It takes a lot out of people. Life does. There're all these ups, and downs, and at the end of a long dusty road, paved with the sweat and blood of years of toil, the next day is still as unpredictable as the very first. It's frustrating, sometimes. But that inherent, inexplicable uncertainty is what makes it fun, as well.
People talk about petty struggles, about great loves, about causes and passions. About the importance of conquest, and the journey being more important than the destination. About seizing the day, and living every day as if it were your last. About it being better than to have loved and lost than having been sued for sexual harassment. About contributing to society, and being punctual, and listening while other people talk. About what's for dinner, and did-you-see-what-she-was-wearing? About books, and film, and sport, and how the collatz conjecture can be proved. All right, maybe not the last.
Some, they say, are significant, and life-altering. Others, trivial. Though very few agree on which falls under what category. Johann Friedrich Herbart, while at Gottingen university, had outlined philosophy as the process of developing concepts. 'Partly as a consequence of the practical necessity to eliminate a contradiction or explain some matter, partly as a result of purely theoretical interest, a desire arises in him [man? dolphins? mice?] to correct, to amplify, to tie together - in general to put his concepts into good order. In other words, he begins to feel an urge to philosophise.'
I often wonder, though, considering that the majority of humankind tends to go through life without indulging in much of what is perceived in today's world as a waste of time, or a rich lad's passing fancy, whether these questions that we wonder about, are clear as day to the rest of us. Are we as blind men, trying to listen in vain for the colour blue?
A small clan of monks in the Himalayas presumably set out to find the meaning of life, the universe and everything. They hadn't had the opportunity to peruse Douglas Adam's monogram on the topic, and didn't realise they could have saved themselves a lot of time and instead have a snowball fight, and perhaps some tea afterwards.
Regardless, some meditated, standing on one leg for weeks on end while abstaining from food, and drink, and the passionate, lingering glances of the goats grazing on the hillside. Others read ancient texts on philosophy, and religion, and politics, and social constructs, and eventually went completely bonkers, renounced the ascetic lifestyle, sold their little mud pot, and went to work at wall street. I'm told they now drive ferraris, having found inner peace.
A particularly wise monk, driven to the edge in his pursuit for ultimate knowledge, literally, took it one step further, and jumped off a cliff. He may have found the answer he was looking for. Unfortunately, we'll never know.
A wiser monk, looking at the unappetizing mess at the bottom of the cliff, concluded, with the brevity that is characteristic of the monks who speak, on average, about sixteen words a lifetime.
'Life', he said, 'is not being dead.'
People talk about petty struggles, about great loves, about causes and passions. About the importance of conquest, and the journey being more important than the destination. About seizing the day, and living every day as if it were your last. About it being better than to have loved and lost than having been sued for sexual harassment. About contributing to society, and being punctual, and listening while other people talk. About what's for dinner, and did-you-see-what-she-was-wearing? About books, and film, and sport, and how the collatz conjecture can be proved. All right, maybe not the last.
Some, they say, are significant, and life-altering. Others, trivial. Though very few agree on which falls under what category. Johann Friedrich Herbart, while at Gottingen university, had outlined philosophy as the process of developing concepts. 'Partly as a consequence of the practical necessity to eliminate a contradiction or explain some matter, partly as a result of purely theoretical interest, a desire arises in him [man? dolphins? mice?] to correct, to amplify, to tie together - in general to put his concepts into good order. In other words, he begins to feel an urge to philosophise.'
I often wonder, though, considering that the majority of humankind tends to go through life without indulging in much of what is perceived in today's world as a waste of time, or a rich lad's passing fancy, whether these questions that we wonder about, are clear as day to the rest of us. Are we as blind men, trying to listen in vain for the colour blue?
A small clan of monks in the Himalayas presumably set out to find the meaning of life, the universe and everything. They hadn't had the opportunity to peruse Douglas Adam's monogram on the topic, and didn't realise they could have saved themselves a lot of time and instead have a snowball fight, and perhaps some tea afterwards.
Regardless, some meditated, standing on one leg for weeks on end while abstaining from food, and drink, and the passionate, lingering glances of the goats grazing on the hillside. Others read ancient texts on philosophy, and religion, and politics, and social constructs, and eventually went completely bonkers, renounced the ascetic lifestyle, sold their little mud pot, and went to work at wall street. I'm told they now drive ferraris, having found inner peace.
A particularly wise monk, driven to the edge in his pursuit for ultimate knowledge, literally, took it one step further, and jumped off a cliff. He may have found the answer he was looking for. Unfortunately, we'll never know.
A wiser monk, looking at the unappetizing mess at the bottom of the cliff, concluded, with the brevity that is characteristic of the monks who speak, on average, about sixteen words a lifetime.
'Life', he said, 'is not being dead.'
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