Now! Lifes hardest questions answered! By dead people! (Mostly)
The Philosophy First Aid Kit
Your ego is bruised. Your conscience is broken. The meaning of life, for you, just went flat-line. Who can you turn to for help? Why not the world's deepest thinkers? Welcome to the harrowing world of trauma philosophy.
Guy on a gurney, almost gone. His life passes before his eyes. "What the hell was that?!" he yells. Then he dies. Not to be pessimistic, but the point is, there are some questions it helps to answer now rather than later. They're the questions that leave you staring bleakly at the ceiling at 3AM until the crack in the plaster takes your mind off the what-am-I-doing-here? quandry that woke you up. That's why some men put posters of models on the ceiling while others keep the works of the great philosophers next to the bed. The posters will get you through the night, but you need the philosophers to get you through the life. Only here can you find it put all together in one digitally-transcribed, time/date stamped place. Below: the most vexing dilemmas of our age, solved by the finest minds in history.
*I have to give a toast! I’m terrified!*
Best man? Don't worry, especially if you tattoo the words of Ludwig "Mad King" Wittgenstein (1889-1951) on your sweaty palm: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." This line was first field-tested by Ludwig when he used it at his friend Eric's reception. Eric was a party animal. Ludwig was the foremost philosopher of the 20'th century, and I'm just kidding about Eric. But the practical application of Wittgenstein's law is this: Keep it simple. Once you go beyond your own direct knowledge- like, how you really feel about your buddy and his wife- you're just faking it. And that's a job best left to the new bride.
*I’m never going to be famous!*
Maybe that's good. If Dan Rather weren't famous, nobody would know that he's a half-mad lunatic driving a network news division into oblivion so he'll never be famous again. Fame for it's own sake is overrated, said noted philosopher David Bennun. He believes that fame is a narcotic craved by those who have no sense of their own innate worth and no conviction about their place in the world. Bennun learned his best stuff from Diogenes (c. 412-323 BC), cosmopolitan, Cynic and all-around great dancer. The Cynics of ancient Greece believed strongly in what they considered to be real values- not those fleeting ones, such as celebrity, but the more rugged qualities of virtue, self-sufficiency and living in a barrel. Which is what Diogenes did before it was even in style. He dressed in rags and went around teaching that you should honor your friends and nurture your principles, since the value of a man is measured in the love his friends have for him. By not seeking fame, Diogenes became quite famous. Even Alexander The Great, the most powerful and renowned emperor of the time, was a huge Diogenes fan. Once, the great emperor visited the humble and fabulously famous philosopher and asked, “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Yes,” said Diogenes, “You can get out of my light.”
“He’s like Rickles!” said Alexander, adding, “If I were not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes." That’s not a bad compliment, even if it was b.s. (which it probably was).
*My girlfriend’s getting fat!*
Remember when you both met? When she was young and fresh and so were you? Remember those snapshots you took in front of the couch, the ones with her nipples pointing up to heaven like some sort of divinely inspired anatomical prayer? Well, hold on to the pictures, because while the soul is permanently youthful and eternal, the body is just passing through. It’s the same with everything in the physical universe, says Plato (428-347 BC), philosophy’s greatest hit. Plato describes reality as being merely shadows cast upon the walls of a cave. Of course, when those shadows are cast in front of My couch, they can be pretty damn persuasive. But, says Plato, you must resist this illusion, control your base instincts and continue reading this journal entry. Why? Because you have to use your intellect to govern your passions. If you don’t, says Plato, you’ll have to pay a lot of alimony and child support and your kids will always hate you. Decay is inevitable and unimportant; true harm can come only to the soul, and as long as it stays intact, you’re safe. So keep your eyes closed and do it for the good old days. That way you won’t notice that she’s doing exactly the same thing. Or so says Plato.
*I don’t make enough money!*
That’s not your complaint. What you mean is, “I don’t make as much money as rich people.” Before you blow your last ten-spot on a red bandanna and the collected works of Karl Marx, spend a moment with American political philosopher John Rawls (born 1921) and his work A Theory of Justice. To put it simply: If it weren’t for an economic system that allows rich people to exist, you would make even less money than you do right now- or perhaps none whatsoever. You’d be as rich as a steelworker in the heyday of Stalin, which is much poorer than you are now. However, if you have a small portion of something big, instead of an equal share of diddly-squat, you can invest your own brainpower and make your small chunk into a bigger and bigger one. Unless the government outlaws rich people. Then you’re doomed to poverty, just like everybody else. In Cuba.
*My girlfriend never gets off my back!*
Yes, my son, she may at times be a bitch, but remember you are the boy dog, if not the stud, so it all works out. Remember Yin and his trained Siamese twin, Yang? They learned their whole circus act from Heraclitus (c. 540-480 BC), one of the earliest and greatest of the ancient Greek philosophers. He explains that reality is a meeting of opposites- in this case, your girlfriend’s opinion on one side and everything you do on the other. Thus arguments and strife are to be accepted, even welcomed, as elements that make up our everyday world. The pull of perfectly matched opposites, cosmically speaking, gives all of nature stability. Girlfriends who are quiet and passive (but not submissive) are waiting for the right combination of nine-millimeter availability and your deep drunk-sleep to tip the balance. So stick with her. At least when she yells at you, you know where she is. Then all you have to do to be happy is not get mad. “What anger wants,” warns Heraclitus, “it buys at the expense of the soul,” and it shows up later on your AmEx bill. Heraclitus, incidentally, was eaten alive by dogs. The rule? One bitch at a time.
*I will never be my own boss!*
That is because you are weak! You will crumble like all who were weak before you! “Blessed are the meek”? Cursed are the weak, I say! Why can’t I meet a nice girl? Is it the syphilis? Welcome to the bedroom of Freidrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), who, if he could hear you whining, would doubtless instruct you to unshackle yourself from your “slave morality.” Actually, he’d probably gibber like a mandrill and try to hump your leg, since syphilis drove him completely nuts, then killed him. But not before the German philosopher developed his theory of the superman, who possesses what Nietzsche called “the will to power,” the determination to take those qualities that allowed mankind to rise above the animals and use them to tower over the mediocre rabble that is humanity. Want to hear the words of a man who never had a crazy first wife? “Whatever does not kill me,” Nietzsche says, “makes me stronger.”
The Christian tradition, he snarls, has ingrained in us such supposed virtues as forbearance, humility and deference. “What is good?” Nietzsche demands. “All that enhances the feeling of power. What is bad? All that proceeds from weakness. The weak and the failures shall perish. They ought even to be helped to perish.” (quite Darwinian, wouldn’t you say?) Of course, Neitzsche perished shortly after saying that, but nonetheless you should adopt his ruthless perspective if being the boss matters to you. Because, according to Neitzsche, the only person stopping you is you. And your breath. And that ridiculous tie. And…
*Why did I do it with her?!*
Behold the one-night stand: She’s ugly, scary, creepy, loud and naked. You only noticed the last part- and now you feel nothing but guilt, disgust and self-loathing. And for what? A chance to dance the mutton mambo with a piece of meat too ugly to eat? What were you thinking? Reach for an antacid, a beer and an ice-cold serving of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), and you’ll find that rutting with the devil, as you did, is a kind of ethical vaccination- a way to awaken your conscience, which will guide you to feel compassion for those you betray and to make the right decision next time. And, says Schopenhauer, it’s compassion that unites us as human beings; without it, we’re just dressed-up, smart-ass chimps. By hurting the ones you love, you ultimately sabotage yourself. The little voice inside you starts to whine and nag. Once you start to listen, you’ll see that your physical desire for other women is merely natures cruel jest at your expense. Which will make it that much easier to resist. So will wearing panty hose under your dockers.
*Life isn’t fair!*
It’s fair if you follow the words of those immortal philosophers Crosby, Stills & Nash (sans Young): “If you can’t be with the one you love, honey/Love the one you’re with/Love the one you’re with/Love the one you’re with/Love the one you’re with/Dah dip dip dip dip dip da-dip.” How is that possible? Just ask Boethius (c. 470-524), a thoughtful, rational and honest man marooned in the Dark Ages, where he was falsely accused of treason, imprisoned and executed. Unfair? While awaiting his unjust death, he wrote a book called The Consolation of Philosophy. “Why does Fortune with her fickle hand deal out such changing lots?” he asks. “You never had in her, nor have lost with her, anything that was lovely. If you think that Fortune has changed toward you, you are wrong.” In other words, it’s your own inflated expectations that have caused you to whine about the unfairness of life; not God. Solution: Being prepared for disappointment is the key to serenity. You are not even entitled to life, let alone anything in it, so quit the whining and take another free breath.
*I’m going to die! Someday!*
You’ll never have to experience death. My source? A dead guy. Specifically, Epicurus (c. 341-270 BC), who said, “Death is nothing to us.” Which may sound a bit overconfident given his current state, but hear the rotting corpse out. The ancient Greeks had already worked out that the universe was composed entirely of atoms. To them, man is simply an assembly of these tiny particles, and while such formations may come and go, the atoms themselves are recyclable. When you die, the collection of atoms that is you ceases to exist in your form and heads off to become other things, like palm trees and Ring Dings and wide-screen plasma TVs. So when you are here, death isn’t. And when death is here, you aren’t. Get it? You and death cannot coexist, so you have nothing to fear from it. Meanwhile, Epicurus advises, you should seek tranquility by limiting fulfillment of your desires to only moderate amounts of the very best stuff. In other words, only supermodel cooks will do. Epicurus, by the way, followed his own advice to the letter- he lived a simple life and did everything well and in moderation. It killed him. He also had a nose shaped like a very proud phallus, incidentally.
*My life feels totally meaningless!*
You have what the French existentialists would call la nausee- nausea. It’s caused by a hollowness at the very core of your being, where the lasagna usually goes. You’ve got a few ways to fill it, but one of them is French.
1) You can go along with it and squirm. Jean-Paul Sartre wrote the book on nausea. He called it La Nausee, of course. His theory: You can contemplate the meaning of life only so long before you accept that at the center of your life is a huge, empty abyss and that life doesn’t have any meaning at all, except for whatever hobbies you have. This variety of secular existentialism was also embraced by Albert Camus and Bertrand Russell.
2) The second option is to fight against the emptiness with irrationality. Christian existentialists, influenced by Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (with a hash through the O), have a different solution to filling the big void in the middle. Faced with making an irrational leap into nothingness, like Sartre, it might make more sense to make an irrational leap into something that is irrational by design: faith. Paul Tillich, Gabriel Marcel, Martin Buber and a host of other Christian philosophers filled Sartre’s abyss with faith, even arguing that the apparent meaninglessness at the center of life is there for a reason. Got a hole, gotta’ fill it.
3) The third way to solve the problem of meaninglessness, say the existentialists, is to celebrate it. And the Bibles for those who subscribe to this particular theory are called TV Guide and Weekly World News.
Your ego is bruised. Your conscience is broken. The meaning of life, for you, just went flat-line. Who can you turn to for help? Why not the world's deepest thinkers? Welcome to the harrowing world of trauma philosophy.
Guy on a gurney, almost gone. His life passes before his eyes. "What the hell was that?!" he yells. Then he dies. Not to be pessimistic, but the point is, there are some questions it helps to answer now rather than later. They're the questions that leave you staring bleakly at the ceiling at 3AM until the crack in the plaster takes your mind off the what-am-I-doing-here? quandry that woke you up. That's why some men put posters of models on the ceiling while others keep the works of the great philosophers next to the bed. The posters will get you through the night, but you need the philosophers to get you through the life. Only here can you find it put all together in one digitally-transcribed, time/date stamped place. Below: the most vexing dilemmas of our age, solved by the finest minds in history.
*I have to give a toast! I’m terrified!*
Best man? Don't worry, especially if you tattoo the words of Ludwig "Mad King" Wittgenstein (1889-1951) on your sweaty palm: "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." This line was first field-tested by Ludwig when he used it at his friend Eric's reception. Eric was a party animal. Ludwig was the foremost philosopher of the 20'th century, and I'm just kidding about Eric. But the practical application of Wittgenstein's law is this: Keep it simple. Once you go beyond your own direct knowledge- like, how you really feel about your buddy and his wife- you're just faking it. And that's a job best left to the new bride.
*I’m never going to be famous!*
Maybe that's good. If Dan Rather weren't famous, nobody would know that he's a half-mad lunatic driving a network news division into oblivion so he'll never be famous again. Fame for it's own sake is overrated, said noted philosopher David Bennun. He believes that fame is a narcotic craved by those who have no sense of their own innate worth and no conviction about their place in the world. Bennun learned his best stuff from Diogenes (c. 412-323 BC), cosmopolitan, Cynic and all-around great dancer. The Cynics of ancient Greece believed strongly in what they considered to be real values- not those fleeting ones, such as celebrity, but the more rugged qualities of virtue, self-sufficiency and living in a barrel. Which is what Diogenes did before it was even in style. He dressed in rags and went around teaching that you should honor your friends and nurture your principles, since the value of a man is measured in the love his friends have for him. By not seeking fame, Diogenes became quite famous. Even Alexander The Great, the most powerful and renowned emperor of the time, was a huge Diogenes fan. Once, the great emperor visited the humble and fabulously famous philosopher and asked, “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Yes,” said Diogenes, “You can get out of my light.”
“He’s like Rickles!” said Alexander, adding, “If I were not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes." That’s not a bad compliment, even if it was b.s. (which it probably was).
*My girlfriend’s getting fat!*
Remember when you both met? When she was young and fresh and so were you? Remember those snapshots you took in front of the couch, the ones with her nipples pointing up to heaven like some sort of divinely inspired anatomical prayer? Well, hold on to the pictures, because while the soul is permanently youthful and eternal, the body is just passing through. It’s the same with everything in the physical universe, says Plato (428-347 BC), philosophy’s greatest hit. Plato describes reality as being merely shadows cast upon the walls of a cave. Of course, when those shadows are cast in front of My couch, they can be pretty damn persuasive. But, says Plato, you must resist this illusion, control your base instincts and continue reading this journal entry. Why? Because you have to use your intellect to govern your passions. If you don’t, says Plato, you’ll have to pay a lot of alimony and child support and your kids will always hate you. Decay is inevitable and unimportant; true harm can come only to the soul, and as long as it stays intact, you’re safe. So keep your eyes closed and do it for the good old days. That way you won’t notice that she’s doing exactly the same thing. Or so says Plato.
*I don’t make enough money!*
That’s not your complaint. What you mean is, “I don’t make as much money as rich people.” Before you blow your last ten-spot on a red bandanna and the collected works of Karl Marx, spend a moment with American political philosopher John Rawls (born 1921) and his work A Theory of Justice. To put it simply: If it weren’t for an economic system that allows rich people to exist, you would make even less money than you do right now- or perhaps none whatsoever. You’d be as rich as a steelworker in the heyday of Stalin, which is much poorer than you are now. However, if you have a small portion of something big, instead of an equal share of diddly-squat, you can invest your own brainpower and make your small chunk into a bigger and bigger one. Unless the government outlaws rich people. Then you’re doomed to poverty, just like everybody else. In Cuba.
*My girlfriend never gets off my back!*
Yes, my son, she may at times be a bitch, but remember you are the boy dog, if not the stud, so it all works out. Remember Yin and his trained Siamese twin, Yang? They learned their whole circus act from Heraclitus (c. 540-480 BC), one of the earliest and greatest of the ancient Greek philosophers. He explains that reality is a meeting of opposites- in this case, your girlfriend’s opinion on one side and everything you do on the other. Thus arguments and strife are to be accepted, even welcomed, as elements that make up our everyday world. The pull of perfectly matched opposites, cosmically speaking, gives all of nature stability. Girlfriends who are quiet and passive (but not submissive) are waiting for the right combination of nine-millimeter availability and your deep drunk-sleep to tip the balance. So stick with her. At least when she yells at you, you know where she is. Then all you have to do to be happy is not get mad. “What anger wants,” warns Heraclitus, “it buys at the expense of the soul,” and it shows up later on your AmEx bill. Heraclitus, incidentally, was eaten alive by dogs. The rule? One bitch at a time.
*I will never be my own boss!*
That is because you are weak! You will crumble like all who were weak before you! “Blessed are the meek”? Cursed are the weak, I say! Why can’t I meet a nice girl? Is it the syphilis? Welcome to the bedroom of Freidrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), who, if he could hear you whining, would doubtless instruct you to unshackle yourself from your “slave morality.” Actually, he’d probably gibber like a mandrill and try to hump your leg, since syphilis drove him completely nuts, then killed him. But not before the German philosopher developed his theory of the superman, who possesses what Nietzsche called “the will to power,” the determination to take those qualities that allowed mankind to rise above the animals and use them to tower over the mediocre rabble that is humanity. Want to hear the words of a man who never had a crazy first wife? “Whatever does not kill me,” Nietzsche says, “makes me stronger.”
The Christian tradition, he snarls, has ingrained in us such supposed virtues as forbearance, humility and deference. “What is good?” Nietzsche demands. “All that enhances the feeling of power. What is bad? All that proceeds from weakness. The weak and the failures shall perish. They ought even to be helped to perish.” (quite Darwinian, wouldn’t you say?) Of course, Neitzsche perished shortly after saying that, but nonetheless you should adopt his ruthless perspective if being the boss matters to you. Because, according to Neitzsche, the only person stopping you is you. And your breath. And that ridiculous tie. And…
*Why did I do it with her?!*
Behold the one-night stand: She’s ugly, scary, creepy, loud and naked. You only noticed the last part- and now you feel nothing but guilt, disgust and self-loathing. And for what? A chance to dance the mutton mambo with a piece of meat too ugly to eat? What were you thinking? Reach for an antacid, a beer and an ice-cold serving of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), and you’ll find that rutting with the devil, as you did, is a kind of ethical vaccination- a way to awaken your conscience, which will guide you to feel compassion for those you betray and to make the right decision next time. And, says Schopenhauer, it’s compassion that unites us as human beings; without it, we’re just dressed-up, smart-ass chimps. By hurting the ones you love, you ultimately sabotage yourself. The little voice inside you starts to whine and nag. Once you start to listen, you’ll see that your physical desire for other women is merely natures cruel jest at your expense. Which will make it that much easier to resist. So will wearing panty hose under your dockers.
*Life isn’t fair!*
It’s fair if you follow the words of those immortal philosophers Crosby, Stills & Nash (sans Young): “If you can’t be with the one you love, honey/Love the one you’re with/Love the one you’re with/Love the one you’re with/Love the one you’re with/Dah dip dip dip dip dip da-dip.” How is that possible? Just ask Boethius (c. 470-524), a thoughtful, rational and honest man marooned in the Dark Ages, where he was falsely accused of treason, imprisoned and executed. Unfair? While awaiting his unjust death, he wrote a book called The Consolation of Philosophy. “Why does Fortune with her fickle hand deal out such changing lots?” he asks. “You never had in her, nor have lost with her, anything that was lovely. If you think that Fortune has changed toward you, you are wrong.” In other words, it’s your own inflated expectations that have caused you to whine about the unfairness of life; not God. Solution: Being prepared for disappointment is the key to serenity. You are not even entitled to life, let alone anything in it, so quit the whining and take another free breath.
*I’m going to die! Someday!*
You’ll never have to experience death. My source? A dead guy. Specifically, Epicurus (c. 341-270 BC), who said, “Death is nothing to us.” Which may sound a bit overconfident given his current state, but hear the rotting corpse out. The ancient Greeks had already worked out that the universe was composed entirely of atoms. To them, man is simply an assembly of these tiny particles, and while such formations may come and go, the atoms themselves are recyclable. When you die, the collection of atoms that is you ceases to exist in your form and heads off to become other things, like palm trees and Ring Dings and wide-screen plasma TVs. So when you are here, death isn’t. And when death is here, you aren’t. Get it? You and death cannot coexist, so you have nothing to fear from it. Meanwhile, Epicurus advises, you should seek tranquility by limiting fulfillment of your desires to only moderate amounts of the very best stuff. In other words, only supermodel cooks will do. Epicurus, by the way, followed his own advice to the letter- he lived a simple life and did everything well and in moderation. It killed him. He also had a nose shaped like a very proud phallus, incidentally.
*My life feels totally meaningless!*
You have what the French existentialists would call la nausee- nausea. It’s caused by a hollowness at the very core of your being, where the lasagna usually goes. You’ve got a few ways to fill it, but one of them is French.
1) You can go along with it and squirm. Jean-Paul Sartre wrote the book on nausea. He called it La Nausee, of course. His theory: You can contemplate the meaning of life only so long before you accept that at the center of your life is a huge, empty abyss and that life doesn’t have any meaning at all, except for whatever hobbies you have. This variety of secular existentialism was also embraced by Albert Camus and Bertrand Russell.
2) The second option is to fight against the emptiness with irrationality. Christian existentialists, influenced by Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (with a hash through the O), have a different solution to filling the big void in the middle. Faced with making an irrational leap into nothingness, like Sartre, it might make more sense to make an irrational leap into something that is irrational by design: faith. Paul Tillich, Gabriel Marcel, Martin Buber and a host of other Christian philosophers filled Sartre’s abyss with faith, even arguing that the apparent meaninglessness at the center of life is there for a reason. Got a hole, gotta’ fill it.
3) The third way to solve the problem of meaninglessness, say the existentialists, is to celebrate it. And the Bibles for those who subscribe to this particular theory are called TV Guide and Weekly World News.