We live in dark times, but Philosophy can help you be mindful and come through smiling. Follow these basic guidelines:
1) I often say this, but it's worth repeating at times of crisis such as now, when people are particularly desperate to find some optimistic shape or meaning behind the awfulness of their lives and the world in general: do remember that there is absolutely no reason for, or purpose to, anything at all; we're under the jackboot of a brutal, implacable and random whimsy, things can only get much worse, and inevitably you'll die roaring;
2) on a lighter note, however, consider how society, art, culture, the whole of human civilisation, is nothing but evasion, one great collective self-delusion, the intention of which is to make us forget that all the time we are falling through the air, at every moment getting closer to that agonising death;
3) don't forget either that we might, in fact, be nothing more than brains in a big vat, artificially sustained, and our sensations fed to us, by some malevolent comedian of an entity that would do a thing like that, as in that film, The Matrix;
4) or it might have been some other film;
5) if you have a revolver, don't head off to the beach with it around noon on a hot day, get sunstroke, and shoot an Arab or anybody else;
6) stare at your hand long enough so that it seems to become something alien, detached and terrifying, like a big fat maggot;
7) and . . . er . . .
1) I often say this, but it's worth repeating at times of crisis such as now, when people are particularly desperate to find some optimistic shape or meaning behind the awfulness of their lives and the world in general: do remember that there is absolutely no reason for, or purpose to, anything at all; we're under the jackboot of a brutal, implacable and random whimsy, things can only get much worse, and inevitably you'll die roaring;
2) on a lighter note, however, consider how society, art, culture, the whole of human civilisation, is nothing but evasion, one great collective self-delusion, the intention of which is to make us forget that all the time we are falling through the air, at every moment getting closer to that agonising death;
3) don't forget either that we might, in fact, be nothing more than brains in a big vat, artificially sustained, and our sensations fed to us, by some malevolent comedian of an entity that would do a thing like that, as in that film, The Matrix;
4) or it might have been some other film;
5) if you have a revolver, don't head off to the beach with it around noon on a hot day, get sunstroke, and shoot an Arab or anybody else;
6) stare at your hand long enough so that it seems to become something alien, detached and terrifying, like a big fat maggot;
7) and . . . er . . .
⏩Michael Praetorius spent his working life in education and libraries. Now retired, he does a little busking in Belfast . . . when he can get a pitch.
<.......and in general don't name your new dog 'Shark' and take him for walks along the beach no matter how romantic the sunset.
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Deletethat is like the Muslim fella who called his son Allahu Akbar and lost him in a supermarket
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