What's Your Philosophy?

How do you order your life? Do you just drift through? Do you have a set of rules that you live by that are dictated by your faith? Do you see yourself as part of something greater? Or do you see yourself as a mere mote floating through the infinite space of the universe? Is it all some cosmic game, or is it preordained and proscribed from on high?

Do you believe in fate? Are some things meant to be? Why? Are you a marionette with strings pulled from somewhere out of the frame?

Is it just about you? Did Atlas shrug?

What do you think?

Some radical unschoolers frame their relationships with their kids in the light of death. Do you really want to argue about penmanship when your child could be dead tomorrow? Or you? Does that make the time we spend together meaningful? Life is just a blip--phst--it's gone.

I know a man who lost his dad this last Tuesday. His dad died as he wanted, at home, and after having last visits with his family. This same grieving man came home, after visiting with his father, and on Thursday was laid off after having been assured for months by his boss that he was safe. When he finishes up his work in the middle of June, he will have been with the company for ten years.

Was that fate?

Do you believe, as I do, that the universe and all that is in it is beautiful and amazing and it's perfectly OK to not know why or how it all came to be? But what about the stuff that's not beautiful?

Do you feel in any way obligated as a passenger on Earth to try and make it better somehow? Do you feel, as you walk around all day, connected to everybody and everything, or do you have to get the laundry done?

Here's a Zen proverb:

Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.

That's about right, isn't it? You have to keep on keeping on, because that is a function of being alive.

What's your philosophy?

Let's hear Miss Sally Brown as she sings about her new philosophy, and then maybe you can tell me about yours.