Has philosophy changed how you live your life?

When I decided to become a philosopher, I was in a helicopter in 2007 sitting in the back, as it was doing dive after dive in the triangle of death, to avoid getting hit by a missile.

I spent years as a Cynic afterwards, usually without a roof over my head, studying and debating, recovering from a knee injury that severely atrophied, marching miles each day with a ruck, much like Jerome Cardan did with lead weights.

I always think and ponder as I walk, study society, and look for weakness in how we think, and consider new methods, such as concepts for new tech, that can prevent war and sickness.

Next person better out do me in terms of dramatic self realization and metamorphosis… keep the momentum going…

yeah wow, I can’t match that. lol

It’s increased my level of awareness, and consequently the way I view both the natural and artificial world.

As a sickly little kid stuck in bed My parents and others gave me books. Having little else to do, my brain absorbed, questioned and sought answers. It gave me perspectives that helped and hurt, it still does but, overall it saved my mind and improved it.

As long as you want something, you will do just that. It depends on what you want. Indulging in certain pursuits is often futile leading nowhere or back to square one. If you say, “I want to be at peace with myself.” That’s a very frustrating and difficult goal because everything you are doing to be at peace with yourself is what is destroying the peace that is already there. You have set in motion the movement of thought which is destroying the peace that is there, you see. Thought is an interloper thrusting itself into and disturbing peaceful functioning of the physical/biological life of the cellular human organism. It is very difficult to understand that all that you are doing is the impediment, is the one thing that is disturbing the harmony, the peace that is already there.

You know the story of ‘Alice in Wonderland’. The red queen has to run faster and faster to keep still where she is. That is exactly what is done sometimes: running faster and faster but not moving anywhere.

You can have the courage to climb the mountain, swim the lakes, or go on a raft to the other side of the Atlantic or Pacific. That any fool can do, but the courage to be on your own, to stand on your two solid feet, is something which cannot be given by someone or something. You cannot free yourself of that burden by trying to develop that courage. If you are freed from the entire burden of the entire past of mankind, then what is left there is the courage.

Any fool can raft from one side of the pacific ocean to the other?

What matters my happiness? I care about my work, viz., philosophy.

[tab]Can’t have both or if you do, it’s a completely different kind of happiness. It involves momentary moments of soberness, or intoxicating, depending on how you look at it.[/tab]

Sure, I’m definitely more Stoic than I was prior to getting into Philosophy, I used to have a pretty short fuse, believe it or not.

Cause and effect around such things is probably usually pretty hard to track. Perhaps someone reaches a specific significant conclusion and then Changes their Life according to their new philosophical belief. But generally I would Think the Changes are more subtly global and so would be any in my case. Undercurrents.

i found philosophy when i was a sophomore at the university of minnesota majoring in physics, which after having duly flunked, abandoned. I had an existential breakdown, which needed a cure, and the philosophers were it. I made up to adopt a philosophical life, and i successfully achieved this. I lead a double life, one is a hybrid conventional-unconventional mix with raw edges, i am afraid, the other lives in a world of possibilities, within an internalized landscape.

Has philosophy changed how I live my life?

Actually no, but it depends on when philosophy started.

1. If I take the earliest moment of philosophy in my life as a basis, then I would say: Not very much because it has been accompanying me since then.
2. If I take the middle moment of philosophy in my life as a basis, then I would say: A little bit more than => 1).
3. If I take the latest moment of philosophy in my life as a basis, then I would say: A bit more than => 2).

It is difficult to say, but I tend to NO!

Counter-question: Has language changed you live your life?

Why the concern about philosophy’s effect on life? Why should there be any purpose for it or meaning behind it? Questions about how to live are totally unrelated to the functioning of this living organism. It is living all the time. It doesn’t have to ask the question “How to live?” “How to live?” is superimposed on the living organism. It’s like the search for meaning. People don’t see any purpose in life. It is not life that we are really interested in but living. The problem of living has become a very tiring business – to live with somebody else, to live with our feelings, to live with our ideas. In other words, it is the value system that we have been thrown into. Question the value system. We are trying to fit ourselves into that value system which may be totally false. It could very well be falsifying you. But we are not ready to accept that it is falsifying us. We throw a lot of energy into this business of fitting ourselves into that framework or value system.

finishedman

He personalized the question which was “Has philosophy changed how you live your life”? It’s kind of a mild confrontation or a daring to seek out the truth of it.

The purpose has to do with personal human evolution and growth. If philosophy, as a tool, does nothing, to mold or to transform us, why even bother!?

Only if you have no consciousness - let’s say if you are a rock or a vegetable.
So, let’s say that you go to the doctor and he tells you that if you don’t stop smoking, don’t stop drinking hard liquor or taking drugs, don’t stop eating too much fat, too much sugar, don’t get a lot of exercise, you will die. I would say that you had better start addressing the organism which you call your self. Questioning yourself about those things would be totally related to the organism which you are. Organisms break down - they do not last forever. They are breaking down even as we speak.

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Well, your consciousness better help it along.

I don’t think that purpose or meaning come to us until life is actually being lived and addressed and affirmed.

As a philosopher, wouldn’t you be both interested in the concept of living and what it entails and also in the personal journey of living? I think that the philosophical questioning of life can lead to a more profound attitude about one’s own. How could it not!!!

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That may mean that we are going about it in the wrong way. Did you expect something which took over 14 billion years to come into existence - yourself, to suddently become easy business? Questioning, pondering, observing, analyzing, learning are all a part of philosophy - Might not be easy but can be extremely interesting in that it is challenging and exhilarating to the organism.

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Yes, this is one of the things which philosophy has done for me. Helped me to question my own values, what I hold as valuable and “real” to me. I still do not feel soooooo light but much lighter than before coming here to ilp - what I have thrown out!

True and that may be why it is so tiresome for us because we choose to adopt or to adapt to the value system of others instead of creating or re-discovering our own and affirming that …or throwing it away in favor of a more real and honest one …ad continuum in a new light if necessary.

Speak for yourself, finishedman. As Yogi Bera (spelling) has said - it isn’t over til it’s over.

Philosophy has shown me how to see behind all “truth” for the sham it mostly always is.
There is almost nothing that cannot be unpacked, deconstructed, and broken down into a series of assumptions, ideologies, unchallenged or ultimately unexamined predicates.
Socrates knew this, even if Plato did not. And every good philosopher can do this. It’s usually when they start to build up, that they make errors of judgement.
Such houses of cards tend to be built on sandy ground.

Ultimately one can only live existentially.

It’s also worth saying what philosophy is NOT. There are many who post here who think they are doing philosophy but are more religiously inclined, thinking they have found a “philosophy” by which to live. They promote a world-view. This is an abrogation and a denial of the value and practice of philosophy which is about questions, what they mean, and how they might be answered. It is not about proselytising answers.

Obe, it would be interesting to learn which philosophy it was, that led you to a different attitude towards your life and helped you to cope with it. Was it the occupation with philosophy in general causing it or was it the philosophy of a particular philosopher which changed your way of thinking?

It allowed me to figure out what it is that I should have been doing very long ago rather than the distractions inherent in a malignant society, too late, as usual, but at least known. And I guess it has led me to resolve the entire field of philosophy to the point of no longer having much use for it.

i agree with the first part of Your statement, i too have learnt what i may have been doing, and yet wonder, if given a chance to do it over again, i might have repeated the same mistakes, ON PURPOSE?

But i have not resolved the issue of use for philosophy-for me, and at the very least, i am hoping for better insight into it’s future application

Not so easy to comprehend, taking into account that you seem to be the only one around here who actually developped a philosophy.

Has philosophy changed how you live your life?
Philosophy helped me to ask the right questions in order to find the right answers.
It didn’t change my way of living.
I also see the occupation with philosophy as a lifeline when nothing else seems to be possible anymore. Hopefully this works in the future as well. (And hopefully there will always be books!)

This seems a bit delusional to me.

Well don’t worry. I’m sure that if the time ever comes when anyone understands something that you don’t, the media will inform you.