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.

Knowledge, Wisdom, Insight and Enjoyment

Knowledge, wisdom, insight and enjoyment relate to the mind but differ in kind. Knowledge is information, wisdom is the application of knowledge, insight is awareness of an essential truth, and enjoyment is, as writer Paul Goodman (1911-1972) observed,  “not a goal, it is a feeling that accompanies important ongoing activity.” 

Knowledge is, “Nothing but the facts ma’am.” If you’re a carpenter, you have knowledge of carpentry. If you play guitar, you have knowledge of guitars. If you’re an astronomer, you have knowledge of stars. Knowledge requires research, study and experience.

Knowledge is the foundation for wisdom. Wisdom is knowing why something is. Wisdom is the application of knowledge for making sound decisions because one can’t act wisely without knowing the potential consequences of a choice.

Wisdom requires reflection and contemplation of what you know and don’t know so as to understand and use that knowledge in an intelligent way.

Wisdom is necessary if you are to have insight. Insight is a personal realization. Insight is an experience. It is the deepest level of knowing. It is understanding a specific cause and effect within a specific context.

Insight is a clearer perception of knowledge and wisdom as it pertains to your life. Whereas knowledge and wisdom are based on rationality, insight is based on intuitive understanding.

The application of wisdom enables a person to gain insight into the essence of an underlying truth. To enjoy insight you not only need to acquire knowledge and take that knowledge and contemplate it—look at all sides with care and attention—and deliberate it—weigh facts and arguments with a view to a choice and consequences—so as to gain wisdom, but you need to make an intuitive connection which is hard to explain—let alone impart to another person.

If you have insight, explanations are meaningless to another person. Like enjoyment, insight is an individual experience that can be described and analyzed but not transmitted or shared. When discussing knowledge, wisdom, insight and enjoyment, we are digging into two incompatible types of thought: rational and intuitive.

Rationality employs language, logic and reason. Think of rationality as a machine. Rationality can be taught but intuition cannot. Think of intuition as a flower. Intuition is embedded in your consciousness but it is often repressed by self-consiousness.

Rational knowledge is knowing what people, things, practices and pleasures make you happy, but wisdom is knowing that things you enjoy do not actually make you happy; happiness comes from within. Insight is feeling that whether or not you believe something isn’t the right question because the answer is what you know through experience.

Intuition is beyond words. You can’t manipulate intuitive consciousness with rational thinking. Rational thinking is a veil through which we think we see reality, but we’re really only perceiving a shallow portion filtered through our constructed perspective.

To see reality directly as reality is to be in reality with acceptance as it is (see also: The Art of Love And Enjoyment Incarnate).

Rationality constrains one’s mind and intuition releases it.

Intuition is a key to what might be called, “higher consciousness” which is, “the part of the human being that is capable of transcending animal instincts” (Wikipedia). Higher consciousness has been described as a feeling of oneness where the world is seen directly and not analytically. The world feels like an extension of your consciousness and there is a sudden sense of freedom from a bondage to the way you think about things.

An insight of higher consciousness is a highly enjoyable direct experience with reality in the present. It is knowing that the happiness you feel is a temporary emotion just like any other temporary emotion that you experience. Happiness is one emotion in a spectrum. If you give yourself permission and relax with acceptance, if you let your face go slack and see from the sides, if you hear without hearing, if you do all this without trying, you will enjoy the intuitive realization or insight that there’s nothing to realize.

The world is there. It is unchanged regardless of how you perceive it. Now is the time to give birth to an awareness of all the love and care you have in your body for everything that is, was, and shall be.

This is not a matter of believing or not believing. That’s the wrong way to look at it. This is about knowing from direct experience. It’s when a feeling of awareness dawns in you. It’s when you stop interpreting what you see, hear, smell and feel. That’s when you realize that you and the world around you are one and the same. Like a cell in a body you are. But wait, before you make a decision as to whether or not this is nonsense, try it yourself—then you’ll know. The trick is to try and not try without effort.

 

Enjoyment is Emergent

Welcome to another reminder of what’s important: Enjoyment. Which isn’t to say that this about an enjoyment of a superficial sort. Far from it. Something deeper and significant is available to you. The enjoyment espoused here ripples outward. It’s an immersion.

Enjoyment focused on self-interests, cravings, successes and outlooks is like a chunk of fools gold. Egotistical pseudo-enjoyment is pyrite enjoyment.

So put on your old philosophical shoes (the ones that disappear in wearing), lighten up and sing Broncho’s, “Chill down, I’m doing great. Doing well is pretty vague” (Class Historian).

Let the sun shine. Walk a thin line. There’s gotta be rain some time. The perfect situation is rarely realized when you have expectations.

A philosophy of enjoyment is about getting out of your way to enjoy rare moments when there are no threats or demands on you, when your body is comfortable, when cravings are still and passions go quiet.

In such moments of contentment you merge with natural things like trees, geese… a lake. Imagine being deep down looking up at the surface. The waves may be rough, but it doesn’t matter to you in the serenity of the bottom.

From this depth of mind you look upward and simply enjoy observing emotions, happenings and memories rocking above.

We normally see our world as objects and individualized things – this person, that person; this table; that tree; that squirrel climbing. These individual beings have their own characteristics of size, shape and colour; they may be hot or cold, quiet or noisy, still or in motion and so on but… what if…

What if there is only one substance and it’s infinite? Think about it metaphorically. Imagine that everything is of one substance like an ocean without boundaries and individual beings or “things” are like waves. Each wave has its shape for a time, but the wave is not separate from the ocean. A wave can’t exist independently of the ocean.

There are two ways to look at life in the world. You can see life in egotistical terms from the limited point of view of self-motivations (as in: “Me! Me! Me! Give me! I want! I need!) or you can see the big picture and look at things globally and eternally.

Our senses pull us towards a time-bound partial view but reason and intelligence in harmony with sensual awareness can actually give you access to another perspective. It can allow you to participate in an eternal totality (Spinoza).

We call “bad” what is bad for us and “good” what increases our advantage but to be ethical you rise above local concerns to become aware of relationships. Likewise, lasting happiness lies in aligning your will with everything around you.

Pure enjoyment is rooted to a life based in freedom from guilt, from sorrow, from pity and shame.

The wise person understands how and why things are. Everything has its complexities. It’s your job to try and understand. Wisdom lies not in protesting how things are but in attempting to understand the ways of the world and then, to bow peacefully to necessity.

The wise person sees not just from local eyeballs but from a non-locality imagined in the big picture like a curious satellite or hovering thought. Uncritical satisfaction with eternity is the spirit of enjoyment.

Anger is controlled by taking the time to consider that life isn’t supposed to be as we expect it to be (Seneca). Dogs on a leash strangle themselves fighting against constraints but we have reason. We can feel happier knowing how to act freely within the length of our leashes ascribed by the universe.

Enjoyment. What is it? “A feeling of pleasure caused by doing or experiencing something you like” (Merriam-Webster). Easy. It’s a good feeling. Simple.  Go with it. It’s a, “I know it when I feel it!” kind of thing.

It’s a bit like gardening. You prepare the soil. Plant the seed. Water and sun. Let nature take its course. Hope for the best. You create the circumstances, have faith, and get out of the way.

The list of things to enjoy is endless. You can enjoy a hot beverage, a vacation, the beach, friends, playing Parcheesi after a shot of heroin while wearing yellow but profound enjoyment doesn’t happen according to individual parts. It emerges like a flock of birds.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Enjoyment depends on the relationships of the parts – one to another – but it can’t be predicted by examining the parts. It’s about relationships.

Having good relationships is a strong predictor of happiness (The Cultural Animal: Human Nature, Meaning and Life). Being alone is good, but being together now and again is better.

You are an emergent enjoyment as in Manfred Mann’s Earth Band song, “You are – you are -you are (fading). The eye glass of the nearly, nearly blind. You are the foot print in the sand of Easter Island. You are – you are – you are (fading). The fusion in the furnace of the sun” (You Are – I Am).

Have faith. Enjoyment is there. It’s just a matter of being aware.

Be ready.

 

Internal Multitudes and Enjoyment Decisions

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818)

Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) is called a romantic. He painted pictures of people looking out at sunsets, moonlit landscapes, cemeteries, morning mists, barren forests and ruins.

A Walk at Dusk – completed shortly before a stroke in 1835 (Getty Museum).

It’s easy to imagine entering a Friedrich’s painting to enjoy a melancholy meander at dusk in misty autumn stillness, to contemplate life and death, to feel the music of this mad world and wonder: Can I be wise?

The trouble with wisdom according to Slovenian Slavoj Žižek, is that it’s conformist. Wisdom can be used to rationalize participation in enjoyments better avoided or to avoid enjoyments sadly missed.

“Whatever you do, a wise man will come along to justify it,” says Žižek (I’m generally opposed to wisdom).

You could say, “What the hell!” and quote the wisdom of Horace (Roman poet) made famous by a Dead Poets Society: “Carpe diem. Seize the day! Enjoy the day, pluck the day when it is ripe” (Phrase-finder)…

… or you could play it safe with wisdom of camel retention, “Tie your camel first then put your trust in Allah” (Daily Hadith Online)…

…or you could quote wisdom encouraging you not to worry about anything, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them” (Mathew 6:25-34).

Walt Whitman in 1891. He died in 1892.

It was Walt Whitman who said, “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes)” (Song of Myself). He probably didn’t realize how right he was.

There are multitudes of opposing views within each of us. It’s how we think.

David Eagleman writes, “Brains are like representative democracies. They are built of multiple, over-lapping experts who weigh in and compete over different choices…There is an on going conversation among the different factions of your brain, each competing to control the single output channel of your behavior” (Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, p. 107).

At its most basic, our brains are in a two-party system. One side renders decisions based on emotion (like a romantic) and the other bases decisions on reason (like a mathematician).

A person’s brain is like a bag of jelly-beans. Each jelly-bean has a flavour of thought. When you’re offered something to enjoy, factions will argue in front of a brain “boss” who listens and renders a decision about what to do.

Let’s say you’re life is going well. You enjoy yourself (for the most part), but someone comes along who has everything you want. You compare yourself and find yourself lacking. A faction of jelly-beans gets envious – Team Envy – and another faction feels ashamed for feeling envy.

When factions within your brain present conflicting arguments, what’s your brain-boss going to do?

Nietzsche (1844-1900)

You could turn to philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche who encouraged people to embrace envy. Nietzsche’s perspective is explained thus, “a great-souled person – an Übermensch – rises above their circumstances and difficulties to embrace whatever life throws at them… He recommends that we own up to envy, use it to inspire us to action, put up a heroic fight and if we fail, to mourn with solemn dignity” (Philosophy, Nietzsche).

You could turn to psychologist Mary Lamia who writes, “You may idealize another person when you are envious…When you experience envy… you have an opportunity to learn about yourself…” (Jealousy and Envy). “Negative interpersonal experiences that leave you feeling… jealousy, envy, anger, or rage can alert you to the possibility of shame contagion…Don’t be afraid to accept responsibility… Only then can you forgive yourself” (Psychology Today –Shame).

You could turn to a story about what happens when three great spiritual leaders taste vinegar:

1,000 year Old Man Rock Near Quanzhou, Fujian Province , China.

“Confucius found it sour, much as he found the world, full of degenerate people and Buddha found it bitter, much as he found the world to be full of suffering, but Lau Tzu found the world sweet. He saw an underlying harmony” (Eastern Philosophy).

Lau Tzu said that we need to find effortless action, a sort of purposeful acceptance of the world and to make time for stillness (Lessons and Thoughts) which brings us back to Friedrich’s paintings.

Woman before the Setting Sun (1818)

Maybe all we need to do to feel absolute free enjoyment is to do what people in a Friedrich’s painting do. Go for a misty stroll alone or with another. Gaze at the moon. Sit in sunshine. Visit a cemetery. Let the jelly-beans within stop their debating for awhile. Sing a song at sunset to yourself. Uncomplicate your life and be in the world.

As Bert Dreyfus puts it, “in fully absorbed coping, mind and world cannot be separated…” or as Sartre said, “When I run after a streetcar, when I look at the time, when I am absorbed in contemplating a portrait, there is no I. . . . I am then plunged into the world of objects… but me, I have disappeared” (Mind-reason and being-in-the-world).

So too can you enjoy this merging with the world and be wise.

Ideals, Repose and the Prefrontal Cortex

An ideal is a standard of perfection. It lives in the imagination. It’s a conception of something excellent, an ultimate object, an aim or an ultimate “good” that we imagine. An ideal can be anything. It doesn’t have to be universal or other-worldly.

You can have your ideal summer, your ideal sandwich, your ideal bird. You can imagine your ideal wife or ideal husband. A parent can imagine their ideal child and a farmer their ideal cow. It’s a dream image of perfection. We invent ideals to serve our deepest needs and happiness. Our ideal life will be this way or that – ideal house, ideal lover, ideal friend, ideal environment – and then, we measure the success of our expectations against those ideals.

George Santayana (1862-1952)

The “surprise” is that most things don’t meet our expectations which makes things appear ugly. The philosopher George Santayana said that there are two modes of consciousness: there’s day-to-day life as a Homo sapiens (Latin for wise man or knowing man), and there’s escape. Escape comes as freedom from anxieties, cares and problems.

Escape is about seeing the whole forest that couldn’t be seen because you were too close, and focusing on trees. It’s when you realize the world is ideal as it is and you can enjoy whatever comes along. Ideal enjoyment goes with the Lucretian goal of “happiness.”

Lucretius, who probably died in 55 BC at age 44, wrote, “Pleasant it is, when over a great sea the winds trouble the waters, to gaze from shore upon another’s tribulation: not because any man’s troubles are a delectable joy, but because to perceive from what ills you are free yourself is pleasant” (Book II, Line I).

Lucretius loved Epicurus.

“What is good is easy to get, and What is terrible is easy to endure” (Epicurus).

Epicurus (341-270 BC) was a gentle man who said, “The wealth required by nature is limited and is easy to procure; but the wealth required by vain ideals extends to infinity” (Vatican Sayings 8). 

Strife and violence in ancient Rome partly explains Lucretius’ commitment to the Epicurean ideal of “intellectual pleasure and tranquillity of mind” (Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

Heraclitus (540-470 BC).

Aside from there being more of us and new technologies, Homo sapiens haven’t changed since ancient Rome. We’re still stupid. We lack higher levels of understanding. We can’t help it. It’s our brains. It isn’t easy being human. You can be absolutely certain about something and be absolutely wrong. You can plan ahead, but things change: you get sick, lose a job, fail, get old, disasters strike. Heraclitus said a mouthful when he said with his mouth full, “All is flux. Nothing is stationary.”

We’re overly optimistic, mechanistic and absorbed in “stuff.” We fool ourselves with gregarious pleasures we don’t really enjoy. To feel profound enjoyment, takes brain training.

In “The Vulcanization of the Human Brain” scientist J. Cohen (2005) describes the conflict between emotional and cognitive parts of the brain. We have an “old” brain (about the size of a fist) that makes quick, inflexible decisions driven by emotion, desire and physical needs, and we have a “new” brain (the prefrontal cortex and cortical layer).

This “new” part can override anger, pride and impatience, but it takes reasoned practice. You can train this “new” part through contemplation, cogitation, deliberation, meditation and rumination. You can override emotional vexations and frustrations by stepping back, reframing, reassessing and reposing.

Wisdom personified.

“Happy are those who find wisdom, and those who get understanding, for her income is better than silver, and her revenue better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her; those who hold her fast are called happy” (Proverbs of Solomon).

To feel this kind of happiness is to live the repose of a heath as described by Thomas Hardy in The Return of the Native (1874).

In the novel Hardy wrote, “To do things musingly, and by small degrees… not the repose of actual stagnation, but the… repose of incredible slowness. A condition of healthy life…” (p. 10).

Take lucky moments of awareness and mix them with moments of simple pleasures. Moments of pleasure are illustrated in the movie Chocolat (2000).

We would do well to take the kind advice of the young priest in the movie who said, “We can’t go around measuring our goodness by what we don’t do, by what we deny ourselves, by what we resist and who we exclude. I think we’ve got to measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create, and who we include.”

The narrator is the little girl in the film who is now grown up looking back on her life. In her closing narrations she says, “The parishioners felt a new sensation that day: a lightening of the spirit; a freedom from the old tranquillity.”

This “new sensation” of lightening of spirit and freedom is to enjoy an escape from anxiety, fear and worry. In this, ideal enjoyment can be realized any time you so choose. One need only contemplate, slow down, reason and enjoy.

Wisdom Enjoyment

Enjoyment is a kind of longing. We long to enjoy but life gets in the way; yet life – at least, the bits we like – is the enjoyment we crave. We want to feel the freedom of enjoyment, but there’s stuff to do and not enough time. We feel the need to win the lottery but that’s a fool’s game or as Seneca (Stoic philosopher, 54 BC – 39 AD) put it, “A fortune is great slavery.” He also said, “A happy life is one which is in accordance with its own nature,” but… anyway…

Our longing grows until enjoyment becomes a fantasy unrealisable. We see the rich seemingly enjoying themselves and want to be one of them. We forget how real enjoyment – like the kind we felt as kids – feels. A kid doesn’t need millions of dollars. She enjoy listening to seashells. She doesn’t know the waves she hears is ambient noise coupled with imagination.

Enjoyment is like that. It’s in ourselves. We get confused and try to fill the enjoyment void with things unwise.

We think, “If only I had some time to just sit, outside, comfortably, with a cup of coffee and a book,” or, “if only I wasn’t so bored,” or, “if only I could go for a walk and feel peaceful and not bugged by the things I have to do.”

It’s like that song chugging along with the words, “Don’t know why I have to work. Don’t know why I can’t play. Turn me off. Turn me out. But don’t turn me away. Save Me a Place” (Lindsey Buckingham, Fleetwood Mac, 1979).

How does a person who longs for enjoyment (and love, peace, contentment, kindness, humour, ecstasy and all the other happy emotions wrapped into one) ever experience enjoyment when the world seems bent towards making us feel the opposite?

The daily grind of work, boredom and problems makes enjoyment incidental or non-existent. If you long for enjoyment, how can you get it when there’s all this other @#$%… stuff to deal with?

One word: Discipline.

It isn’t the world that’s a problem. It’s you. It takes a few deep breaths and a disciplined surrender to what is. Stop resisting and enjoy yourself without expectation. Good or bad – it’s all good.

Things are rarely the way you want them to be. Enjoyment takes will-power and courage. It takes initiative and imagination. As Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. One man thinks himself the master of others, but remains more of a slave than they are” (The Social Contract, 1762).

Rousseau in 1753. He freely expressed emotions, enjoyed solitary walks and longed to understand himself.

Say out loud to yourself, “Let go,” and then, “Enjoy!” Let “Relax!” be your battle cry! Who cares if people think you’re crazy?

Enjoyment is in your eyes. Fling open your senses. If you can do that, you are a philosopher of enjoyment. You are an intellectual yokel. You can gape freely at this weird and wonderful world as sensible people take it all for granted.

Here we are, living on a ball of rock spinning around an immense sphere of fire as organisms go through creature rearrangement, mutual slaughter and flourish by chewing each other up.

Nothing strange about that.

We struggle to find our way. Think about wisdom. It nudges you closer to it. Consider your life: your decisions. your values, your shortcomings. Wisdom understands the context of who you are, where you are and what is prudent to do. Enjoyment enjoys. It’s a matter of wise choices. Think big picture and notice little things.

Wise choices combine facts about reality and human nature with awareness of culture, history and the context of your life span. Wisdom understands values and priorities. It projects insight, good judgement and emotional regulation.

A philosopher of enjoyment memorizes wise sayings like: “Ageing can be fun if you lay back and enjoy it” (Clint Eastwood); “neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy” (Voltaire); “one should eat to live, not live to eat” (Cicero); “Don’t sweat the petty things, and don’t pet the sweaty things” (Small). Ultimately, wisdom is to enjoyment what red is to a tomato.

Put a light bulb in your pocket. Pull it out. Hold it over your head and say, “I have an idea!”

Enjoy yourself. What have you got to lose?