Closet Philospher

Posted on by jbgetty

I often consider myself a closet philosopher in the sense that most of the time you’d never know that I’m constantly examining life and thinking about it on the deepest levels that I know of.

For the past couple days I’ve been reminded of my “ultimate view” of this reality. And I like to express it in a way that doesn’t “conflict” with anyone else’s view on life, belief, or religion… well other than maybe someone who doesn’t believe there is life after this one.

I constantly look at life as some form of art, taking place from each of our own perspectives. And upon the end of this life to each his own work of art. Judgement aside, each person’s experience will be in a way, their work of art.

And even last night I snapped this picture of an unexpected sunset and titled it “I am not the artist, I am the frame”

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So today I was listening to this video and I heard one of the many speakers, and something about their voice sounded better than the rest, I thought to myself, “I need find out who this is… I should google some of their exact verbiage and maybe I’ll be able to find their name.  And just as I had that thought, the next thing they say is “turn your life into a living breathing work of art because anything less would be a tragedy.”

And then I found him, Jason Silva, a name that was familiar but not like some of the others. And I especially like what he was saying about attention and fostering your attention as one of the most important things you can do for your own self-development (I’m paraphrasing)

Personal development is an all-encompassing form of mastery, not a selfish form of gratification. I’ve only seen my ability to help my family, and others lifestyle improve when I work on improving myself. Sometimes it’s hard to put into words, but this is the video I was watching that helps put it into the emotion.

So I was just about finished with this simple post. Yet after I discovered the person, whom words in the video I admired so much, I went to his website and was scrolling down only to find one of my least favorite words in all of language “transhuman”

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It’s rather odd to me, the first time I’ve heard someone else, at least verbally, refer to someone’s life as a work of art – So I look more into them and instantly see they at least condone the idea of transhumanism. Which Jason may or may not, he says the video was sponsored by Subaru, so I don’t know whose words they actually are. But one thing that was said that urkes me beyond words. Is even humoring the idea of transhumanism as if it’s a good or ideal end point.

In summary, Jason’s words in the video ended with “will robots inherit the earth? Yes they will, but they will be our children..” In a world where the divorce rate is so high, marriage treated as a casual union than something sacred, vasectomies and the other so wildly and easily available… and now our children will be robots. Great, sounds like dream come true (sarcasm) .. not the ending I would have wrote.

There was a lot more here I wanted to say, and wrote, but deleted it because it’s way too early in this blog for me to go off on tangents like that. So I’m just going to leave it at-

To look at each of our lives is a work of art and then come to the conclusion that transhumanism is the answer – is nothing short of the evolution of a robot. But I don’t need any of that for eternity, after all, what are souls for?

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In case you’re on the fence about trans-humanism.. I just found this video and it should put you on one side or the other – because this is their direction. To me it just sounds like the most lonely existence one could ever imagine –  And it’s another from Jason Silva

Re-Connecting Dots

Posted on by jbgetty

Years ago I created a blog that mainly contained stories of synchronicities or coincidences that I noticed in or around my life. For a time I was noticing them at such a rate that thought I was closing in on my own death.. but in a sane sort of a way.

I still get them from time to time too. Which is one of the reasons why I decided to start up a blog documenting them again.. because I had a big one happen in such a small way that I wanted to document it.

 

Sunday morning I’m at the gym and as I’m working out the thought comes to me that I need to get a new book. I was thinking something motivational, maybe Tony Robbins. But this time I couldn’t wait for the book to be delivered through amazon prime(and FYI I don’t like to read on a tablet – I prefer paper) So I needed to go directly to Barnes and Noble to pick up a tangible book, today.

So I texted my wife if to see if she was up for it later on and she was. We didn’t end up going until about 6 O’clock that night. When we arrived my wife took our daughter to the back of the store to the children’s section and I made my way to the psychology/self help shelves. I must have picked up 30 books, read a little on the back and inside, then put them down. Nothing seemed good to me. But my only goal was to leave there with a book and luckily I didn’t feel rushed.

With all the books there, I was a little overwhelmed since I wanted to pick out something “perfect” as basically my entire Sunday has lead up to this point. So, I did what I do in times like this when I need a little help. I asked for help using that still small voice inside. Something to the effect of “How can I find the perfect book within all these books, help me find the perfect book for me.” I almost directly headed to the opposite side of shelving I was looking through. And as I did one book in particular stood out to me. It was titled “BLINK.”

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I picked up the book and gave it a good fan through and stopped on Page 49. I looked to see the chapter title on page 48. It read “The Locked Door: The Secret Life of Snap Decisions.” Definitely had my interest, especially because it was the first thing I read in the book.

So I began to read the chapter which talked about how one of the world’s top tennis coaches had the odd ability to know when a player, even one he never met before, would double fault – Yet he didn’t know why he knew it. And was also freakishly accurate with it. What I liked about this was that I have been known, in my own way, of being freakishly accurate with guessing.. But back to the story.

As I’m reading through chapter I get to one line in particular and I didn’t have to read any further to know this was in fact the book I was looking for. The sentence read “It really isn’t any different from the ability of an art expert to look at the Getty Kouros and know, instantly, that it’s a fake.

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And the reason why I knew I didn’t need to read anymore was because of my name, John Getty. To be honest I know it might be a popular name, but it didn’t matter to me if the whole entire book was filled with references to the name Getty. I had already made the decision to get the book because of my initial pull I had to pick it up to read.

I even, for a minute or two, tried to talk myself out of buying it because it was on Amazon for much cheaper. Luckily my wife was there to help talk me out of not buying it. I went there with one goal in mind, no pun intended, and that was to leave there with the perfect book. And on that night I can happily say I did.