The temptation is to think about thinking (that is, to ‘philosophise’ about philosophising) instead of simply thinking. In a way, it feels like an attempt to ‘get ahead’ of philosophy, preemptively making the path rather than allowing it to show itself as one walks through it. One reads the works of the greats and works about the greats where their paths have already been clearly defined. As a reader, a philosopher seems to so (mostly) elegantly weave a singular thread through the most complex fabrics of existence, as if the spaces where the needle passed had been there from the start. Yet in sitting down to think, existence becomes impenetrable, a solid sheet that would not budge much less flow.
Then again, I have been finding art as my guide whenever I get lost in philosophy. Maybe it can be better described as a comfort blanket, for it does not really tell me where to go. Rather, it simply reiterates that we must keep going despite not knowing the way, for that is the only means for the way to show.
It does, however, feel quite silly to perceive something as ‘institutional’ as philosophy in this manner. Is it not that it is a method, a way of doing something (or ‘living’), a whole system that has been mapped out over and over again since time immemorial? How then can it be approached so haphazardly like one approaches a blank canvas with neither vision nor sight? Resignation is my only answer. I do not know, I do not know, I do not know. I do not know what this is nor what it means to take it upon me. I have neither reason nor awareness.
Yet somehow I am compelled with every bit of life I can fathom to do it anyway.
I would like to say that at the very least I tried to figure out how I can go about it, but to what extent that had been a process of pure curiosity and not this arduous attempt to jump over the wall of justification… I also do not know. Maybe at least I can say that I tried to find justification for it. I tried to justify it before I continued any further. And simply, that resulted only to this face to face with sheer existence: justification is impossible and that which is unjustified happens anyway. Existence precedes justification.
Earlier, I had a daydream about omniscience. I sat down and saw the door to all knowledge. It is much less of an insight or a divine vision as it might seem. It only felt like a rational conclusion to an attempt to develop a comprehensive method of thinking about everything and anything. I imagined walking through the door and peering over a window in which a scene played out. There, people were discussing something that I had been wanting to figure out. I listened, at first with great intent. I wanted to capture all the details. I wanted to remember. Most importantly, I wanted to know the conclusion.
When I did, all I wanted to do was to either forget or to never think about it again. It was not because the information was unpleasant. On the contrary, it was a beautiful scene with a lovely narrative that I had longed to understand. However, in a way that I still could not wrap my mind around it, I wished I was told the story instead. Or somehow had been in the scene as something other than a fly on the wall. That knowing itself felt pointless if it did not matter that the knowing happened.
I thought about this again as I contemplated on this love of wisdom. I felt I had disavowed this one thing that I thought I had as my eternal companion, my mind, my imagination. I imagined, it gave me everything, and all I wanted after was to be free from it. It seems that though it had confused me for a long time, I did not actually want knowledge; instead, I had always just wanted love. To love and be loved. To be shared a story instead of simply knowing.
Somehow: to philosophise.
It is difficult to defend the apparent passivity of mere thought in a perilous climate seeking for action. Maybe justification has always been the impulse of the lover—I longed to justify wisdom for wisdom’s sake. But to love, whether wisdom, life, or any, is to be true. And the truth is that there is no justification to love. Worse: that it will insist on being itself, even when it is of the greatest risk to do so. One has no choice but to freely let it be so.
It may not be worth the mention, but somehow it would be known anyway, that when it has been given that freedom, its mystery then becomes coherent without losing its very essence. The problems become the clearest insights. Thoughts have become action. Those that rejected love become blessed by it. The truth unveils itself as hope.
In the end, that is life: something beyond thought, beyond visions and ideals, beyond truth and values. Being for being’s sake. Love persists.
Philosophy for philosophy’s sake.