Experiential Knowledge

Peru For 40

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Today I began to plan, along with my best friend, our trip to Peru for our 40th birthday.  We have been talking about doing this trip for twenty years & we are determined to make it a reality.

So I’m looking for a little help.  Anyone who has been to Peru & seen the sites: do you have any suggestions for lodging, itineraries, etc…?  If you do, please let me know in the comment form below.  Or if you simply want to share your travel stories.

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There Are No Educators

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As a thinker, one should only think of self-education.  The education of youth by others is either an experiment, conducted on one yet unknown and unknowable, or a leveling on principle, to make the new character, whatever it may be, conform to the habits and cutoms that prevail: in both cases, therefore, something unworthy of the thinker – the work of parents and teachers, whom an audaciously honest person has called nos ennemis naturels.

One day, when in the opinion of the world one has long been educated, one discovers onself: that is where the task of the thinker begins; now the time has come to invoke his aid – not as an educator but as one who has educated himself and thus has experience.

Friedrich Nietzsche
from The Wanderer And His Shadow

Simple Pleasures

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Simple pleasures in life make the big difference.  Take, for example, my first bike ride with my son last night around our little town.  It was good exercise, we enjoyed the ride & the weather was perfect.  We saw a few of our neighbours along the way.  We spotted some amazing wild animals (including a bald eagle pearched atop a birch tree overlooking the small waterfall located down the road from our house).  And it is a memory we can cherish forever.

So take the time to slow down, do something you like to do with a friend or a loved one.  Enjoy the moments – the simplicity of life at a particular time.  And cherish the memories it creates.

Tell me about some of your own simple pleasures in life.  Leave me a comment below & let me know how you enjoy those simpler times & the memories you’ve created.  Until next time…

Where Poppies Blow…

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Yesterday was Rememberance Day here in Canada.  At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month we pause for two minutes of silence to remember all those who have sacrificed themselves in times of war so that we may enjoy our freedom.  From the Boar War at the turn of the 20th Century to the current conflict against ISIS in Syria & Iraq, our Armed forces have fought to uphold the principals of our country & to keep our way of life safe from tyranny & terror.

It is also the 100th anniversary of the writting & publishing of John McCræ’s famous poem In Flanders Fields:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Three incredible stanzas that powerfully capture the terror, honour & bravery of soldiers at war.  The poem is recited by school children every Rememberance Day & is even used as inspiration by sports teams (most notably by the Montreal Canadians). However, I have always felt that the last three lines are the most important – especially in the context of Rememberance Day & remembering the sacrifices made by soldiers of the past & soldiers of the present.  “If ye break faith with us who die//We shall not sleep, though poppies grow//In Flanders fields.”  If we forget the sacrifices, bravery & the horrors of war – as well as what our brave men & women fought for our freedom is hallow.  Though we wear poppies above our hearts every November, we must understand their symbolism & their significance.  We cannot break faith, we cannot take freedom for granted.  Lest we forget…

The Ship Of State

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“Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. The sailors are quarrelling with one another about the steering –every one is of opinion that he has a right to steer, though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces any one who says the contrary. They throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm to them; and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard, and having first chained up the noble captain’s senses with drink or some narcotic drug, they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores; thus, eating and drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such a manner as might be expected of them. Him who is their partisan and cleverly aids them in their plot for getting the ship out of the captain’s hands into their own whether by force or persuasion, they compliment with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man, whom they call a good-for-nothing; but that the true pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends to be really qualified for the command of a ship, and that he must and will be the steerer, whether other people like or not-the possibility of this union of authority with the steerer’s art has never seriously entered into their thoughts or been made part of their calling. Now in vessels which are in a state of mutiny and by sailors who are mutineers, how will the true pilot be regarded? Will he not be called by them a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing?”

          from The Republic
Plato

Even in ancient times, it seems, the wise understood that the masses could not appreciate the value of Philosophy.  Yet in these times of Democracy as Manifest Destiny, is it not more important then ever that the Philosophical Voice be heard, heeded & understood?

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Sanity

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Insanity’s Crescendo
by: raimundogiffuni

“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.”

from: Beyond Good And Evil
Friedrich Nietzsche

Sometimes I look out into the world, observing all there is to see & experience.  I often wonder, does sanity even truly exist?  Or is it simply an illusion manifesting out of a psychologist’s hopes?