The combination of working outside–laying electrical conduit underground, revamping the irrigation system for another year, and having gotten most of the things (especially trees and shrubs) that I wanted planted in the ground–with reading about literature (of different kinds or from different perspectives) has, perhaps coinciding with my upcoming birthday, made me once again more thoughtful than usual. Having time off from school during spring break no doubt contributed to my having the time to be thoughtful…
As I turned off NPR this afternoon, not wanting to listen to another program on guns, I thought to myself that I would learn nothing from the program and it wouldn’t change my opinion on the matter. I then realized that a perhaps over-zealous application of that principle is why older people come across as (or perhaps are) closed-minded. Clearly, I will need to watch that. But at 58, I have made up my mind what I think about so-called “gun control,” and absent new data on the subject, simply listening to others repeat their opinions in the absence of data is not going to convince me of anything on the subject.
A friend of mine said awhile back that he had no use for philosophy, implying that he valued “doing something” over thinking about things and doing nothing–or perhaps that’s just my inference from what he actually said. In any event, I find myself both more philosophical and more poetic now than I have been for quite awhile. IT’s probably the urge to put life in some sort of context, and since I think there is more to life than the strictly rational, that might explain the desire for both philosophy and poetry. Although, the implication that philosophy is rational is not, based on the reading I’ve done, one that holds up very frequently.