Snail Hanging On / Avi Solomon

Socrates: Surely you’re following, Theaetetus; it’s my impression at any rate that you’re not inexperienced in things of this sort.

Theaetetus: Yes indeed, by the gods, Socrates, I wonder exceedingly as to why in the world these things are, and sometimes in looking at them I truly get dizzy.

Socrates: The reason is, my dear, that, apparently, Theodorus’ guess about your nature is not a bad one, for this experience is very much a philosopher’s, that of wondering. For nothing else is the beginning of philosophy than this.

-Plato (Theaetetus, 155c-d)

Our default perception ascribes some sort of order to the world, no matter how chaotic it gets. For we would not be able to survive or function as social beings had we not unwittingly absorbed this covert filtering of our constant blasts of sensory input.

The problem arises when we get caught in the detritus of our own perceptual traps and take our collaborative societal projections to be absolute reality. At some point we have to take the decision to shatter the barnacle laden lens of our routines and free up access to the primary world of nature and true sanity.

Philosophy is one attempt to do this.

The most basic question of philosophy: Why does anything exist at all? inevitably leads to an evocation of wonder in our hearts.

We can be upset and inconvenienced with the way things are (and work to make them better) but we always have the choice to ask : Why does something exist rather than nothing?

Not what stars are, but that they are, now. All the 10 trillion plus stars per person alive on Earth.

Doing this leads to a radical revaluation and appreciation of one’s present experience no matter how much in extremis. This exercise is the alchemical secret of turning lead into gold. Even in a prison, geese fly over. When life hands you a bone, suck the marrow out of it. Dukkha can be beautiful.