Reddit Spree - A question from Kenneth Burke.

SO, you want to be a writer? What original idea to you have to offer the world that anyone should give a shit about, and can you tell me in the next 60 seconds of my time? IF you can't answer that with the uncontrollable eagerness of a Saturn V rocket, then either you've got nothing useful to offer the rest of us, or you're so discombobulated philosophically that you might want to take a couple years to sort our your own system before setting pen to paper to instruct the rest of the world. Why? "Because stories are equipment for living" - (Kenneth Burke)

Yes. No ideas are original. Any half literate person knows that. May I add that despite being dead, you are an arrogant prick, and your picture on Wikipedia does little to bely it.

My unoriginal ideas are that life is meaningless. That a philosophy that isn't at least a little discombobulated is too brittle for everyday living. A philosophy must be pliable, because life doesn't follow a straight line. It is huge and confusing and almost entirely unpredictable, and if you hold too strongly to a single notion, you will break. And when you do it will probably be the best thing that ever happened to you.

If I was going to instruct the rest of the world (and they were going to listen), I would tell them to be cool. Which to me, means to let go. To realise that one day you are going to die. That one day the sun will explode and incinerate the Earth, and that ultimately nothing you've done will matter - so stop worrying about trivial bullshit and do whatever it is you want to do.

I think that in terms of philosophy, it's the little things that count. A huge, overarching philosophy of everything lacks context. Even one as seemingly sound as "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." There will always be a situation where that one rule does not apply.

The other day when I was meditating I noticed how much I analyse the past, and made up the catch phrase - "not why then - what now?" - telling myself to stop dwelling on past events and start thinking of creative possibilities in the moment. But the truth (as far as I see it) is that both sides have their uses in different contexts.

Philosophy is not so much a matter of finding what is right and what is wrong, but finding where along the right/wrong spectrum is appropriate for you right now. Often that is a matter of pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone in one direction or another until you are forced to come back, but with a greater knowledge of the context and what works for you.

I think that conflicting truths can coexist. I think that is the only way for them to exist at all.

I think that when you let go of everything, everything will come to you.