Philosophy Phriday - An Introduction

In Search of a Philosophy

Be Kind. Be Present. Listen. Empathize. We’re all trying our best.

Philosophy has scratched an interest of mine more and more over the last number of years. This led to reading a few books meant for the “modern philosopher” and finding they never met what I was looking for. That might be a little unfair as I’m not sure what exactly I was looking for, but I know I was a fish looking for a hook and I never found one.

The opening line of this post is my attempt at defining my own philosophy. I did me a google and found the definition of philosophy to be written as the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence. I read that and it makes more sense to look at it in reverse order. We, as a people and organism on this planet, exist and for the most part we are all trying our best. The circumstances and tools available have their own spectrum. This is part of its own moral discussion of fairness and expectation, but that is for another time.

Existence

We share this existence together and that means we have an obligation to one another to make this the best existence possible. A nice thought but there are those who are willing to ignore this obligation. An obligation I like to call the Kindness Contract. When this contract is broken, I like to give the benefit of the doubt by assuming a system failure of something at some place at some time, leads to people breaking the kindness contract. Consequences remain, but the question of how our shared existence led to the breaking of the contract is the conversation that must happen afterward. This is an important branch of thinking to explore, and we will get there at some point. Right now, we are establishing the roots of why we are here in the first place.

Reality

I think about reality as two different things. There is the plane of existence we all exist in and the law associated with that plane. To be clear, these are not the laws defined by any one species. It’s not a book of law written by human lawyers, politicians, and spiritual leaders. These are the laws that come about from the existence of all organisms, geological forces, and time. Think about a beach where local laws dictate when lifeguards will be on duty. In this case, man-made laws give some insurance to other humans but the shark swimming or jellyfish floating offshore don’t care. The reality of the situation is that lifeguard or not, there is a level of danger one accepts by being in waters that have dangerous creatures. This slice of reality deserves its own kind of observation and understanding. All the people, creatures, and mountains deserve the respect they deserve and it’s important to understand the role all the nouns play in this slice of reality.

Reality, when defined between humans, gets messy which is why I think people like animals so much. Animals, as complicated as they can be, have relatively simple rules for the realities they live in. People keep pets because the reality of a companion animal is simple and grounding whereas the simplest of human-to-human realities can be nuanced and take years to develop. There is a reality humans have placed on top of the reality that includes critters and mountains. Those realities compete and create a conflict for control. Humans have an obligation to step back and examine the reality it has built onto this planet.

This is why my perception of reality, as defined in philosophy, is broken into two entities. Both must be looked at on their own so we can understand the laws from one reality that supersede the laws of the other. There is a chaos in their interactions that would be easy to let pass and never really think about. I’m interested in where these two realities come from. I’m interested in how they interact so we can better understand the chaos.

Knowledge

Knowledge is something that applies disproportionately to humans. We have powerful processors in our skulls that allow for the chase of knowledge. Value has been assigned to that knowledge and entire societies constructed around the chase for more raw & refined knowledge.

I think humans are given the “gift” of knowing that more is going on than just a migration pattern or the hunt for their next meal. Animals have their own sensory specialties that I don’t understand beyond what nature shows and YouTube already teaches me. I think they are fascinating but I don’t think they apply to this project so I’m leaving them out.

Humans can use their processing tools to ponder a personal philosophy. Knowledge is such a broad word. Knowledge can be applied to the self, to others, and in positive or negative ways. The world we live in feels like knowledge is applied in more negative ways than positive. I say that and think about the negative news that drives the press and the lack of appetite for positive stories being shared with the widest possible audience. It’s like the positive stories are saved for those who spend the time looking for them. My Instagram feed is filled with lots of positive stories. The positive stories on the news are presented in a special segment and feel like a novelty. Corruption and death are presented without a second thought. The algorithm of humanity is more interested in the sensational and negative which is something I would like to better understand. This is something we will examine along the way but is not how I want to start this exploration of philosophy.

Where Could We Possibly Go?

I hope you and I can find landmarks in this journey. These landmarks can be used as anchors for further exploration. Maybe call them points of commonality? Any exploration can be done together, or we can go on side quests individually. I’m not sure what the main quest is in this existence we call life. The main quest could be as simple as being kind to each other and there are lots of side quests that help define the meaning of being kind to yourself and to others.

This is all how I look at the subject now. Things will change. Knowledge will be gained, and I hope you find some value in these words as we go along.

CHR;)