Enjoy Being Wise and Save the World At the Same Time

“You think that I don’t even mean a single word I say. It’s only words, and words are all I have to take your heart away” – The Bee Gees, “Words” (1968).

As has been said before, “the world is a mess and getting messier still” (To think or not: Zen, Tolstoy, Depression and Enjoyment).

The number of problems we face is astounding (UN Global Issues). It’s like the world is going to hell in a handbasket and we’re the cause. Go to any zoo, refugee camp or suburb. See for yourself. How can a person enjoy with a clear conscience when so much is wrong?

Singin’, “All we are saying, is: ‘Give peace a chance.'”

Even though we know, “The whole surface of Earth is a series of connected ecosystems” and “every factor in an ecosystem depends on every other factor,” we continue to pave over ecosystems with joyous abandon (National Geographic).

But a change from soil and water to roads, suburbs and industry has a funny way of affecting plants and on animals depending on those plants.

We have pollution in the ocean twice the size of Texas (source). We have poverty, crime, racism, road rage, distrust, violence and an epidemic of death by drug addiction. We have cancers and viruses and the doctors and scientists who try to help us get death threats (‘I hope you die’: how COVID pandemic unleashed attacks on scientists).

Image by Martin Shovel

It’s like nature is out to get us and humans don’t get it. Plants and animals go extinct as economics drive global destruction. People are more irrational than ever and no amount of intelligence, Artificial or otherwise, seems able to save us from ourselves.

So, what’s the answer? Is it escapism and surrender? Is it global conflict and action? Is it ruining your life worrying and not enjoying?

How can a run-of-the-mill human (one of 7.9 billion no less) make a difference, be a good ancestor, live a good life and enjoy good times with love and a calm state of mind?

In such a messed up world what can philosophy do?

Well… a lot actually.

Philosophy comes from the Greek “philein” and “sophia” meaning “lover of wisdom” (source). A lover of wisdom relates to any area where intelligence is shown. Wisdom is the ability to think and act using “knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense and insight” (source). If we valued wisdom more than money, celebrity and immediate gratification, if we practiced wisdom religiously, as in, “with consistent and conscientious regularity” (Dictionary), we could easily solve all our problems both individually and collectively.

Psychology was born from philosophies dating back thousands of years (source). Philosophy is logic. Philosophy is religion stripped of wishful thinking. Philosophy is understanding yourself, other people, the world, and your relationship with the world and other people (source).

“Understanding” means to “stand in the midst of” from Old English understandan meaning “to comprehend, grasp the idea of, receive from a word or words or from a sign the idea it is intended to convey” (Etymology Online).

The answer starts with attention and self-awareness.

According to Kruger and Dunning (1999) without mental tools we can’t see our own incompetence. For example: “hunters who know the least about firearms also have the most inaccurate view of their firearm knowledge, and doctors with the worst patient-interviewing skills are the least likely to recognize their inadequacies” (The more inept you are the smarter you think you are).

There are so many websites endorsing the Dunning-Kruger Effect most people don’t question it, but they should: “Dunning-Kruger Effect Is Probably Not Real“. Truth is, if we’re not paying attention, we’re all susceptible to cognitive biases, as in, “systematic errors in thinking.”

Research shows, for example, there is an asymmetry in our thinking towards negativity, meaning, we register the negative more readily and frequently than positive (Negativity Bias).

But on the flip-side, we’re also susceptible to Optimism Bias whereby our brains are overly optimistic. “If,” for example, “you were asked to estimate how likely you are to experience divorce, illness, job loss, or an accident, you are likely to underestimate the probability that such events will ever impact your life” (source).

Positive events lead to feelings of well being, while negative events lead to risky behavior and not taking precautions (source).

Consciousness is being aware of your environment and body. Self-awareness is the recognition of that awareness. Self-awareness is how you understand feelings, motivations and desires (source). Whether you think overly negative or optimistic can depend on your mood. People are less optimistic in a bad mood and more optimistic in a good mood (source).

A mood is a “temporary state of mind or feeling” (Dictionary). Thinking is a way of dealing with moods. We can think our way out of a feeling by finding solutions to meet the need behind that feeling (University of Cape Town).

According to the World History Encyclopedia (2005, p. 409) the first philosopher was Zoroaster (aka Zarathustra) who lived somewhere between 1500 and 1000 BC (source).

Bachi Karkaria’s Zarathushtra (1974) 

Zoroaster praised “Ahura” (Lord) “Mazda” (Wisdom) and founded “Mazdayasna” which means “Worship of Wisdom.” Before the 6th century BC, philosophy and science were not separated from theology which probably explains how Zoroaster, the world’s first philosopher, started the world’s first monotheistic religion (source).

Imagine that! The first monotheistic God was Wisdom itself!

Starting with Pythagoras (570-495 BC)—who, incidentally, first coined the word “philosophy” (source)—Zoroaster’s followers taught ancient Greeks about the love of wisdom (source).

Pythagoras influenced Plato and Aristotle who influenced Western philosophy which influenced Christianity through medieval scholars like Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) who developed his own conclusions from Aristotelian ideas. 

Farrokh Bulsara before renaming.

Zoroaster’s religious philosophy is known for its motto ‘Good thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds.’ It teaches sharing, generosity and kindness. What could be better? Even the rock star Freddie Mercury (1946-1991) born Farrokh Bulsara got into that.

Zoroaster was also the world’s first proponent of ecology through care of the earth (source).

Let us practice wisdom in thought, word and deed! Let us enjoy thinking, Air and a little ping pong.

We can be lovers of wisdom and save the world, one mind at a time.

Is it serious? Up Enjoyment to Bliss Filled Without Trying

While walking in a park one calm and cool autumn, from out of the enjoyment of a ten minute moment, with trees bathed in fall colours, with birds—black-eyed juncos, chickadees and sparrows—pecking among leaves and squirrels running around like maniacs, from out of the overcast white sky comes a question.

Is it serious?  

“It depends,” you say. “What is “it”? Is a mouse serious? A mouse thinks so. That’s why he runs. Owls think mice are serious. Survival is serious to survivors. Owl and mouse do owl and mouse things to survive just as humans do human things to survive (except with TVs, toilets and machines). The difference is, whereas a mouse and owl won’t understand what “serious” is, a human might.

Think of it as a game. (Cue music: Stakka Bo, “Here We Go Again” (1993)).

In the first chapter of Finite and Infinite Games (1986), James P. Carse lays out a theory in two sentences, “There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.”

Mouse vs. owl is a finite game. A mouse named Jimmy can escape (win) or be eaten (lose). An owl named Janice can eat (win) or starve (lose). The dead are losers. Death is the triumph of past over future, but if life is the prize for winning, finite players aren’t living. 

What is won in finite games is a title (p. 19). In death, titles replace life. When you die, attempts to win titles stop. We take finite games serious, but in seriousness and certainty we lose awareness of wonder and the infinite game we’re playing.

Beyond the immediate owl and mouse competition (little picture), there is an infinite game (big picture) where owl and mouse play “live and let die” so others can continue.

In an infinite game players play (and die) to keep the game going. Finite games have boundaries, infinite games do not. You can’t actually tell how long an infinite game has been playing.

Is the universe serious? Is air travel, brain surgery and regular maintenance serious? Something is serious or it isn’t unless, of course, what is serious actually isn’t.

Are birds in trees serious? Are fish in seas and people in parks, serious? Is a goose standing on one foot stretching his wings among other geese, serious? Is a woman standing on one foot stretching among other women stretching, serious? Is a man selling drugs to another man, serious? Is a cat pouncing on a sparrow, serious?

Life and death feel serious. Ask any cancer survivor, terrorist or soldier. People who kill themselves are probably over-serious. It isn’t a question of whether it “’tis,” as Hamlet soliloquized, “‘nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” because we know it “’tis!” Hard as it is to consider, suffering is part of the game so the trick is, let suffering be there without resisting. It ’tis what it ’tis! Do what you can and take what comes.

For millions of people, a lot of the time (most of the time?), life does not feel blissful, as in, perfectly happy, but then, as it is written by the Rolling Stones, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”, but if you try sometimes, you’ll find, you get what’s agreed.

It’s like the joke Woody Allen told, the gist of which goes, “The food in this place is terrible!” “Yeah, I know; and such small portions.” To Woody, life is “full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly.”

Something “serious” is important, grave, sombre, heavy, weighty, critical, sincere, in earnest and not trifling (Dictionary.com). Is that how “it” is? Is life grave sombre, heavy, and weighty?

The  Power Thesaurus lists 509 words that are the opposite of “serious,” including: funny, playful, light, unimportant, silly, trivial, lighthearted, ridiculous, happy, laughable, merry, easy,  trippy, unwise and priceless.

How would it feel if instead of thinking it is serious!, you thought the opposite?

What if you could see finite games for what they are? How would you feel, “to be on your own, with no direction home, a complete unknown, just like a rolling stone?” (“Like a Rolling Stone”).

Truth is, a lot of what people think of as “terribly important and serious,” actually isn’t. On and off. On and off. Now you see it. Now you don’t. Here and gone, as if, what was there never was. That is the infinite game we play so others can continue.

A test for what you see as true is to look at your day without effort to change it. Let your day rock and roll as it will. It will anyway, so why fight it? Recognize what you can and can’t do. Alter what you think is true and with a rock and roll mindset, you are free to swagger because nothing can hurt you.

Don’t get what you want? Forget it. So what? Someone slights you? Big deal. People don’t know what they’re doing, if they did, they wouldn’t do it and there wouldn’t be problems. Instead of swimming upstream, enjoy flowing (see also The Art of Enjoying).

Live without worry and strain. Why not? The less you strain, the more free you are. There is only so much you can do. Beyond that, you’re helpless. Enjoy it. With this realization, comes the freedom to enjoy an infinite game. Look on the light side and give a whistle.

“Why so serious?” shouldn’t be just a catch phrase reserved for homicidal maniacs like the Joker.

As Joni Mitchell sang it starting in 1969, “Enjoy both sides now” because you can’t have one without the other.

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References:

Carse, J. P. (1986). Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility. THE FREE PRESS, A Division of Macmillan, Inc., New York. See pdf: https://wtf.tw/ref/carse.pdf.