#philosiphy

[thepersonalwords]

Anybody who tries to change society without first examining the family, is trying to push a shadow without moving a statue.

Stefan Molyneux

[cloudofbutterflies]

About three weeks ago now, we had a really bad winter storm, and the wind ended up knocking down a tree near our house and knocked out the power. Because we had different types utilities systems, we ended up still having running water but no stove or heater and our neighbors had a working stove and heater but no water.

We all ended up talking on the little patch of lawn that no-one is quite clear on who it belongs to, and they said we could use their stove if we wanted to make a dinner that wasn't freezing cold, and when we went over with a big pot of soup to heat up they thought it looked really good and we had enough to share so we all ended up eating dinner together, and then we took the dishes back to do them in our sink and filled up seven five-gallon water jugs for them to take back to their house and ended up helping them carry it. Our dog ended up sleeping at their house for the night so he wouldn't get cold.

I don't know what it means exactly, it felt so profound and deep, like I'd stumbled upon a great secret of the universe, and simultaneously completely normal and unremarkable, the kind of thing everyone everywhere is doing, has always been doing, and will always been doing, because it's really not that special at all.

Now our dogs are friends and they go for walks together and one of us had our birthday a few days ago and the neighbors made him a carrot cake and we're going over to help them install their new deck railing this weekend because their old one got wrecked in the storms.

[asktheheirofslytherin]

I don't know if people know this but I just found it. If you click on the FIRST link on any Wikipedia page and then the first link on the new page and continue the pattern, always end up on the wiki page for Philosophy at some point

Interesting. I do believe I heard of a variation of this game involving Jesus, but not this particular version.

In my school days, a game was "ten footnotes to Merlin," which was similar in theory.

[gangstaunicorn]

Humans:exist

Philosopers:

[thespamman24]

You don’t have to achieve something important in your life to be worth something.

You can just see pretty things, and have a good time and do things you enjoy and be kind and then leave.

We all have the choice of what we want our purpose in life to be. And don’t let anyone tell you what it can and can not be.

Make your own meaning.

[warmlatte206]

We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline between a causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Out consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never, is, nor will be any other experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality.

Alan W. Watts

[kingpinquot]

One of the hardest parts about Taoism for me, is disconnecting yourself from reality and having no feelings. Lao-Zi and Zhuang-Zi make it a point that having no feelings is like a Buddhist attaining Nirvana. However in one of these stories, Zhuang-Zi elaborates on what having no feelings is.

“Have a human appearance without having human feelings. By having a human appearance, you mix in with others; by not having human feelings, you are inaccessible to judgement of right and wrong. On the one hand, you will be small enough to associate with other people, while on the other hand, you will be great enough to attain the celestial on your own.” (Page 84, Zhuang-Zi, The Taoist Classics - Tom Cleary)

“Hui-Zi asked, ‘If they are human, how can they have no feelings?’ Zhuang-Zi said, Judgments of right and wrong are what I am calling feelings. What I call having no feelings is when people do not harm themselves inwardly by likes and dislikes, but always go by what is natural and not try to add to life... Nature gives them their form. They shouldn’t let likes and dislikes harm them inwardly.” (Page 85, Zhuang-Zi, The Taoist Classics - Tom Cleary)

So those two stories explain that having “no feelings” is where you do not let likes or dislikes harm yourself and try to live naturally. For example, if somebody dislikes chess so much that they harass everybody who plays chess, that is not helping anybody, and is harming the assailant and the person who plays chess. Another example is if a wife likes her husband a lot, but their husband beats them, the wife should start having “no feelings,” and remove her husband from her life. 

[thedarkestbean]

My father and I made a new bridge for my guitar during this quarantine. Super small thing, but it was really cool for me. My father is a woodworker. Sometimes I tend to doubt his methods, but they never cease to prove me wrong. He comes from the generation that “fixed things, when they are broken”. Its always interesting when I hear that. I was about to go buy a new bridge to replace my previously broken one, but he inspired me to make one with him. The fact that he was able to inspire me to do that, makes me believe that every generation is a generation capable of fixing things when they break. We just all invest in different things. We have a lot in common at the end of the day.