What is life? (What is the philosophical life?)
Life is everything to each
of us, sometimes a lot to another, but not much really. Life is just our
experience of it — sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes reflective,
sometimes unthinking, sometimes opportune, sometimes unfortunate. We make
mistakes — on our own terms and on the terms of others. We do good things —
noticed or unnoticed. We do bad things — sometimes uncovered, sometimes
concealed. We deceive and we are honest. We keep secrets for the best of reasons
and for the worst of reasons. We comply and we are humble. We react, and we are
pompous and belligerent. We look for sources of meaning — in humanity, in god,
in philosophy, in nature, in our own hearts. We seek the light of truth, hoping
to find it in stillness and quietude. We find resolution or we are disappointed.
We attain and we are satisfied, or we are let down and disappointed. We love. We
find the fellowship of another. And we hate, and separate, and seek out and
kill. And we become ill, or our body fails, and we die. And then it all
finishes. We dream no more, we hope no more, the play continues — the show
goes on — and we no longer know of it. We come, we go, we experience.
And we may ask what is the philosophical life? What is it to lead a life philosophically? Maybe there is no such thing — not really. Perhaps anything we call a philosophical life is simply wondering about one of these aspects.