Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid

Here is my greatest fear:
To feel good around people who actually don't welcome your company and wish you would go away. Their problem is that they can't tell you to go away because their problem with you is exactly that - you don't seem to understand yourself that your presence is undesired.
This situation, I think, is not wildly uncommon. Many of our social norms are based on unspoken communication and implied agreements. If you are talking to me and I am slow to respond, I am busy. It's not that I'm not interested to hear what you have to say - I'm just focusing on something else. If you keep talking to me, I might just tell you that I'm busy right now and will talk to you later. I will be slightly annoyed when I do this, even though I will probably apologize, since you should have known.
Very few people will stay in the room after a direct reproach and repeated requests for their departure from an otherwise ignoring person. Those who stay in the face of such severe reactions from the environment are indeed very lacking in social skills and would probably use some help from those who care about them and have had good experience interacting with human beings.
We all fail, now and then, in interpreting the unspoken gestures of our friends and neighbors. But the person who gets them systemically wrong is one that lies beyond the reach of our rebuke. If you ask them, at any particular point, to leave or stop doing something you've been insinuating is annoying - they will simply stop, in deference to your request. Your frustration, surely to surface after keeping quite for so long, will only perplex them: if that was bothering you, why didn't you say so? A way to deal with such a person is to constantly tell them what is usually left unsaid, for good reasons. That is not only extremely tiring but could also drive a relatively stable human being fabulously mad. The usual way to cope with such behaviour is to grind one's teeth and pray to whatever god that happens to be available that the awkward person just go away.
The two-sided predicament is not something strange to me. Many times I have been on one side of it. Was I ever on the other side? I don't know, I'm afraid.
And when I say that I'm afraid, what I mean is that I'm completely horrified by the thought.

But When?

The notion of time, I think, has been largely neglected by many philosophers. Not as a topic in itself, for as that they are actually quite fond of it. Taking seriously the notion of time, I say, requires explaining all other notions in temporal terms. But philosophers have the exact opposite tendency - as they are fans of abstractions, and rightfully so in my humble opinion, they tend to search for eternal 'truths', 'principles' and time-independent concepts. In fact, in search for an understanding of a concept they will define it in non-temporal terms and then explore its implications, inner structures, constrains and so forth.
That has a serious basis in human psychology and intellectual ability. People are not very interested in temporary states, they want to know things as they really are, to borrow a phrase from one smart man - in themselves. And the way things really are is conceived to be what they always are and not what they are for a given period of time.
Of course this is an absurdity - human beings are, themselves, temporary. As as they realize and internalize this simple truism they sometimes lose interest in the 'truths' or 'principles' and focus instead of achieving short term goals of a more 'earthly' nature. Nonetheless, they still acknowledge the relationship between truth and eternity and appreciate it. People are concerned with questions like 'what will be?" and are consoled with answers of the type "everything is going to be alright" though they lack the most important part of the answer - when will be it alright?
Consider Love. Much has been said and written about love - by philosophers, poets, writers and people from every walk of life. Many of the answers to the questions 'what is love?', including very serious inquiries, refer to it as an unchanging eternal concept. Marriage, relationships, friendship - are considered to have ups and downs, hard parts and nice parts. Love is a divine gift or an human emotion - but it is usually defined as something in itself that is unchanging and pure.
It seems to me, however, that the exploration of the concept of love can benefit greatly from an explanation in temporal terms for I think our lives and the world, at least as we perceive it, are inherently temporal. Firstly, it seems to me that Love is first and foremost a matter of moments. It 'attacks' on certain moments, when it emerges for the first time for sure but also later - it grabs hold at particular points in time, felt strongly at some moments. It is not always the same - it changes from time to time and you may feel it differently. It can be really great and then we want it to stay that way but it never does. Does that mean that Love has gone? sometimes, but not necessarily. For love to be a great thing all in all, it doesn't have to to always be the same type of feeling, if it is a feeling.
The point is that the exploration of many concepts can benefit from explanation in temporal terms. That means that someone's gotta do it.
But when?

Making Decisions Takes Time - Perhaps More than You thought

I used to use a metaphor of hair growing to make a point regarding decision making and not making a decision. It made the hackneyed point that not making a decision is also making a decision and it went like this - if I'm debating whether or not to cut my hair, I am making a decision not to cut it. The fact is that it grows all the time, even when you are not decided on whether or not to cut it. Even if the deliberation is not very long, it is sometime neglected (and many times noticed) that the act of making a decision is itself a decision (or it isn't - it maybe an outcome of a non-decision of the same sort) that has implications on the possible alternatives and outcomes, and thus on the decision itself.
The years passed by and my metaphors did not develop much. Though, uninterestingly enough they now refer to facial hair (the process is concomitant to the one dubbed 'receding hairline' but that will be dealt with on a different post, if at all). The current one refers to growing a beard (a few rightfully obscured ones revolve around the growing a mustache) and asks a similar question about the debate whether to grow a beard or not. We have already agreed that it grows even while I am debating whether or not to grow it and that there is no way of avoiding the decision by deliberating since choosing to deliberate is a decision regarding the beard as well. But now I want to delve deeper into the deliberation and ask what it is to decide to have a beard? given that there are two alternatives, growing a beard and not growing a beard, I ask myself all sorts of questions regarding those two alternatives: which of them, I think, looks better? What kind of a person I feel that I am, bearded or clean-shaved? What do people think of me when they see me with and without a beard?
But those questions deal with those two alternatives as permanent statuses of existence. which they obviously aren't. If while I debate the beard grows (which makes me a debating bearded creature unless I shave it regularly to be a debating shaving guy) it is obvious that even after I decide, say, not to grow it - it will still grow. And so, if I slack for a while or lose my ability to use both arms in coordination, it will grow in spite of my decision. You can say of a fellow 'he's a bearded fellow' for you have always seen him bearded. He may have sworn never to shave or belong to a sect that forbids the cutting of hair. Yet he may be abducted by a hair-cutting rival faction which will cut his hair or repudiate his previous beliefs. Any bearded person is a clean-shaved person in potential. Only after the death of a man (in case, not of most women) can one truthfully say 'he has never-ever shaved'.
This makes my debate much more interesting for it opens up many other alternatives: I can grow a beard in the winter and shave in the summer; I can shave every two months and just let it become a beard when I shave it. I can grow a beard for ten years and then shave it to be an ex-bearded man. Here I don't deal with the option to shave it half way, grow other forms of facial hair etc. I try only to deal with two possible statuses: being bearded and not being bearded. The dimension of time does not only open up a new scope of options, it inevitably eliminates the two previous alternatives I considered analytically while deliberating. I cannot be a bearded man - in fact I will only be that in retrospect after my death - I can only be bearded man for now.
I still haven't decided if I want to be a bearded person in principle or not, so I decided to grow a beard. As far as I'm concerned this is as legitimate as shaving for an undecided. The temporal aspect of decision making, however, seems to me to deserve greater attention. Transforming a decision from a singular point in time into a stretch on the continuum of time bares on decision making theory. Indeed, we often neglect to take the flow of time seriously when making decisions and reflecting on the world. The fact that an alternative exists, does not promise that it will continue to exist. It is now an option but every now-option is potentially a non-option tomorrow. Materializing option A now is nothing like postponing it and materializing what seems to be a similar option tomorrow. This adds many options to the table when we are making decisions, in fact - perhaps too many.

A Different Certainty of Skepticism: Doubting Doubt

I am in love with the truth. Perhaps obsessed is a better word for Love, or at least true Love, deserves a separate consideration. I find the truth to have a neverending and incomparable appeal. I want to know the truth. I want to know all of it and always, concerning everything and everyone, in every respect and concern. In that sense I am not a humanist - I have hurt my self and the people closest to me since I have a hard time shying away from the truth. This does not mean that I don't lie, but I do feel horrible about it when I do. I find it, as a matter of principle, always better to know the horrible truth even when knowing it does you or anybody else no good.

There are obviously many downsides to such an obsession, as anybody will surly notice. One disadvantage is that truth is really hard to come by. Moreover, what's even harder than finding out the truth is knowing that you actually have found the truth. Indeed, certainty has some benefits of its own but my quest for it starts with my obsession with truth. The problem of certainty has bothered many people that it even drove some of them to do philosophy. Rene Descartes, sometimes referred to as the 'father of modern philosophy', has found certainty in doubt. He was really concerned with certainty; so concerned he was that at some point he lost all of it.

It seems to be that there is truth in doubt. Frustrations from truth-seeking failures have taught me a great many things about the benefits of the doubt. I am, however, doubtful that there can be certainty in it. For what it means is that there is nothing one can be sure of, and that one can be sure of that. That sounds peculiar to me; though I admit I am not one to dismiss contradictions off-hand. How can we really know for certain that there is nothing to be certain of? Surely it's possible that that there are indeed some things you can know for certain, we can never know.

I think it's fair to say that fidelity to the truth of doubt cannot rely on such an assertive assertion. We must admit that it is indeed possible that there are some truths that can be known for certain but which truths we may not know for certain. This does not mean, I believe, that we must suspect all things and consider all of them to be uncertain, just because we don't know if we can know them for certain.

To fully adhere to this kind of skepticism means to doubt all certainties including that of doubt itself. We must then accept some certainties, if only in the name of doubting doubt. Accepting certainties is very hard for skeptics for they too are addicted to the certainty of doubt; they cling to it like survivors to a rock. Accepting certainties is a tough job: it's suspect of arbitrariness and so demands courage. Indeed, that is a contradiction as well, but it seems to me to be a truer contradiction than the previous one. Why have I chosen this one rather than the other? I have tried to explain, but if you do not find my argument cogent, you may choose a different certainty to cling to. I will be the last to criticize you for that.

The Disunity of Philosopher's Self

One of the most fundemental questions in philosophy concerns the nature of the self. A common argument that bothers me is the one that vindicates the unity of the self. Kant's 'transcendental unity' is a briliant move in the history of philosophy - it establishes the intuitive, wished-for and logically inevitable unity of the self.

This assertion does not rest at ease with the way I understand myself. I have a strong feeling that I am not the person I was a year ago, and in some ways - not even the one I was a moment ago. In fact, I really hope that I am not the same person; I have made a serious effort to be a better one. I recognize some of the faults stubbornly resist - and although I reluctantly accept them as fundamental parts of my essence, I resent more the attempt to box me in my self. In many respects, the difference is greater than the resemblance; in no way is there an identity.

Not only am I a different person in different periods of life but also I believe that there are several distinct perennial selves, recurring at different times of the day and other periodic cycles. My night-self puts the alarm clock away from the bed not only because he's being super-rational but also because he knows my morning-self is a tired, grumpy and selfish person. And when I say 'selfish', I mean it in the narrowest sense of the word: he only cares for him-self. The complex relationship of my night-self and morning-self is poorly described as an inner struggle; the rich stories of these two can only be told with two distinct references. As far as language can indicate our understanding of reality, reality as it is presented to us or even reality itself - it indicates that the unity of the self will not suffice here. Something else is necessary.

One implication of this natural tendency on the studies of philosophy is the attempt to construct a comprehensive doctrine from different writings of one person. This goes both ways: in understanding one's philosophy, it is usually being examined in light of that one's other writings and in writing philosophy, many philosophers try to write in the context of their other writings, generally avoiding contradictions and incoherences. While it may sometimes seem right to continue one's previous work, to further develop previous ideas or to supplement them, I do not see why this is must always be the case. It seems to me that this may be come in the way of reinventing and innovating one's self (which I take to be, as noted above, quotidian). Surely, there's a psychological element in this. People want to believe that there is a comprehesive framework to all the good ideas they have had over the years but this may actually impede their philosophical development. I do not wish to deny that there is value in developing comprehensive doctrines: aesthetic, scientific and even philosophical values. However, I do believe, based on my own short experience in life, that there are different mutually exclusive takes on the world that are honestly held in different times of life, and therefore it seems to me that fidelty and integrity demand that these differnet takes are given voice.

I concede that such learning of philosophy can help understand the philosopher better, but it seems to be of less philosophical interest; it belongs to the businesses of history and gossip. If a philosopher wishes to restate or continue any of her or his previous writings, let them make the reference.

Can I now honestly defend an opposite stance in another piece of writing?
If one is to take anything I wrote here seriously, than the answer is yes.
Could you then hold it against me?
I think you could.

Why Idleness?

It was Fung Yu-Lan, my favorite 20th century Chinese intellectual, who said that philosophy's usefulness is in its uselessness. As I hope to dedicate at least some of this space to notions that might be considered philosophical, it seems in place to show an appreciation of that aimless pursuit that I nevertheless find to be worthy of my time and effort; Indeed, I take it to be an important component of my very existence.

Dear Fung grasped a deep notion - you cannot aim for that usefulness. Even once you realize that there is some usefulness in it, you can not attempt it. By trying to reach philosophy's usefulness one misses it uselessness and it then ceases to be useful. I hope that this may help explain why I am unable to respond to any future comments that fall under that category titled 'what is it good for?'. It isn't good for anything. That's the point, or to be more precise - it's not even the point. There is no point, is the point, but if tried to be pursued further it will lose its meaning so let go of the no-point point.

What of this and Idleness? There is an inherent, deeper problem of justifying Idleness, as it carries a negative association by definition. However, aside from my logical perversion to seek truth in contradictions, there are various good reasons to resist this common notion. But apart from such arguments that fiddle with our understanding of what idleness is or challenge our common understanding of work and leisure, I would like to suggest here the kind of idleness that corresponds to the aforementioned concept of philosophy. Thus, I recommend to you doing absolutely nothing. It is not the free time which turns into recreational activities that I praise here, but the time in which one is not even reading this post, though arguably this kind of reading is in fact doing absolutely nothing. 

I laud doing nothing for nothing's sake, and I hope no one will ever ask me what is it good for. 

Why Folly?

I have always been attracted to Folly, in one way or another. The praise of something as foolish as Folly arouses my long-nurtured affection for contradictions, which I take to indicate truth. I take Folly very seriously - I intend to pursue it in the most rigorous manner and not only in order to intensify the paradox. I have always thought that there is nothing funny about Folly unless it is seriously premeditated. The most shallow and superficial jokes are funniest when they conducted in carefully picked conditions - specific timing, a certain atmosphere and so forth. One may say, that such an endeavour renounces the shallowness of the joke from which we began. But if it was not the for the initial shallowness, it wouldn't have been possible to construct the complex sophistication. Something of the primordial foolishness indeed remains, traces of instinctive Folly in the work of art of multi-layered humour.

It was said on W.S Gilbert that his foe was folly, but he purposed a steady defence of Folly when he observed that it carries a grain of truth and wisdom in it. Moreover, Folly may serve to facilitate the understanding of such truths, especially those difficult to accept. But Gilbert's words suggest another, deeper message - that those truths that Folly conveys cannot be adequately covered by conventional wisdom. The Jester's Folly is subject to no academic rule and it possesses a potential force that can wither the successful upstart. Are there such truths, only available to Folly? I do not know for certain, but I do think that by hiding some truths, Folly may serve to expose them. Indeed, even when it isn't absolutely necessary to wrap truths in Folly, it may still be very helpful or in the very least - funny. In any rate, I intend to explore this path further - seriously pursuing Folly and examining serious matters in a silly manner. Where this will bring me, I do not know, but I have a feeling I will end up where I need to be.

When they’re offered to the world in merry guise,

Unpleasant truths are swallowed with a will –

For he who’d make his fellow-creatures wise

Should always gild the philosophic pill!

(Yeoman of the Guard, Act I)