[lit-ideas] Re: Dr. Feelgood and the Interns
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 22 Aug 2004 21:15:34 -0500
A. Amago:
> As to whether philosophy would have helped, I read somewhere
> that Russell Bertrand was depressed to where he was contemplating ending
his
> life.
Reminds me of the lines from Ferlinghetti:
"I read the meaning of life somewhere
but I can't remember exactly where...."
> Then while walking on a beach he began to consider life, and it gave him
> enough purpose, shall we say, to keep going.
Wait, are you telling me the man never considered life until he got to the
beach? Wow. No wonder he wanted to kill himself. I'm sure it was all
those girls from Ipanema that gave him purpose. I know they keep me going.
What's the meaning of life? Yes, you guessed it, you dirty old man. But I
wonder why you would cite Bertrand Russell's suicidal thoughts as though
they were somehow aberrant. I don't think I've gone a day since puberty
that I didn't weigh the pros and cons of killing myself. No tomorrow,
surcease of sorrow. All right, maybe not sorrow, I've lived a pretty
pampered life compared to most people in the world. But death would bring
an end to bloody, demanding consciousness, as Paul Stone would call it. No
more what now? what now? what now? what now? Make it stop! Of course
there's always drinking as Paul pointed out. "Nietzsche can teach ya, but
liquor is quicker" as Ogden should have said. That and curiosity. I wonder
if tomorrow it'll be different.
Mike Geary
Memphis
> Many philosophers, from Socrates to Wittgenstein have at one time or
another
> considered suicide; but so have many ordinary people. Why is it relevant
that
> Russell was a philospher? If there's an argument here that philosophy will
> answer some question or other--or that there is even a question here to be
> answered--I've missed it. Philosophers don't treat every question as a
> philosophical question, for not every question is. (Here, I find myself in
> surprising agreement with Donal McEvoy.)
>
> '[Russell] began to consider life, and it gave him enough purpose...to
keep
> going.' Yes, and one could equally well think about one's family and
friends or
> how pleasant it was to walk on the beach, as opposed to being immobilized
in a
> frozen lake. As an example of how philosophy can settle questions about
the
> meaning and purpose of life, the case is, I think, underdescribed.
>
> Robert Paul
> Reed College
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