I am opening a School of
Layman Philosophy where we, you, friends, and I, may freely philosophize.
A story is told of a man who,
while enjoying his lazy hours under an apple tree, a fruit falls and hits his
forehead. Startled, he wakes up and asks why the apple fell off the tree. Now,
that is the most foolish question one may dare to ask. (Mind you, he did not
ask what luck or bad luck made the apple, of all the places, fall on his skull;
or, of all the times, why it fell exactly when he happened to be under the falling
apple. That would have been smart and would have made that guy the brainiest
pal in history. Sadly for him, he wasted the chance.) Every one of us knows
pretty well why an apple falls off an apple tree. We didn't bother saying why, for
it would sound foolish to talk about something so foolish. That guy, who they
call Newton, however, spoke his answer out loud. And now, believe it or not,
everyone calls him a philosopher or a scientist!
So, because I know that you
know why an apple falls off a tree, I am going to open a School of Laywoman
Philosophy where we won’t be ashamed of speaking out our foolish questions and
answers.
Every school child has a Superman
at heart. If asked, s/he would have talked about that for hours. The child did
not speak, for we did not let him. Why would we? But, there once was a man
called Nietzsche who spoke out loud about his Superman. And now, they
all call him a philosopher.
So will I open a School of Laypeople
Philosophy where all of us may allow the child in us speak freely.
If I had known more stories
of such foolish people who spoke their foolish ideas with not a glint of shame
and are called philosophers, I would have told you all. But no, even if I knew,
why should I fatigue your eyes by rewriting stories you might already have read
a thousand times? Most of all, why should I waste my time quoting others while
I myself could philosophize my heart out?
So, I am going to open a
School of Lay-Pals Philosophy where I would like you all to join me
philosophizing without having to quote other or repeat them or feel that we did
not read enough to fool around like them. This is going to be a school where we
all learn and teach with no penny, a school where our very heart is our
classroom, and our blackboard or whiteboard or blueboard or pinkboard is our
blog: Ubuntu ‘n Pulto at www.opulto.blogpost.com.
Fear not, here, we play it out with a very simple, single, convenient rule: WE
DO NOT RECOGNIZE ANYONE AS AN AUTHORITY ON PHILOSOPHY. We do not mean
disrespect with that to any of those guys. We only mean we are African’s and we
know what that means.
What does that mean? Allow me
to insert I and my here. That only means I know that: my late grandma,
W/ro Bogalech, was a philosopher. Not only she (who will herself come to you in
God’s good time in her biography: The Life and Death of a Mosquito and W/ro
Bogaleche’s Philosophy), but each of her thirteen husbands (you read me
right) were philosophers as well. The medicine man who used to visit our house
whenever granny was sick was a philosopher too. So was the priest who, as a
child, used to scare me with his cold holy water. Even the spirit that used to
bother grandma whenever she fails to observe the Atete Rite was a
philosopher. So, who is he who dares to tell me that he is a philosopher
and not they, my teachers? Or, she is and not I, their disciple? Or, they are
and not you, my “schoolmates”? We are Africans and we know this: we are all
philosophers. Only, we are shy to share our thoughts we live with afraid that
it might sound silly or superstitious.
So,
I am going to open a School of Philosophy for us to share our silly and downright
foolish thoughts with no fear whatsoever, in order, not to be called a
philosopher or to pretend to know, but to awaken the philosopher in all of us
and set her free and for the pleasure of being able to say our thoughts freely
with no fear of being judged or laughed at. Philosophizing, there is one simple
but weighty fun-task I would like us to accomplish together, the details of
which I cannot tell you now. I can simply say that I would like us to build a
universe. Weighty, isn’t it? How so, I cannot say, for I did not carry a
universe on my shoulder as yet and I did not ask Atlas how heavy the universe
might be compared to the earth he is carrying around. A little while and I will
come with the details of how we will have fun building our universe. In the
meantime, you may want to visit our blog www.opulto.blogspote.com where you may find starter foolish ideas that
may wet your appetite to philosophize even better. So long!
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