I get the John Gray reference now, I'll take it as an endorsement of Feline Philosophy - as if I needed another reason to keep reading his books. The first book I read after 7 Types of Atheism, which shall remain nameless, felt achingly flat and boring in comparison.
His book felt like a journey across time and space, with philosophers and their ideas floating in and out of the story as it hurtles along, with the staggeringly erudite Gray at your side the whole time, like a wise, charismatic uncle, telling you the best story you've ever heard in your life.
Your spider senses are correct - I can safely recommend that you stay far away from 12 Rules - I barely finished it, only so I could elucidate all the ways in which I disliked it to a friend (and fan of his).
The rule - "Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping", makes a lot more sense when you consider the man who wrote it has struggled with drug addiction and depression for decades - but it's not a good general rule.
Treating yourself like your own best friend, student, be your own mentor, and probably hundreds more, make for a better platitude than what's there. I could go on, but I won't, not in this bastion of peace.
"The purpose is to signal (with several flashing neon arrows) that the hero is worth rooting for. Cat petting in real life is a smaller version of this same gesture. On some small level you signal to yourself that you are worth rooting for."
Great way of looking at it.
As an aside, one thing I do when I lack motivation, or meaning in my work, is I visualise the end result for a potential client (being a soulless businessman).
I imagine the moment someone sees their monthly earnings, their faces when they see how many clients their business now has, the relief, the excitement, I try to put myself in their shoes as much as possible - and almost immediately my motivation is sky high, and I'm rooting for myself again.
Meaning found through helping others - who would've guessed it? Felt in line with the cat petting somehow.
I've had the same hippie experience with Buddhists - it's near impossible to get the smell of incense off your clothes after spending time with them.
The whole final section - and peace - brings to mind the wise words of an old gardener in a village by the sea who would often remark "The animals are much more free than us".
"See, the past can be a fun and profitable place to visit, but it is a miserable place to live. So much of stable mental health is a question of choosing to place a statute of limitations of your past mistreatments and regrets and grievances, painful and difficult as it may be. And the future’s not much better, choose to mentally dwell there and you will arrive there soon enough- blinking, confused, wondering where so many of the years of your one and only life went."
You could read 1000 "self-help" "books", and never explain it as simply and perfectly as this. I'm writing it out and sticking it by my desk.
Great piece. Read it twice, enjoyed it even more the second time.
The only things worth reading are those that are also worth re-reading so I’m glad I’ve passed that particular limits test.
I think I’ve hit on a line to pursue by this method of taking a seemingly trivial topic (in this case cats) and then using it as a jumping off point to talk about other, often more philosophical things.
As those hippy Buddhists would point out- everything is interconnected. So in a sense if you talk about anything in particular you can probably link it to talking about everything or anything or nothing.
That's funny, I think the same as you regarding the hippy ethos of "living in the present". Something deeply bothers me with it (and I despise most of them without exactly knowing why), but at the same time I agree that there's something right in that. Something profund.
I might go on a limb here, but maybe it's because they often do not speak from a position of acceptance, but rather from a position of helplessness and cowardice. Most of these people I've known (and beginning my studies with philosophy and litterature, I've come across quite a lot ofthem) are scared and paralyzed, they talk about living in the present because they can't imagine a better future. They coast, they numb the anxiety with somewhat-legal substances and live in an artifical and fragile everlasting present. They do not possess the artistic spark of a Kerouac nor the humbleness of your neighborhood homeless Joe; they're something else, and their words may very well be right, but I've come to realize they do not truly live by them.
I've always been more of a cat person myself. I don't know if that's their cuteness that gets me, or their unashamed little whiskers that come begging for food eventhough the little bastards didn't let me pet them for a whole morning, but this nonchalance, this whatever-man attitude is the perfect incarnation of freedom. Maybe that's this ataraxia that we crave; free from troubles, free from judgements, (truly) living in the present and having the sprezzatura attitude of feeling that whatever happens, we'll find a way and all will be fine. Or maybe it's because they remind us of how young women behave and maybe that's why we love them. Who knows. Maybe the Egyptians got it right and we're just made to worship them, not to understand them. Cute bastards.
"All charming people are spoiled. I fancy it's the secret of their charm." - Wilde.
Cats are little bastards, but I love them too. They're also more than content to go and have fun by themselves - dogs are seemingly incapable of just having fun alone.
Sure, fun for cats involves killing things for no reason a lot of the time (a little terrifying to think about), but at least they'll let me read my book in peace without needing to be walked thrice daily.
Maybe it is a cats world and we just live in it after all.
Yeah, cat admiration is certainly Lindy if nothing else. I highly recommend John Gray’s Feline Philosophy book, you sound like the idea customer for it. He has similar kinds of speculations that you and I do on the topic only of course he is far more erudite.
And yes, the Hippy question could be a whole newsletter unto itself. And perhaps it will be at some point. Not to attempt to judge the inner workings of a strangers psychology but there does seem to be a fair old element of what the kids call ‘cope’ in the whole situation. And it seems to be riven with class issues (which of course if exactly what I would say, given that I’m English) but you never seem to encounter a truly poor Hippy. Yes they may have squandered their money and position over time but they (almost) always come from nice families and from nice towns. It all smacks of escape and perhaps more than a little guilt. But I’d have to give it a lot more thought before I can reach a firm conclusion on that score.
I mean dogs loyalty is an admirable trait too, but they have a dependency and need for approval which is probably not the best trait for us humans to emulate.
I get the John Gray reference now, I'll take it as an endorsement of Feline Philosophy - as if I needed another reason to keep reading his books. The first book I read after 7 Types of Atheism, which shall remain nameless, felt achingly flat and boring in comparison.
His book felt like a journey across time and space, with philosophers and their ideas floating in and out of the story as it hurtles along, with the staggeringly erudite Gray at your side the whole time, like a wise, charismatic uncle, telling you the best story you've ever heard in your life.
Your spider senses are correct - I can safely recommend that you stay far away from 12 Rules - I barely finished it, only so I could elucidate all the ways in which I disliked it to a friend (and fan of his).
The rule - "Treat yourself like someone you are responsible for helping", makes a lot more sense when you consider the man who wrote it has struggled with drug addiction and depression for decades - but it's not a good general rule.
Treating yourself like your own best friend, student, be your own mentor, and probably hundreds more, make for a better platitude than what's there. I could go on, but I won't, not in this bastion of peace.
"The purpose is to signal (with several flashing neon arrows) that the hero is worth rooting for. Cat petting in real life is a smaller version of this same gesture. On some small level you signal to yourself that you are worth rooting for."
Great way of looking at it.
As an aside, one thing I do when I lack motivation, or meaning in my work, is I visualise the end result for a potential client (being a soulless businessman).
I imagine the moment someone sees their monthly earnings, their faces when they see how many clients their business now has, the relief, the excitement, I try to put myself in their shoes as much as possible - and almost immediately my motivation is sky high, and I'm rooting for myself again.
Meaning found through helping others - who would've guessed it? Felt in line with the cat petting somehow.
I've had the same hippie experience with Buddhists - it's near impossible to get the smell of incense off your clothes after spending time with them.
The whole final section - and peace - brings to mind the wise words of an old gardener in a village by the sea who would often remark "The animals are much more free than us".
"See, the past can be a fun and profitable place to visit, but it is a miserable place to live. So much of stable mental health is a question of choosing to place a statute of limitations of your past mistreatments and regrets and grievances, painful and difficult as it may be. And the future’s not much better, choose to mentally dwell there and you will arrive there soon enough- blinking, confused, wondering where so many of the years of your one and only life went."
You could read 1000 "self-help" "books", and never explain it as simply and perfectly as this. I'm writing it out and sticking it by my desk.
Great piece. Read it twice, enjoyed it even more the second time.
All the best,
Conor
Thanks Conor, thanks kind of you to say.
The only things worth reading are those that are also worth re-reading so I’m glad I’ve passed that particular limits test.
I think I’ve hit on a line to pursue by this method of taking a seemingly trivial topic (in this case cats) and then using it as a jumping off point to talk about other, often more philosophical things.
As those hippy Buddhists would point out- everything is interconnected. So in a sense if you talk about anything in particular you can probably link it to talking about everything or anything or nothing.
Cheers.
That's funny, I think the same as you regarding the hippy ethos of "living in the present". Something deeply bothers me with it (and I despise most of them without exactly knowing why), but at the same time I agree that there's something right in that. Something profund.
I might go on a limb here, but maybe it's because they often do not speak from a position of acceptance, but rather from a position of helplessness and cowardice. Most of these people I've known (and beginning my studies with philosophy and litterature, I've come across quite a lot ofthem) are scared and paralyzed, they talk about living in the present because they can't imagine a better future. They coast, they numb the anxiety with somewhat-legal substances and live in an artifical and fragile everlasting present. They do not possess the artistic spark of a Kerouac nor the humbleness of your neighborhood homeless Joe; they're something else, and their words may very well be right, but I've come to realize they do not truly live by them.
I've always been more of a cat person myself. I don't know if that's their cuteness that gets me, or their unashamed little whiskers that come begging for food eventhough the little bastards didn't let me pet them for a whole morning, but this nonchalance, this whatever-man attitude is the perfect incarnation of freedom. Maybe that's this ataraxia that we crave; free from troubles, free from judgements, (truly) living in the present and having the sprezzatura attitude of feeling that whatever happens, we'll find a way and all will be fine. Or maybe it's because they remind us of how young women behave and maybe that's why we love them. Who knows. Maybe the Egyptians got it right and we're just made to worship them, not to understand them. Cute bastards.
"All charming people are spoiled. I fancy it's the secret of their charm." - Wilde.
Cats are little bastards, but I love them too. They're also more than content to go and have fun by themselves - dogs are seemingly incapable of just having fun alone.
Sure, fun for cats involves killing things for no reason a lot of the time (a little terrifying to think about), but at least they'll let me read my book in peace without needing to be walked thrice daily.
Maybe it is a cats world and we just live in it after all.
I’m fairly convinced that it is a cat’s world at that we are the real pets.
Yeah, cat admiration is certainly Lindy if nothing else. I highly recommend John Gray’s Feline Philosophy book, you sound like the idea customer for it. He has similar kinds of speculations that you and I do on the topic only of course he is far more erudite.
And yes, the Hippy question could be a whole newsletter unto itself. And perhaps it will be at some point. Not to attempt to judge the inner workings of a strangers psychology but there does seem to be a fair old element of what the kids call ‘cope’ in the whole situation. And it seems to be riven with class issues (which of course if exactly what I would say, given that I’m English) but you never seem to encounter a truly poor Hippy. Yes they may have squandered their money and position over time but they (almost) always come from nice families and from nice towns. It all smacks of escape and perhaps more than a little guilt. But I’d have to give it a lot more thought before I can reach a firm conclusion on that score.
Cheers Sebastien.
Cats are cool. They have that air of indifference and yet, awareness to their surroundings. They also take lots of naps.
We can learn a great deal from them.
I mean dogs loyalty is an admirable trait too, but they have a dependency and need for approval which is probably not the best trait for us humans to emulate.