Introduction: In defense of philosophical thinking

or: "How I Learned to Think and Became the Bomb ".

In a day where self help books line shelves of bookstores all claiming to have the "Ten Steps to (happiness, fulfillment, a better you, etc)", at a time in which consumerism has or is in the process of financially destroying many individuals and our nation as a whole, and when the decision of who to elect the most powerful person in the nation (and de facto the world) has become nothing more than a nationwide popularity contest (a la American Idol), I find myself wondering if I am simply truly insane or if there is something I have gleaned from life thus far that many others in our culture have not. Although it's true, my life from the start has been immensely different than the majority, I have met scores of others who had more mainstream upbringings and educations that have led them to similar conclusions. What I now undertake to relay to you the reader, and to clarify to myself through self exploration is a defense for logic, critical thinking, and self-analysis. The most appropriate word, although highly scorned in most circles outside of boring academic ones is Philosophy.

Philosophy literally means "the love of wisdom" from the Greek "Philos" (love of) and "Sophia" (wisdom). Now, wisdom has either some sort of unattainable glory associated to it like a character in a fantasy novel ("Great wizard Sophia the wise"), or is equally shunned and left to the realms of intellectuals as though one cannot be wise without a PH.D. from Harvard. To explain and clear the name of Wisdom, an excerpt from the Wikipedia article on wisdom:

"Wisdom is the ability, developed through experience, insight and reflection, to discern truth and exercise good judgment. Wisdom is sometimes conceptualized as an especially well developed form of common sense"

Essentially, if you've ever touched a hot stove, or have heard of someone touching a hot stove, or have been told not to touch a hot stove, or simply have never had the desire to touch a hot stove because it just seemed too damned hot, and then DIDN'T touch the stove, you've exercised wisdom. Welcome to the elite, you snob you.

Now, with this newfound understanding of wisdom, why would one NOT fall in love with it? After all they say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. If we can all agree that common sense is a very good thing (and if you do not agree, go touch a hot stove), and that wisdom is learning from one's mistakes (and thereby having a "well developed form of common sense"), and then we can add another catch phrase that "common sense is not that common", can we not say that all of us could use a little more love of wisdom in our life? Or, if you cannot say to yourself (no matter how honest it may be) that you could use it in your life, I'm sure there is someone you know that it is readily apparent to you that certainly THEY could use a whole lot more love of wisdom in THEIR life. Maybe that guy that cut you off in traffic this morning. Regardless of who it is, or why they need it, if you're still reading and have not been scared away by the "P" word, I think we're on the same page.

Now I must briefly confront the issues mentioned in the first sentence to illustrate my point. Why do we need "Ten steps to a happier life" when in fact the only person that those ten steps have helped as of the date of publication is the author? Can we truly delude ourselves so thoroughly that we can believe for an instant that those exact ten steps are the only thing holding us back from happiness? Maybe for us it's eight steps, twelve steps, or an entirely different set of steps that we need to take for our own personal happiness. If this is the case, why are we lining up to spend $24.99 for a set of rules that may or may not have any application to our personal situation when the only study guide we need is examination of our own personal experience (or to develop our "common sense"). Life is not a multiple choice quiz or a checklist handed to us by some higher power, but an essay being written second by second until our pen hits the paper for the last time. This type of thought clearly results from mass produced consumer culture where "because the Joneses bought a new (house, car, TV, poodle, etc) so must I" regardless of their financial situation (or more appropriately their willingness to have a negative financial situation). This thought process directly resulted in the sub-prime fiasco. This same mass produced line of thinking extended one step further to our elected officials shows them being elected because they seem like "they'd be nice to have a beer with", or because they belong to a particular spiritual, racial, sexual or socio-economic group, and therefore we think we know what they're thinking or what they will do once elected simply by not questioning our own bias and looking at the cold hard facts.

Self examination (and therefore the development of common sense) is not only a means to personal success, but is a responsibility we must pursue for the betterment (or at least not belittlement) of our nation, culture and species. In fact, outside of opposable thumbs, the only thing that has allowed our species to dominate the world (at least temporarily) is our ability to learn and pass information from one generation to the next. I'm sure many other animals have similar consciousness and questions, but to my knowledge none have attained the ability to effectively communicate these answers amongst themselves. Our ability to not re-invent the wheel is abnormal, and thus far has been highly advantageous, however is perennially scorned by many and then those many influence many more, sometimes for generations. Just drink your beer, watch your TV, smile and shut up.

I hope in the forthcoming essays to discuss concepts that are common to the human experience, but widely unnoticed or not thoroughly developed. I plan to confront philosophical and metaphysical issues, but also "common" issues relevant to day to day life. If wisdom is in fact a "well developed form of common sense", it seems to me that we cannot regulate thought to only some form of mental exercise (the intellectual's form of body building, impractical and egocentric) but should merge the thoughts of some of the greatest thinkers of all time with issues that either we currently face or are common to all of us. Critical thinking should not be thought of like a middle schooler thinks of Algebra ("when am I ever going to add A plus B"), but should simply be a life skill that pushes us forward by building on our past. As Einstein said, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."

In summary, the only way I've found to ensure that there's a possibility of tomorrow being better than today is to examine ourselves impartially in order to develop "common sense" and our own personal philosophy. If we simply continue making the same choices in different circumstances, we have also created a philosophy (one absent of philosophy) in which we continue banging our heads against the same stumbling block, since the only true stumbling block is inescapable, it is ourselves.