My "Intellectual" Development

 A Quick Survey of My "Intellectual" (sic!)  Development

I am trying to come to know who I am before I die. I want to die in peace. I know it's kind of late, but as the saying goes, it's better late than never. Some of the following points have been touched on before in previous posts. I tend to write the same things over and over again, ad nauseam. 

I was lazy academically throughout high school. I would rather play with my friends or snuck off to the movies than hitting the books. But I was smart enough to get by. In college I had to study, but I didn't really enjoy my classes except those pertaining to Literature. I did a lot of side reading on my own in college. After college I had to find a job to put food on the table. I didn't like my job either. I became restless. I did more reading at night and started teaching myself a couple of foreign languages. It dawned on me as I was reading that acquiring knowledge gave me a lot of pleasure  and peace. It helped me face squarely the meaning of life. A few years ago, I got on the Net and right away I was struck by the very low level of intellectualism there in the discussions. Even guys and gals with advanced degrees showed they couldn't think logically, neither did they know anything outside their area of expertise, but they were too proud to admit their ignorance and stupidity. I had contempt for their intellectual cowardice and lack of rhetorical skills. 

During the last few years I have seen my friends and acquaintances drop dead, making me wonder in earnest about the existential questions. In addition, the mundane concerns and interests of people I know really have forced me to examine my own values. I don't care for power or fame, although I realize I may be head and shoulders taller than most people in a few areas (ethics; metaphysics; epistemology; general knowledge, especially about history, literature and philosophy; and poetry). Re-reading about Wittgenstein in the twilight of my life has brought on an awareness of the nature of Reality and the role of Language in the search for Reality. Now my identity is being slowly established as that of a true thinker and an artist with words. If people ask me who I am, that's what I would tell them. 

People such as the scumbags and assholes and VAW and hypocrites, and intellectual and political cowards of all stripes have made me feel good about myself. I view them less than humans because they fear truths, especially those truths about themselves whereas I do not. I am fearless with regard to truths. Truths makes me free. I want to live in freedom, not bondage. You can tell me anything about me. I will really listen to your words. If your comments are valid, I will thank you and will modify my thinking and thus my behavior. If what you say is garbage, I will try to remain silent, but if I do not, you will be in a world of pain psychically, and then I will bring your comments---and you, too--- to the garbage dump. 

 

My current interest in Wittgenstein indicates, at least to me personally, that I am attracted to the bizarre, the unusual, the extraordinary, the uncommon, the great, whether they are ideas or people (ranging from Napoleon Bonaparte to Nietzsche to Hitler to Wittgenstein) because I have detected something similar in myself and getting to know these people would shed light on who I am and on realizing my potential). Wittgenstein was a person of contradictions (as I said in my crude piece on him) and wrecked with guilts and burdened with memories of transgressions. Maybe because I am a much lesser man than he was, hence, although I am also a person of warring contradictions, I am not bothered much by memories of transgressions. I was not and still am not proud of what I did, and have vowed to be a better man---and I have been---but, unlike Wittgenstein, I don't hold myself to very high standards, because I know myself: I only have high standards and try to measure myself against them. I am not a genius, like Wittgenstein, though I share some of his traits: intensity and seriousness of thinking to the ultimate. Although my approach to life and intellectuality borders on the religious (despite being atheistic) fervor and has tinges of mysticism, I don't have the ambiguities and self-doubts as Wittgenstein did. Despite being a professed disbeliever Wittgenstein mentioned God incessantly in his writings and stated he wanted to be buried as a Catholic. I am atheistic and I don't care what happens to my body after I die. Despite the warring contradictions inside me, I am comfortable of who I am. I am more sensitive, more gifted linguistically, and more intellectually inclined than an average person, and that's all I am. I have some frame of reference to interpret human behavior and the workings of the world, but it is by no means original. I cannot produce books as Wittgenstein did. I am not a Messiah figure and don't have a coterie of dedicated disciples as Wittgenstein did. My life and "achievements" didn't inspire awe and astonishment, nor did they trigger an outpouring of studies on them, as Wittgenstein's life and books have been doing. His name is likely to live on in the annals of philosophical thoughts. My name, if I am ever so lucky, is probably linked to a few poems that I wrote and translated. I was born as a human. I have tried to live as one. I will probably die as an unknown, and that's okay with me. Power over others never interests me as it does to the scumbags, assholes, and cowards that I know personally. The only powers I am interested in are the power over myself and the power of thoughts. 

Thus spoke Wissai, the Ferryman