Thinking Too Much, Probably

I’m not in the habit of explaining and endorsing somebody’s viewpoints, but I’ll throw this out there and see if it sticks. To be honest, I’m naturally cynical (surprise!) about people who act like they have all the answers, such as self-help writers and motivational speakers. Maybe that works for some of you, but I think anybody who asks me for, say, a donation or something like that is motivated by more than just making me ‘feel’ better. And isn’t taking charge of my life the first step in making me feel better? If so, for me taking charge means not listening to somebody’s tapes or reading somebody’s books on how I should approach life, because I already took charge of all that.

To begin with, I have a weakness for PBS documentaries and educational shows. Not the crowd-pleasers, necessarily, such as what you always see on Nature (‘Lions of the Serengeti at Dinnertime’ or at the other extreme ‘Science Isolates the Canine Gene That Makes Puppies So Damned Cute’), but the stuff you see in the middle of the night before all the pre-school alphabet-shoving programs begin. So lately I’ve been setting my DVR for the tried-and-true, such as The Western Tradition and now, the questionably-titled Philosophy, A Guide to Happiness, a series from a few years back. ‘Philosophy’ is based on a book by British writer Alain de Botton, 'The Consolations of Philosophy'. It’s a half hour series that only runs three total, and that half hour chunk is about all my brain can handle at one time. Anyway, Mr. de Botton identifies and explains particular viewpoints on emotions ranging from anger to happiness and much in-between, all in an easy-going, soothing British accent that makes everything seem painfully obvious (I’m not sure if it’s on most local PBS stations, but you can always check, like I said, it’s been on a while).

So for example, during one of his programs he examined Nietzsche’s philosophy that ‘only through pain, suffering, and hard work do you achieve happiness’. I completed a 10-mile tempo run on a goddamn treadmill this morning, does that count? By the way, that’s a picture of Friederich, a.k.a. Laughing Boy, above.

And there was one question from Schopenhauer: Why is everyone so angry about things they can’t control? What if we approached life more pessimistically, and by assuming that the worst would happen every day, wouldn’t we be better prepared to deal with life’s setbacks since there would be no nasty surprises?

Well, I can’t say that my outlook on optimism or pessimism has been changed by a TV show (or a book I haven’t read yet), but at the same time I’ll take what I can get from dead Western Philosophers. At least they’re not trying to sell me something. In the meantime, you might want to check out the show, or Alain de Botton’s website, or anything of his other written works, maybe they’re at the local library. Anything that gets the brain cells going in the direction of self-awareness may not be such a bad thing. In the meantime, I will someday soon approach a 20-mile training run armed with a Nietzschean outlook. At least that sounds better than being armed with nasty-tasting vanilla-‘flavored’ gu.


Check Out:

Alain de Botton; Video – Nietzsche on Hardship

’The Consolations of Philosophy’ at Amazon