Monday, February 05, 2007

alan watts.......

the mind of a philosopher is formed when he is young.

when we are young we are all philosophers.

"but why mum?" is all we say until we are about 6 or 7 years old.

mum usually breaks of that habit one way or another.

and if she doesn`t do it then the teachers will.

like alan watts, i never felt that most of the answers my mother provided me with really answered the questions i had.

or my teachers.......well, except occasionally when mr. harris was stoned. or because mrs. kennedy actually cared. or because mr. archambeault actually was a geologist who helicoptered into the rockies to find things, instead of just reading shit out of a book and then getting pissy because we couldn`t memorise the facts like they did.

so yeah, the philosopher`s mind is formed out of curiosity that stays fresh each day.

so when i asked my mother where we came from i wasn`t asking for a biology lesson............

6 comments:

James Burnett said...

Cool blog. I've read your comments on several other blogs I frequent. And this particular post is fascinating to me. It's very much like a theory championed by an artist I met a month or so ago. He paints in a style he calls "Interpressionism" that's based on his notion that all kids are philosophers and the most creative adults are those who can let go of their hang-ups and think about their art the way children think about these things.

Anyway, I'll stop rambling. I'll be back to read more.

Dr.Alistair said...

james, thanks for rambling.

i remember being a kid like it was yesterday and the questions i had then were serious then....and now.

so how do we access child-like states and get over our hang-ups?

playing.

deep within the moment.

gone and lost to everythying but the joy of creating/acting on the impulse of the next thing that comes to mind.

it`s always right.

BBC said...

"the mind of a philosopher is formed when he is young."

Interesting statement, but I was an absolute idiot when I was young.

I didn't start paying real attention until my fifty's. Some minds bloom late.

But, I have been collecting things and thoughts all my life. It' just that now I'm starting to put them together.

Dr.Alistair said...

i make no distinction between idiots and philosophers though.....they can be the same person at the same time.

when you were young you had questions.

i was an idiot too as a kid.

in some ways because i didn`t get straight answers.

a simple "i don`t know" would have sufficed.

instead i got things like.....


"god is omnipotent and gave you free will."
(enough rope to hang yourself....)


"when you die you will go to heaven, if you are good".
(do as you are told.)

then the science crap started.

the big bang??????????

evolution?????????

many worlds hypothesis??????????

and the funny thing is, these people get more money to study this shit.

see, this is what a philosopher does....question things.

not provide answers, or learn convoluted strings of the thought patterns of drunk french, german and more french philosophers and repeat them until people pay you to shut the fuck up.

BBC said...

Pay attention, I'm going to type slow so that you can keep up. :-)

God is NOT omnipotent, only omnipresent.

Dr.Alistair said...

thanks bill. now god wants off the hook too.

he`s just hanging around. not much he can do with all the monkeying around going on...........

i understand what you mean though. kinda clarifies things.