Stranger on Earth

Of all the lessons in life one has to learn, the lesson of self-love may just be the most trying. This is largely due to the distractions around us that make it difficult to focus on our own needs. We hear thousands of critical and demanding voices, see thousands of tempting and deceptive sights, day in, day out. Our lives often do not belong to us; others claim them and tell us how we must and should live. With the passing years we learn cynicism, sarcasm, violence, and hatred - all weaponry with which we protect ourselves against potential enemies. We learn that the world is full of unconscionable souls, twisted crooks, and cold-blooded highwaymen who are only out for one thing - self-preservation. To make sure that they can survive in this mad world they have to resort to mad means. With all this negativity around (thanks to the mass media this has become an undeniable fact of modern life), it is hard to look into yourself and seek out that little child of innocence you o...

Very few things get my goat as much as SMS language. This baffling code language consisting of random abbreviations and amputations of decent words has gone too far in my book. Confined to a personal message meant to convey an urgent something, as in "B back a.s.a.p. Pls prep dinner b4 7", it is entirely harmless and may even be practical. But let loose in the formal world of academia, it is an unstoppable plague that threatens the dignity of those who love words simply because they are multi-syllabic and melodious when pronounced. Jokes aside, the popularity of SMS language among sensible teenagers and adults is so widespread that it is now on the verge of sucking standard language use into its black hole of no return. No retrieval possible. As a result, what you see these days is a whole generation of students (and adults) who have no clue what the apostrophe is meant for. They, foreseeably, also cannot tell the difference between "your" and "you...

Twentieth-century German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) posits that language is a poison that can be used to seduce, mislead and bewitch. Language is a form of hypnotism; it can “put us to sleep” and make us believe what we are seeing and hearing is true. In the witty Between You and I: A Little Book of Bad English (2003), James Cochrane argues that “the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language,” and that “political language … is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidarity to pure wind” (154). Both men agree that language is a tool of manipulation. It becomes clear very few of us are aware of this fact going from day to day when we begin to question the platitudes we dispense without a second thought: “Your effort is much appreciated,” “You’re welcome,” “It’ll be dealt with in due course,” “Any inconvenience caused is much regretted,” “Efforts will be made to rectify the mistake,” “...

Dear Bumming philosopher-wannabe, Yes, the lesson does continue once more! The good news is lessons are the very stuff that makes life compelling; the bad news is no matter how many lessons you put yourself through there will always be new questions... You have asked the central question in philosophy in your previous mail: To what extent should one question life? How many philosophers have spent whole lifetimes trying to figure out the answer only to find out that it's a dead end? Since I am not a professional philosopher, I will have to refer you to two great thinkers who asked the same question: John Locke (1632-1704) and David Hume (1711-76). It would of course be silly to think that I could succinctly sum up the vast philosophies of these two men here. I will attempt to give you only what is relevant to the question posed above. Locke states that the only things humans are capable of perceiving are the contents of their minds. This means there are limits...

There is nothing more exciting than having an ex-student writing to you expressing the wish to discuss what you have written ( http://ed-is-a-stranger-on-earth.blogspot.com/2011/01/now-learning-how-to-live-through.html ). Below is my rambling response to his rather lengthy mail. If there are any untruths or falsities, I am the one to blame... Have fun reading it! ;-) Now we are talking! Since you have taken the time to compose such a long response, which I thoroughly enjoyed reading, I will do it justice by giving you a detailed response. First off, Gaarder's Sophie's World . This is the Bible of us amateur philosophers. I read it more than ten years ago, and it still remains one of my all-time favoruites. If you feel like reading something equally thought-provoking but a lot less transparent, try Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being . The Empedocles argument (earth, fire, water and air being the basic elements of the world) is interesting ...

Throughout our short lives on Earth we are often told (by unctuous types) to "seize the day" and "live in the moment", but to what extent is that possible? Let us reel in two early Greek philosophers, Heraclitus (535-475 BC) and Parmenides (540-? BC), and see how far these two gentlemen will get us. Heraclitus is mainly known for stepping into a river and drawing a revelatory conclusion: One can never step into the same river twice. Apply that to our daily existence, and you will instantly see how true it is. To Heraclitus and his disciples, change (motion) is the only truth or constant in our reality. No material object can escape change. If it exists, it must undergo change, sooner or later. This, too, applies to human life. If someone told me to "live in the NOW", I would have trouble realising it. That is because what constitutes the present me is already on its way to becoming something else as we mull over this subject.   What makes NOW...