My Philosophy

Changed the skin to get a brighter look. Kinda getting dull with the black isn't it?

While reading through my Philosophy textbook today, I happen to chance on an article..
It is about the purpose of education.
It questions the purpose of education.

"So, whether we are teachers or students, is it not important to ask ourselves why we are educating or being educated? And what does life mean? Is not life an extraordinary thing? The birds, the flowers, the flourishing trees, the heavens, the stars, the rivers, and the fish therein - all this is life.

Life is the ppor and the rich... All this and much more is life.

BUT, we generally prepare ourselves to undertsand only one small corner of it. We pass certain examinations, find a job, get married, have children, and then become more and more like machines. We remain fearful, anxious, frightened of life.

So, is it the function of education to help us understand the whole process of life, or is it merely to prepares us for a vocation, for the best job we can get?"

At the end of the article:
" When you are doing something with your whole being, not beause you want to get somewhere, or have more profit, or greater results, but simply because you love to do it - in that there is no ambition, is there? In that there is no competition; you are not struggling with anyone for first place. And should not eduation help you find out what you really love to do so that from the beginning to the end of your life you are working at shomething you feel is worth while and which for you has deep significance?

Otherwise, for the rest of your days, you will be misrable. Not knowing what you really want to do, your mind falls into a routine in which there is only boredom, decay and death. That is why it is importatnt to find out while you are young what it is you really love to do; and this is the only way to create a new society..."

Struck me again on the cruelty of society.
How we are being made to conform to this mad mad world.
How sane people are being turned insane..because that's how the world operates. Insanity rules in the end.

In a separate article, wrote by Voltaire, an 18th century French philosopher, he told us a story of a brahman (a very wise man), who was frowning and not happy because as he found out that the more he knows, the more he doesn't understand, and this torture him so.

And Voltaire then saw an old woman beside the Brahman house, and he asked of the old woman whether she had any such problem. The old woman by nature does not understand most of the questions Voltaire ask, of her worries for her soul, of how she came into this world and such.
She replied she was happy enough to know that there is a god looking after her.

Voltaire was struck by the reply, and she told the braman:
"Aren't you ahsmaed to be unhappy at a time when right at your door there is an old automaton who thinks of nothing and who lives happily?"

To which the brahman replied:
"You are right. I have told myself a hundred times that I would be happy if I was as stupid as my neighbour and yet I would want no part of such a happiness."

What's the issue here?
Being happy? What matters being witty or being stupid?
As they say, ignorance is bliss, isn't it?

Pretty hard question huh?
Would you choose to be happy and ignorant?
Or be witty and unhappy?
Happy and witty is of course the best combination ain't it?
But of course, as perfection always is the case, it is hard to achieve isn't it?
Time is slipping slowly through my fingers, and here I am writing this.

I should be getting back to my studies.
2 papers tomorrow and I have yet to fully revise.
If I can truly convince myself that the purpose of education is not to ace that papers, maybe I would take a break.
hmmmm..no, I should convince my mum and dad first.
Convince them that the thousand bucks they are pouring in aren't for me to ace the papers.

What would they say?
I wonder..


There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson