Think Outside the Box: How Philosophy, Wisdom, and Learning Can Help You!

This instructable is a "how to" on learning to like philosophy or liking reading/wisdom!

I suggest the video above as a representation of teaching yourself anything you set your mind to. The key is set you mind to it and accomplish the task at hand! Limit distractions! :) Things such as TV, pursuit of material gain, and negativity prevent you from seeing the ultimate good, knowledge!

Philosophy is defined as:
1. Love and pursuit of wisdom by intellectual means and moral self-discipline.
2. Investigation of the nature, causes, or principles of reality, knowledge, or values, based on logical reasoning rather than empirical methods.

For those of you still reading and not bored to death....Find the information (and full story) about Plato's Cave @ http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/greek/philosopher/myth_allegory_cave_plato.html

A great picture version of the above video can be found here: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_BisAUOY9kFU/TS9Co04ErgI/AAAAAAAAADE/tz1h9Cmyapg/s1600/the_cave.gif

I am not talking philosophy as "aimlessly star gazing and chatting about life".

I AM talking about stepping back from your life, looking at your daily behaviors, and seeing if maybe, just maybe, there is something you can do differently. (specifically, learn to enjoy reading - the best commercial-free way to learn. I have yet to read a book that interrupts me for 5 minutes to tell me about Viagra or a new Kia being driven by hampsters!!!!)

This is to help you think about:
- what you do every day
- where your time goes
- how you possibly distract yourself from other more productive pursuits
- how you can help yourself with learning knowledge and sharing/doing (aka wisdom)
- teaching others how to better themselves
- seek and find KNOWLEDGE the ultimate good!

Around 400B.C. Socrates said, "The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance."
He also said, "An unexamined life is not worth living."

You can combat evil by learning knowledge and sharing it.
Don't you feel much better after giving directions to someone who is lost? Wouldn't you feel better if you were lost and somebody gave you directions? Think about it. Knowledge is free and can do so much good! :)

As you find yourself roaming various instructables, realize YOU can teach yourself new ideas and new ways of thinking.
Find yourself making the ascent from (self) isolation to (self) education!
I found myself only looking at this website for over 2 years until 1 day I thought, "Hey, I should contribute too."
Contributing helps both Instructables and "humanity" as a whole!

Expand your knowledge with 50,000 pages from my personal non-fiction library: