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"We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever i
by arpa 5y ago
"We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you're dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played."
Allan Watts
- avgcorrection 5y agoThat might be true in the abstract, as a theory. But when it comes to point-of-life I think it’s better to judge a philosophy based on how a person has lived it. And it doesn’t seem like Watts lived as good of a life as he could.
- arpa 5y agoWhile I agree that Alan hasn't really lived his life righteously, that's an ad hominem. But anyway, if you meet buddha on the road kill him, and beware people claiming they have all the answers. There isn't a single truth, as this whole discussion shows, only a variety of perspectives, and I am fond of this one, even if it is a fiction.
- avgcorrection 5y agoOf course it’s an ad hominem—I just said that I think it’s better to judge someone’s philosophy based on how a person embodies it. The ad hominem is very much pertitent to the question at hand! Philosophy is for living, not for sterililized, abstract what-ifs and hypotheticals that can only be critiqued as platonic ideals, lest you be accused of committing a “fallacy” for maintaining that a philosophy should be practiced and not just talked about.
- sershe 5y agoThinking about living a "good life" implies knowing the point of living a life :)
- colinprince 5y agoI enjoyed this animation narrated by same: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VALLiF18tvM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VALLiF18tvM