Danny ChaiThis is old, but if you’re familiar with Rome, this impression Caliendo does of him is hilarious. Especially his 4-syllable thing. It’s so true.
I’m not saying people hold weird schedules at my new place of employment. But someone sent a working from home email at 3:30 in the afternoon. That’s hardcore.
As I mentioned before, I’ve been finishing up this book, Philosophical Classics, that I picked up while in SoCal. It’s on the Barnes and Noble imprint, but it’s actually a great book, basically a summary of various great philosophical works. Henry would like it because it uses employs British spelling.
One interesting thing about it for me is the perspective it gives on certain philosophical schools, because I may (or may not) have learned some of these ideas, but I have no idea how they’re currently viewed. Like here’s what it says about Sartre and Existentialism:
Existentialism was highly regarded in the post-war period, especially among radicals and students, and at this time Sartre was a revered figure. It is probably fair to say that Sartre is now seen as somewhat portentous, and is taken less seriously than he was fifty years ago, and existentialism in general is seen as something that was more fashionable than meaningful.
Ouch. Or on Ayn Rand and objectivism:
… there may be a degree to which objectivism falls into the same pigeonhole as existentialism. Both are philosophies that have a surface appeal, particularly to young people at a certain phase who are excited by a bold, passionately stated total theory of the world. But both have obvious logical flaws that on further reflection make them seem a little embarrassing.
I love how dismissive that is. Kills me.
I really do love philosophy. I’ve said this before, but when I think, I feel alive. And when I’m not thinking, in a sense I’m dead. I remember the first time I took a real philosophy class (Phil 80, the single best class I took in college; Phil 5 (CIV) doesn’t count; it was too watered down and politically correct) I was stunned – I realized that there are many other people who have thought deeply about weird stuff like me. Like, when I was in high school, I’d think about how there’s no way to know whether how we experience colors is the same as another person’s experience of colors. If we were to swap minds, maybe how they see the world would to us look like negatives of a photo, or something completely different. “Darkness” might be a completely different experience for them, if that makes any sense.
So I was stunned to read Thomas Nagel’s essay What It’s Like To Be A Bat, or something like that, which essentially ponders the same thing in more detail and skill. I was simultaneously elated and depressed. Elated that I wasn’t alone in thinking my weirdo thoughts, that there are other people, many of them, who think the same weird things I do. But it was also depressing, because I realized I’m not as special as I thought I was. I think that tension happens a lot. All of us want to fit in and not feel like we’re weirdos, but we also all want to be special. It’s an odd dynamic.
On the whole, though, I felt happy that people thought like me. And when I read philosophy, I feel oddly comforted, as if I’m among friends, albeit friends who are far more intelligent and eloquent than me.
And that’s all. I have no point. Just that I like reading philosophy.