a hundred devestating opinions on my personal character. But then I'm not scared.....Yeah right.

Peace.


Ps. The only reason I wrote this was to use the phrase 'Pussy-footing'. Pussy-footing.

Chin up.

So I keep hearing people whining.

It's not that I think people shouldn't complain at all, don't get me wrong, but it seems to me that a large proportion of the complaints I hear are from particularly middle class adolescents in similar walks of life as myself. 

Again, please don't think I'm talking about the #firstworldproblem complaints that can so often be heard in the queue at Starbucks in reference to a mild blistering caused by some Louis Vuitton loafers (okay maybe SB's is a little lowbrow for Louis vuittons..but you get my point.) or other such life threatening situations. The complaints I speak of are about our government and country and petrol and so on and so forth and so tedious. It seems that we live in a nation where the average happiness rating of 7.6/10 does not hold true to the murmurings of those afflicted by the illness of being under 25 and living as a student. 

I understand that such things are (or should be) important issues for all but is there really a need to do naught but complain of said issues ad infinitum? Discuss them yes! Argue about them with passion yes! But when one complains, there is no movement either forward nor back, there is only an all consuming sadness.

People talk of society 'being fucked' (not in the sense of a verb, because that would be strange), of being in a state of fucked up-ness; I am inclined to agree to an extent, what with unemployment being sky high, with the rich getting richer and the poor staying...well, poor,and a plethora of other distressing examples. However I am also inclined to go to the rooftops and scream to these whining specimens: 

"We all make up society. We are all fucked. It is up to us to un-fuck ourselves before we try to unclog the drain that is our country. When that is done, then we can fry these bigger fish, then we can make progress."

I know that this post is rash and leaves a lot to be answered for, but if everyone took their complaints and turned them to positivity and pro-activity....well then I'd both have nothing to write about and I'd be happier for it.

"Complaining not only ruins everybody else's day, it ruins the complainer's day, too. The more we complain, the more unhappy we get." 

Peace.

*PS. I have not overlooked the irony of a blog post that complains about people complaining*

God might be dead, but Philosophy is suffocating.

When I say Philosophy is dying, I don't mean that it is becoming a corpse, but rather that it is being strangled by the current ridiculing it receives from the general populace, it is being drained of life.

If I could recall the times people have asked me whether all I do is "sit in a room and think about stuff, like existence and God" for my course.....well I'd have a bloody good memory. It's not just insulting, it's pure ignorance. I don't ask of a Sports science student 'Do you just like, sit on a football field and drink protein shake and stuff?' because I understand that most if not all subjects studied at degree level involve some form of in depth analysis and at least a smidgen of intelligence to comprehend.

But it's not a case of suggesting that my course is any harder than the one somebody else might study (far from it), rather it feels like philosophy is a novelty now, it has become the really pissed uncle at a family wedding or choosing to ride on the Manchester tour bus even though you know the only sights you'll see are the shit weather and horrible 1970's architecture.

So is Philosophy important now? In my opinion yes, it is. It could be said that without philosophy there would be no mathematics, there would be no evolving moral direction and the sciences would be non-existent. I do not speak of philosophy as the subject in itself but rather the practice of philosophising, the act of questioning and theorising to discover truth and truth alone.

 So why has it become this decrepit pink elephant in the room. People vomit such vacuous crap as 'What kind of a job will you get with that degree?' or 'Only old people do philosophy'. Who the fuck are these people that they know nothing of the true value in such subjects as the humanities? They are the people that laughed at the madman in Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, they are the people who ridiculed Galileo when he suggested that the Earth was not the centre of our solar system.

I know these accusations might sound rather exaggerated but when you think about it, what is so different? The philosopher tries to encourage contemplation and questioning, and these degradations do naught but discourage 'deep' thought that goes beyond the next game of Call of Duty.

So please, I beg of you, next time you encounter somebody who is studying philosophy, don't roll your eyes at them and ask whether the chair still exists when nobody can see it, instead accept their vocation as a life choice and a passion....a serious vocation that should be respected, just like I respect your choice to do events management or sports nutrition, okay?

A man by the second name Alfred Whitehead said that 'All Philosophy is a footnote to Plato' so I'll leave you with a thought from dear old Plato:

"Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught falsehoods in school. And the person that dares to tell the truth is called at once a lunatic and fool." (c.427 - 347 BC)

Peace.