‘To make the familiar strange’ – I learned this week that artists (such as Paul Klee) and philosophers (such as Wittgenstein) have long laid claim to this task. This is somewhat obvious in many creative arts and though I had not thought in these terms before, it also makes considerable sense in philosophy. With that said, I would like to analyze why it is so; (which may veer into some Philosophy 101, but I need to break it down).

Philosophy literally means ‘love of wisdom’. Socrates characterized one with wisdom as one who recognizes and understands the extreme limited nature of their wisdom/knowledge. Wisdom requires rational thought which requires skepticism (Question Everything!) which in turn begets uncertainty and doubt. Familiarity implies a general or common knowledge. Yet simply put, ‘we don’t know’. Through Philosophy (i.e. rational argument) we can turn knowledge (or familiarity) upside down. To say “I know” reveals a greater level of ignorance than admitting ignorance by saying “I don’t know.” To know is to not know; to not know is to know; the familiar has become strange.

Is the ‘here and now’ the reality? Or is there an ethereal realm of Forms?

Is everything stagnant? Or is everything in flux?

Are we becoming? Or are we there?

Are we a product of mind? Our mind? A Greater Mind? Or was Nietzsche on the right track?

Is it, wherever I go, there I am? Or is it, wherever I go, there I think I am? Or is it simply, I think, therefore I am?

There are many questions with no definitive answer. There are some questions that some would claim have a definitive answer. Philosophy would argue. That is what it does.

We live in a world with far too much certainty and far too many answers.

Which brings me to a note to our ‘shutdown’ government: I freely admit that I do not know with certainty what is best for me, but I firmly believe that I know better what is best for me than anyone else. Who are you to presume? – You might respond, ‘we are officials elected to make these decisions,’ and I would respond in turn, “you are men and women who have won a popularity contest based on mass media shenanigans and unethical access to excessive dollars that you are now withholding from a people whose perceived reality you will never know. You are a bunch of pompous asses corrupted by money and power.”