“The emerging science,” he insists, “is giving us a clear picture: Regular walking confers enduring and substantial benefits on individuals, and on society at large.” It improves our “moods, clarity of thought, our creativity,” as well as “our connectedness to our social, urban and natural worlds.”, And yet, when we lived in a world built around the length of the human stride, when architecture was oriented toward pedestrians, and when towns were designed to be walkable, people still found ways to be unhappy and unhealthy. It looks simple at first sight: finish something in two hours instead of three, gain an hour. We decide what we want to do, then invent an after-the-fact justification for it, which can be changed as necessary. The illusion of speed is the belief that it saves time. The song was written by Jason Kay and Toby Smith.The song's title is a play on words, using a makeshift homonym for "Philosophy" to imply that the singer is a fool for love, as it were. Many times, I’d walk into a sale with an Augustinian prayer in mind: “Lord, grant me restraint—but oooh, this book looks interesting…”. Why? "foolosophy." in extraordinary popular delusions, foolosophy, the madness of crowds, tribalism He saw himself master of his enterprise, and nothing now remained but its execution. Now, I know I’ve just described an utterly ordinary scene that all of us have experienced. Correct Report. I guess I mainly wish that “conversational” ideal, as I think of it, could flourish more widely than on a handful of obscure blogs. Many of the progressive media figures offering incoherent, contradictory apologetics for the rioting, as they bravely tweet their support for the destruction of black people’s jobs and neighborhoods from their gated communities in safe suburbs, are clearly displaying the pathetic self-loathing peculiar to the guilt-ridden privileged. Your style reminds me of Swift in its combination of ferocity and wit, and your metaphors manage to be vivid, accurate and original at the same time, a rare feat. an asinine plot. The other buzzword that I’m sick of seeing is “grift.” Again, it’s not enough to accuse someone of basic stupidity or dishonesty; we have to make them even more contemptible and accuse them of doing it all purely for money. Meaning of foolosophy. The noun philosophy means the study of proper behavior, and the search for wisdom. Nowadays, “look how base and mean I can be” just comes off like another lamentable example of oversharing. I’ve noticed this, too. It’s an abstract calculation, though, done as if each hour of the day were like an hour on the clock, absolutely equal. DeBoer believes the smart will do fine under any system, and don’t need to be incentivized — and their disproportionate gains in our increasingly knowledge-based economy can simply be redistributed to everyone else. 'Nip it in the butt' or 'Nip it in the bud'? Or will we pick right up where we left off until the next big war alters our assumptions and priorities again? No Comments. “Foolish.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/foolish. And yet, it’s also true that each one of those cases involved completely unique individuals in completely different circumstances. If you stop using your muscles, they’ll wither. Paradox seems to be a fundamental building block of reality. If early 20th Century Russia was insufficiently developed for communism, in other words, America today is ideal: “The communist revolution could take place in an economy more than capable of providing food, housing, education, and medical care for everyone … an economy, that is, like the twenty-first century one.” Let the super-smart create the wealth and then tax the hell out of them — to provide Medicare for all, universal pre-K, and a UBI or a guaranteed job. Berating yourself for lacking discipline in general is like berating your bicep for not growing even though you’re not using it. They should accept that inequality is natural, and construct a politics radical enough to counter it. How to use a word that (literally) drives some pe... Name that government! Somehow, Matthew Crawford has managed to sneak up on me with a new book that was already released earlier this month. 13th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1. By Damian The mind is purged of the toxins of current events. My back was aching, I was exhausted, and we were both ravenous. It should be especially interesting because of my conflicted feelings about driving. I prefer “incoherent,” but whatever. My stepson and I talk occasionally about discipline. Is there no such thing as natural selection in the hermetically-sealed intellectual environment? Complaints repeated in earnest only make you sound like a tedious grouch. in books, foolosophy But somewhere along the way, I discovered the joy to be had in reading and reflecting on great writers and interesting thinkers. A true foolosopher should be able to turn any material, from current events to pop culture, into grist for contemplation. Or something like that. Why should I be in a hurry to escape the world? Specifically, “questions of how and why we walk — what walking means.” (Apparently this hasn’t been settled by the previous umpteen books about the meaning of walking. By Damian The Feeling of Meaninglessness: A Challenge to Psychotherapy and Philosophy. In most cases, I agree that speculation about the “true” motives lurking deep within someone’s heart of hearts is a waste of time. (2) Meaning is rooted in faith and beliefs. The cynical thought occurred to me that perhaps “history” is a record of the silly trends that preoccupy us while we wait for the next massive war to come along and wipe the slate clean. But so it is, that there is a secret affinity, a hankering after evil in the human mind, and that it takes a perverse, but fortunate delight in mischief, since it is a never-failing source of satisfaction. Is it an obvious truth or a counter-intuitive one to tell people that in many ways, there is no “progress,” just the same basic challenges and weaknesses presenting themselves over and over again, a constant struggle against inevitable entropy? He occasionally gets discouraged with himself and complains about lacking discipline to be able to do this or that. It's free and takes five seconds. When you hurry, time is filled to bursting, like a badly-arranged drawer in which you have stuffed different things without any attempt at order. ), We know that walking is good for us, that “if undertaken in regular doses,” as Shane O’Mara writes in “In Praise of Walking: A New Scientific Exploration,” “it provides the small, cumulative and significant positive changes for lung, heart and especially brain health.”, …For O’Mara, the answers are practical. Born 3/26/1905 in Vienna, Austria. You strike me as being too versatile to confine yourself to a single vein. It feels manipulative in a way that straightforward dishonesty doesn’t. — Niall Gooch (@niall_gooch) May 31, 2020. While paying attention to news of the riots over the last few days, I’ve found myself most affected by the random incidents in which others weren’t so lucky. It’s always the case that life is precarious and good fortune is tissue-thin, of course. It annoys me that “intellectuals” are so goddamned predictable. I suppose it’s as good a guess as any as to how someone could manage to get out of dangerous situations unscathed. https://www.definitions.net/definition/foolosophy. I’m sure there are countless others who just didn’t happen to get captured in the background of some trust-fund anarchist’s Instagram selfie. As Adam Smith noted in The Wealth of Nations, “men are fond of paradoxes, and of appearing to understand what surpasses the comprehension of ordinary people.” But Adam Smith elucidated one of the most profound paradoxes of modernity, that self-interest pursued within a functioning market economy actually produces more beneficial results all around than a traditional insistence on a straight line between virtuous thoughts and virtuous actions. (5) Meaning is guided by conscience. Many writers and philosophers claim that walking is good for stimulating thought, but for me, driving while listening to music is even better. Congratulations on clearing that incredibly low bar, I guess? Nothing could be simpler or more obvious than the truth that “two wrongs don’t make a right,” but there is no limit to the intellectual contortions people will go through in attempting to argue otherwise. The middle-aged pizza shop owner in Rochester and her husband, pummeled by looters while trying to ward them off. Here we have Sullivan thoughtfully stroking his chin and furrowing his brow as he insults his readers’ intelligence by pretending that this sort of academic gibberish is worth taking seriously and praising. Viktor E. Frankl - "The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is...". The prose is immaculate. September 25, 2020 My knee will feel better tomorrow. But undiluted cynicism seems like a moral base constructed on quicksand. By Damian Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. So! William Hazlitt wrote, in “On the Pleasure of Hating“: Nature seems (the more we look into it) made up of antipathies: without something to hate, we should lose the very spring of thought and action. And yet, many people who can grasp these obvious truths seem to have difficulty grasping that “the ends justify the means” is an amoral blade which maims the hands of anyone foolish enough to seize it. Perhaps I perceive what is not there on their faces from a sense of guilt that I am so physically lazy, thereby shortening my lifespan. Posts like yours would be better if you read the posts you critique more carefully…I’ve yet to see anyone else misread or mischaracterize my post in the manner you have. We had driven hundreds of miles in a couple days, with hundreds more to go. on the path to systematic vocabulary improvement. Is it force of contrast? It’s not a “thing” you “get” in order to be able to act; it is the act. The noun philosophy means the study of proper behavior, and the search for wisdom. 'All Intensive Purposes' or 'All Intents and Purposes'? But I can only ask your forbearance for further adding a maudlin touch to it. A mental landscape populated solely by coniferous stalwarts has its charms and consolations, but the transient beauty of individual deciduous leaves is undeniably fascinating.