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> Home Page > More About Diligo Vita > The making of This Philosopher.<you are here> > Looking For Answers > Christianity And Religion > What Is This Thing Called Love |
A Journeys Start
Birth and death have a clarity of inception and finality but sometimes it’s hard to say when things start. My journey to the present day has had, like all of us its unique meanderings, without aspiring to any outstanding achievements, save perhaps for what I hope are some inspired thoughts that will stir others to think. When I started my thinking about life, I did not call or see myself as a philosopher. In its infancy, my thinking was more the result of circumstance, trying to make sense of the slings and arrows that life threw at me but as time moved on my thinking matured and evolved. As to when all this began, well like all good journeys it begins with the preparation. Although I have to confess to having little or no hand in that preparation as most of it was, as I have already said more the result of circumstance than design on my part.
And Klotho of the Moirea
spins the threads of our lives life,
To weave the manner of our existence
So like sleeping Gulliver we awakening
From our “ship wreck” birth.
The Greek mythology of the Moirai would have us believe they, have ordained the predilections, innate abilities and the set of circumstances within which we “awake” to find ourselves with. Whether we give credit to the Moirai or not the truth of the fact that we have had no say in any of the machinations of our birth and life is indubitable. We can if you like view the initial circumstances of our lives as if dealt a hand in a game of cards, It is chance as to where and to whom we are born: the circumstances of wealth or poverty, the innate abilities whether genius or disablement are not within our purview. Therein lies the preparation for my thoughtful journey through life. The circumstances that I found myself in were such that I would look for answers to the questions that life posed.
Philosophy is of an individual
Philosophy is not a “team sport” nor written through consensus of a comity, it is the thoughts of an individual. As such, these thoughts will be of a time, place and the unique perspective of an individual. A philosopher, allotted his time in history, relates his thinking specific to that age. The social mores of the society with in which he lives will direct the nature of his thinking. Above all the philosopher is a human. All that he sees will be through his own idiosyncratic eye; all his thinking will be tainted- motivated by the experiences of his life. So in relating the circumstances of my child hood it is not just as an idle curiosity but to help give a perspective to my thinking. I feel it is important for a person reading the thoughts of another to have some understanding of the nature of that person, in order to appreciate the motivations and perhaps the predigests of the writer.
The Circumstances: A Well Tilled Soil
“And what would you like to be when you grow up?” an adult banality like “chilly for June?” or “the nights are fair drawing in?” only the former has the distinction of being an older person’s attempt to elicit conversation from a child. I certainly remember being “hit” with this adult rhetoric and I have to confess that with age I find myself in “visa versa” as I too have used it. Nevertheless, not lost by the passing of the years we tend to remember our answer. I think I aspired to be the ubiquitous train driver when five and graduated to a lumberjack at six. However the convoluted journey of the past forty years sees lumberjack transposed to writing the introduction to a book on philosophy, an occupation unlikely to be predicted at seven”
School-days
I was neither an academic nor a particularly willing sportsman at school. Suffering from dyslexia, which in my earlier academic years went unnoticed, I experienced the accusation of being both lazy and (some what euphemistically) “he’s not an academic!” My school-days were decidedly unhappy ones although at the time, when I was with a group of other people going through the same regime, I was unaware of the degree of trauma and damage that was being perpetrated on me. My boarding prep school was not a place of care and compassion but more of physical and mental abuse, although I can now see, that the effects of these traumas set the foundations for a mind in search of answers. I left school at seventeen with little self-confidence having achieved very little academically.
My Teenage Angst
My Circumstances without being life threatening (I lacked for nothing physically) was none the less bleak:- my father died at the young age of 55, the year before I left school, shortly afterwards my mother was taken into a psychiatric hospital unable to cope with the loss. My two older brothers had left home some years earlier. I became introspective through loneliness and despair whether real or imagined, which set the mind to travel down particular paths. I recognize now the behaviour trait of manic depression; roller-coasting from high elation at some new awareness to the depths of despair at my perceived failure. I longed for something:- a gem of knowledge or new awareness that would give me emotional stability, that would help me feel good about myself. I sought approval and reassurance that even in my state of perceived failure I was acceptable – loveable. Looking for a thread of hope, direction, happiness the usual myriad of desires that occupy the mind of those in the years of teenage angst, to find purpose, to find a meaning to life, a meaning to my life
Looking back at my childhood and teenage years, I see now that the circumstances I was born into set the stage was for a life time of searching. Perhaps initially as a “cure” for the symptoms of my teenage angst but later, as my life moved on the reasons for my search developing into something specifically philosophical. But then I don’t believe that philosophers are born of ease and indolence but of just enough hardship to prompt the mind to think. So although many influences may have started in childhood the beginning of my journey of thought began in my teenage years, the years of teenage angst.
moving on to the next topic, which is entitled: > Looking for Answers
And Klotho of the Moirea
spins the threads of our lives life,
To weave the manner of our existence
So like sleeping Gulliver we awakening
From our “ship wreck” birth.
The Greek mythology of the Moirai would have us believe they, have ordained the predilections, innate abilities and the set of circumstances within which we “awake” to find ourselves with. Whether we give credit to the Moirai or not the truth of the fact that we have had no say in any of the machinations of our birth and life is indubitable. We can if you like view the initial circumstances of our lives as if dealt a hand in a game of cards, It is chance as to where and to whom we are born: the circumstances of wealth or poverty, the innate abilities whether genius or disablement are not within our purview. Therein lies the preparation for my thoughtful journey through life. The circumstances that I found myself in were such that I would look for answers to the questions that life posed.
Philosophy is of an individual
Philosophy is not a “team sport” nor written through consensus of a comity, it is the thoughts of an individual. As such, these thoughts will be of a time, place and the unique perspective of an individual. A philosopher, allotted his time in history, relates his thinking specific to that age. The social mores of the society with in which he lives will direct the nature of his thinking. Above all the philosopher is a human. All that he sees will be through his own idiosyncratic eye; all his thinking will be tainted- motivated by the experiences of his life. So in relating the circumstances of my child hood it is not just as an idle curiosity but to help give a perspective to my thinking. I feel it is important for a person reading the thoughts of another to have some understanding of the nature of that person, in order to appreciate the motivations and perhaps the predigests of the writer.
The Circumstances: A Well Tilled Soil
“And what would you like to be when you grow up?” an adult banality like “chilly for June?” or “the nights are fair drawing in?” only the former has the distinction of being an older person’s attempt to elicit conversation from a child. I certainly remember being “hit” with this adult rhetoric and I have to confess that with age I find myself in “visa versa” as I too have used it. Nevertheless, not lost by the passing of the years we tend to remember our answer. I think I aspired to be the ubiquitous train driver when five and graduated to a lumberjack at six. However the convoluted journey of the past forty years sees lumberjack transposed to writing the introduction to a book on philosophy, an occupation unlikely to be predicted at seven”
School-days
I was neither an academic nor a particularly willing sportsman at school. Suffering from dyslexia, which in my earlier academic years went unnoticed, I experienced the accusation of being both lazy and (some what euphemistically) “he’s not an academic!” My school-days were decidedly unhappy ones although at the time, when I was with a group of other people going through the same regime, I was unaware of the degree of trauma and damage that was being perpetrated on me. My boarding prep school was not a place of care and compassion but more of physical and mental abuse, although I can now see, that the effects of these traumas set the foundations for a mind in search of answers. I left school at seventeen with little self-confidence having achieved very little academically.
My Teenage Angst
My Circumstances without being life threatening (I lacked for nothing physically) was none the less bleak:- my father died at the young age of 55, the year before I left school, shortly afterwards my mother was taken into a psychiatric hospital unable to cope with the loss. My two older brothers had left home some years earlier. I became introspective through loneliness and despair whether real or imagined, which set the mind to travel down particular paths. I recognize now the behaviour trait of manic depression; roller-coasting from high elation at some new awareness to the depths of despair at my perceived failure. I longed for something:- a gem of knowledge or new awareness that would give me emotional stability, that would help me feel good about myself. I sought approval and reassurance that even in my state of perceived failure I was acceptable – loveable. Looking for a thread of hope, direction, happiness the usual myriad of desires that occupy the mind of those in the years of teenage angst, to find purpose, to find a meaning to life, a meaning to my life
Looking back at my childhood and teenage years, I see now that the circumstances I was born into set the stage was for a life time of searching. Perhaps initially as a “cure” for the symptoms of my teenage angst but later, as my life moved on the reasons for my search developing into something specifically philosophical. But then I don’t believe that philosophers are born of ease and indolence but of just enough hardship to prompt the mind to think. So although many influences may have started in childhood the beginning of my journey of thought began in my teenage years, the years of teenage angst.
moving on to the next topic, which is entitled: > Looking for Answers