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 Mason's
Meditations
If
you're looking for something to chew over, some thoughtful seeds
for mental cultivation, bookmark this page for Jeff Mason's fortnightly
meditations. To think in or take away...
Number
Eight: The Reflective Life
The
Greek philosopher, Socrates, famously stated that the unreflective
life is not worth living. To which can be opposed the view that
ignorance is bliss. Suppose that such reflection reveals a life
that is not particularly worth living? Perhaps, since thoughts can
multiply discontents, it would be better never to start thinking
in the first place. It is not always pleasant to engage in much
critical self-examination. However, if you do start thinking about
the larger contexts of life and ask the big questions, there seems
to be no end to it, and it becomes impossible to see where the process
of thinking will lead.
Most
of the time active people are a million miles from philosophizing.
They turn to religion or a political ideology when they want to
rest from the struggle of life, but aren't ready to go to sleep.
Instead of doing philosophy, they choose to rest in faith or a set
of beliefs rather than make the dubious effort of comprehensive
thinking. Here in the West, people become philosophical at the end
of long parties, in the early hours when alcohol or drugs have burned
through some fears and daily preoccupations. They reflect on their
lives from a disengaged perspective. It takes that special time
and consciousness to jerk them from their quotidian (mundane) existence.
The
appearance of philosophy in life arises from an act of radical reflection,
and that act is purely human and imaginative, not one demanded by
nature. We can live without systematic philosophizing, just as we
did for thousands of years. The busy world of staying alive and
propagating the species occupies the other animals when they are
not sleeping, whereas philosophy takes up an intermediate position,
like the twilight world between sleeping and waking. The reflective
attitude arises by an act of detachment from the world, yet it remains
mentally active, critical and questioning. It is for this reason
that philosophers have been pictured as walking around with their
heads in the clouds, while they ignore the world around them. However,
we cannot blame them for this, because the founding act of philosophy
distances people from the natural world into which they are born.
The reflective life begins in an act of alienation, and whether
it can overcome that rift by thought alone is itself a philosophical
question.
Mason's
Meditations will next be updated on March 15th 2001
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Previous
Meditations
7.
(15th
February 2001)
6.
(1st February 2001)
5. (15th
January 2001)
4. (1st
January 2001)
3.
(15th December 2000)
2.
(1st December 2000)
1. (15th November
2000)
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