On the road to fatherhood

With fatherhood officially around the corner, it is high time I release the first in a series of writings on practical philosophy.  I abstain from giving this collection any official title at the moment for that would indicate I already understand where I intend for this to lead.  This brings me to the first tenant of practical philosophy:

1. You have no choice when it comes to your destination.

With this first tenant, I must already explain three concepts: a) practical philosophy, b) choice, c) destinations.

Practical Philosophy

It is hard to grasp this concept if you haven't majored in philosophy or some other area of study that doesn't not readily lend it self to a career path, but a question that I encountered more than any other is, of course, "What do you do with that?" The simple answer is "Lots", but that doesn't really explain anything.  Most with an earnest passion for philosophy have one course when studying it: professorship. Of course others will pursue what may appear as "practical philosophy" and study law.  To this second direction, there is some truth in calling it the practical side of philosophy, but this is not the practicality that I am reaching for.

What I aim for is a balance between action (the practical) and contemplation (the philosophical). In general, we are surrounded by practical people for survival requires action. To see the practical in it's purest form, philosophers used to refer to "lower" animals.  However, the lack of philosophy that occurs in such creatures is debatable and it is fortunate that technology offers us a better analogy: machines. Any will do, from your smart phone to your calculator. It responds to an external stimulus with an action that is predetermined from a set of rules built into the machine.  Absolutely no philosophy takes place.  I'm sure you can think of people who remind you of machines, but one can never be sure what is occurring just below the surface.  On the other end of the spectrum we have the purely philosophical. Likely because the world we live in is one of action, I cannot think of a pure example of the philosophical, be we all know those who lean to this side. What is known in academic circles as the ivory towel philosopher. For a more common visual, imagine the person who yells at the tv on game day about what a specific team should do and can give you a play by play explanation of why they won or lost, even though this person hasn't stepped foot on the field since highschool, if that.

A word of caution before I go on: it cannot be foreseen whether being purely practical or purely philosophical is beneficial or not, it usually depends on the situation. However, in my case, as in many others, I aim to blend the two for fatherhood requires both.  Thus lies the true answer to "what I plan to do with that degree."

At this point in the day, survival requires action and so I must cease contemplation for the moment.  Stay tuned for an explication on choice and destinations.

Namaste