Art of Wondering

6 Pages 1563 Words

Philosophy Of course, we will start there! The word itself comes from two Greek words, philos and sophia. Meaning, love of wisdom. That’s good for starters, but it’s not enough. What is enough? It is enough to wonder. Every time that you wonder, you are doing philosophy, not necessarily as a discipline, but as a vehicle to enrich your life. Stop wondering, and you might as well say you have stopped breathing. As I trust you know, breathing comes naturally. So does wonder. To breath and to wonder have a lot in common. Little fear. Much hope. Much anticipation. It is when you are not breathing easily, when you are choking, that fear, despair, and gloom set in. To breathe and to wonder are one with life. If you can enjoy both, you are truly alive.
Philosophy can be seen as a quest for truth. For some, it is the search for God. For others, philosophy helps them achieve clarity of thinking. Still others find a certain peace of mind through philosophy because they see the world in perspective, allowing them to achieve distance from immediate concerns. There are those to whom philosophy is a super science, a synoptic synthesis of all humanity’s cognitive endeavors. Others will link the spirit of philosophy to the divine, seeing the unfolding of a mystical coalescence with nature and God. Some will identify the divine within the human. There are those who see nothing but absurdity in both the human and the divine. Guess what? Philosophy explodes with possibilities! At one time or another in our lives we do philosophy with any one or a combination of the above reasons and even more reasons than we can mention. Whether we are wondering all alone in the solitude of our private lives or in the companionship of fellow travelers in life, perhaps the bottom line would read philosophy is as philosophy does. To wonder as we wander cannot help but enrich our lives. We may not even think of it as philosophy.

Whitehead on Philosophy Notice somet...