The stress level has been picking up steadily and I have been busy making my wedding invitations (all on my own), printing and posting them to the four corners of the world. But apart fighting with the Swiss Postal Service (which lost a contract that I was supposed to sign in order to start a new job), figuring out how all the rest of the wedding is best organised – or how to get all the things I still need… – things are good and fine.
Easter has come and gone and helped me a lot in “recalibrating” some of the chatter in my head. I went to Rome for a week and got back safely… although Roma Ciampino Airport settings have made me doubt it for several tense moments… and now I’m preparing a lecture that I accepted to give in Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany), trying to find my bridal shoes (the things we do), a date for my gown fitting and the legal wedding which will take place on May 11th…
So, blogging about serious philosophical questions sort of falls down on my to do list, but I promise to do better in the future once the worst stressors are rid of. Promise. I’ll leave with a great picture from the eternal city: Rome.
yseult Personal
While I was talking to the phone to a very dear friend I hadn’t talked with for quite a while now, she said something simple, but interesting to me: you don’t need to have all the answers. (I’m leaving out the almost-yelling bit and the mild swearing that accompanied the rant for obvious reasons 
)
It sound like an easy thing to say and understand, some might consider it trivial even. As a ‘philosopher’ however we are trained to work everything out. It’s what we do, it’s our job, our work, our ultimate goal and our method to cope with the world.
As long as a problem can be well formulated, analyzed, dissected, taken apart and put back together again, we’re happy. Once we’re done dissecting a problem, an obstacle, a tricky situation or a spat, we think that the better part of a problem is already solved. That the rest is only cosmetics. Finding solutions is what we do and it does play tricks on us. It leads us to believe that naming a problem is part of the solution. That we virtually have all the answers.
The trouble here is not hubris, because a philosophical person would claim to have all the answers to all the questions. But, they would probably say that once you’ve named the problem, you’ve done the greatest step to solving it.
That’s all very good when dealing with theories about matter and intellect or formal logic, but when it comes to life, human beings tend to not be that rational at all.
It’s the well known discrepancy (hey, another big word to be added to the list…) between knowing that smoking is bad, but not stopping anyway. It’s the same discrepancy that leads to utter craziness in economical decision and game theory btw.
The fact that we can analyze why we’re feeling the way we do or why X annoys the hell out of us, does not necessarily mean that we can keep it from annoying us.
That’s probably the answer why so many academics have undiagnosed psychological disorders or problems: they think they can figure it all out by themselves. They think that knowing why they feel the way they do, solves their problem.
Accepting that we don’t need to have all the answers or solutions, that’s probably the real solution.
yseult Personal
Some things do not warrant a discursive answer where we should weigh all the points according to their validity. Sometimes there is no place for argument and earnest dialogue. This is especially true for things and “free opinions”() that have only one true goal: insult and belittlement.
Sometimes the only way to reason with malevolent content leads to satire. And satire is what they shall get:
Copyright Notice: I made this picture to show a point. If you want to use it in order to make your own statement, you are free to do so as long as a link points back to this original post. The original picture retains my copyright however and the picture may not be altered otherwise. Thank you.
yseult Issues
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