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The questions we ask are not ones we can ponder in our free time and easily set aside when there’s life to do. What am I? Am I free? What is the purpose of my existence? Why should I strive to act morally? Is the reconstructed ship still the Ship of Theseus? (Ok, perhaps we can make it without settling that last one).
It’s often nearly impossible to return to the daily grind of school or work (or both) after exploring these problems. It seems like a failure to not study these questions continuously, but is the solution (devoting our entire lives to it) realistic?
As it always is with cases like these, finding the proper balance seems to be the key. Surviving in today’s world requires a significant amount of work (Walden aside), and it is almost inevitable that we fall into the routine of a full-time job. We are eventually faced with a life-or-death struggle for either our physical or intellectual/spiritual existence. The lines are obviously not always so clean cut, one can strive for the intermediate courses where our jobs incorporate intellectual activities (and are therefore more rewarding), but the fact remains that time spent on essentially surviving is time lost. This concern does not relate to the finer things in life: family, friends and fun which are always welcome (even as “distractions”), but to the other stuff, the stuff we have to do.
Even if one was able to somehow disregard the pull of society and ignore (or at least subordinate) one’s physical needs, there are no guarantees that the time for contemplation would produce any answers.
Neither extreme seems at all desirable, and the middle ground is far from satisfying. How do you balance your life?
Archive
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260.
The New Erratic Wisdom
Another semester, another redesign (give it a solid refresh to clear your cache). This one’s been brewing for quite some time now, with the notched grid motif coming around a few months ago,...
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260.
Imperfect Art
Plato’s metaphysics and his Doctrine of Forms describes a general division of our universe into forms and particulars. Forms are instantiated by contingent particulars. That is, particulars are...
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Identity and Time
A classic example in the metaphysics of identity is the “Ship of Theseus” story which introduces an interesting worry in the way we identify objects over time and change. First, a brief...
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260.
Skepticism Refuted
G.E. Moore, an English philosopher, was famous for his simplistic “here is a hand” argument for a commonsensical refutation of skepticism. Before lectures of his Proof of an External World, he...
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The Problem of Induction
A worrisome issue that is often neglected in many fields is the problem of induction. Raised initially by Hume in his An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, the problem is related to our...
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260.
The iPod Touch
I’ve had my iPod Touch for a good week now and am absolutely loving the multi-touch experience. To say that the iPhone/iTouch UI is revolutionary is a massive understatement. In its first entrance...
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260.
The Ideology of Science
In 1975, Paul Feyerabend delivered a provocative analysis of science’s position in society. His purpose was to defend society from all ideologies, and he included science. Science’s history as a...
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260.
Memory
While reminiscing over the long gone days of high school, I grew interested in the actual mechanism of memory as I was noticing a few fairly serious holes in my recollection of events just a couple...
