No Thanks. I’m good.

 

********

 

Yesterday’s philosophical post was so well recieved,

I’m going to try it again.

 

René Descartes was a French philosopher and mathematician of the early 17th century whose famous dictum – in Latin – is “Cogito Ergo Sum.” Translated, that’s “I think, therefore I am.” To me, this is a lazy man’s philosophy, and for the following reason: Yeah, sure, it’s a First Principle.  And yeah, sure, it applies to everyone. But if you consider for a moment your own life and all the things it consists of, merely ‘thinking’ is hardly sufficient to sum up any one of us. Granted, it’s hard to boil down a life to one single defining characteristic. Yet if pressed, I bet each of us could do much better than “Cogito Ergo Sum.”

Take me, for instance. Over the course of a lifetime I’ve been many different things to many different people. Yet if you caught me on any particular day this week, then “I Hike Therefore I Am” would do nicely as a caption for my life.

 

 

Or, take my better half: Teacher, weaver, wife, mom, voracious reader, and connoiseur of “Murder, She Wrote.” Oh, and let’s not forget, kayaker: “I Kayak Therefore I Am?” One could do worse – much worse. How much worse? Killing-people-in-Cabot-Cove worse? I guess!

 

How about you? As Descartes might say: What’s your raison-d’être?

That’s “reason for being,” for all you non-french speakers.

And also for all you pelicans too, I guess.

Unclear what Jessica Fletcher might say.

But one thing’s for sure…

We seniors can skip the wash’n’vac.

Been there, done that.