Half Full

I can still remember the first time I heard someone ask if the glass is half full or half empty. It was in an introductory philosophy class that seemed to be filled with crazy sayings like that.

One of my favourites went something like this. My house is grey. Elephants are grey. Therefore, my house is an elephant. I have no idea now just which whack-a-doodle eighteenth century philosopher came up with this tidbit of clap trap, but I do know that whoever was paying him started to go over the employment contract trying to find a loophole. I get the feeling that with the advent of the industrial revolution, there were a lot of rich kids with nothing to do but live off of daddy’s money and think up weird shit. I can’t tell just what if anything these guys contributed to our society. I still don’t get it. I did really well in Philosophy 101, because it is the kind of thing I was made for.

You don’t really have to know anything. I have that attribute in spades. In fact, I would go so far as to say that I am an expert in knowing nothing. Just ask me, I promise I won’t know what you are talking about. What you do have to be able to do, is to convince people that what you are saying actually does make sense. I have been trying to perfect this for my entire life. On the philosophy exams, you could give the absolute wrong answer (I did), but just so long as you back up your wrong answer with an appropriate amount of bullshit and sort of prove your point, then you not only get a pass, but also bonus marks for original thought. I loved university, but unfortunately in our society philosophers aren’t in the same demand that they were in the 18^th century. Oh well, another path not taken.

I have been thinking lately about what life is all about. For most of my life I thought it was about endings. We are after all drifting towards the end of our life with every second that we live. I have always looked forwards to the end of grade school, the end of high school, the end of university. I actually was able to end that one early. When I started to work, the type of jobs that I had, made me look forwards to them ending, because most of them I didn’t like. The jobs that I did like, it turns out that my employers were looking forwards to ending my employment. When I found a job that I liked and that liked me, I spent the time looking forwards to the end of the day, and ultimately the end of working with retirement. Now, I am looking at the end of life, I find that I don’t look for the end any more.

It turns out that I have been wrong for my entire life, it isn’t about endings at all, it is about beginnings. I guess that I shouldn’t be surprised that I have had it wrong all along. I realized it is about beginnings by watching Hurricane and Tornado. Everything for them is a beginning! They begin this life and as they move through the days, weeks and years, life begins to open up for them. They learn to walk which allows them to control how they learn about their surroundings. They learn to talk, which lets them begin the process of learning, because they can ask their Poppa how the world works.

Every step forwards is a new beginning for them and I am beginning to see life from the other end of the glass thanks to them. I guess that glass is half full.