In my life, I have come across some great thinkers, in books and in person. One thing I find inherent about great thinkers, critical thinkers, and independent thinkers, is their firm grasp of language. Language means so much more than words, I like to say that language is around 40% words, and 60% social context. Listen to the dialogue of a television program for five minutes and it is a certainty that you will encounter situations where the dictionary meaning of a word is pathetically insufficient to comprehend the meaning. And I mean this beyond the idiomatic clichés of "do you have the time", or "over my dead body". To communicate great ideas, we need not only words, but context. And having a shared knowledge base with your counterpart is the way of achieving that social context. Whether this means being knowledgeable of the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud, to understand Christopher Hitchens' quip " Nietzsche said 'God is dead', Freud said 'God is dad'"; or being aware of the current political scene to understand the humor in a joke involving a "mission accomplished banner". A shared knowledge base is critical in debating any topic, whether with others, or internally. So read literature! LANGUAGE IS EXTREMELY VALUBLE.

   This is the mantra of an independent thinker, and it is a fundamental tenant of my philosophy. In order to truly think independently, you have to hear from everywhere, across every argument, from the seminal works of each side of the debate you choose to concern yourself with. Being an independent thinker requires that you find the hidden debates, in other words, to question the norms, to be a contrarian. No matter where you are, you live in a culture that has already decided on the righteousness of certain ideas, communism vs. capitalism, Christianity vs. Islam, universal human rights vs. social stratification. To truly be an independent thinker, questioning the merits of other ideas that your culture doesn't agree with is necessary. If an idea is truly bad, then there is nothing wrong with allowing people to investigate it, because, by definition, they should find themselves disagreeing with it, and if they don't, maybe it wasn't a bad idea after all. I have to qualify this by saying that a weak mind can fall victim to any number of logical fallacies, however in an unregulated marketplace of ideas, every conceivable alternative is available, and free and open debate 'selects' for the best ideas. I hope we can all agree that we don't want to see the firemen from Fahrenheit 451.

   I think this one is quite clear. It speaks to the finite nature (currently) of human life, and being honest with yourself about what you know and don't know. All too often, as human beings, we have this inherent inclination to be part of the conversation, and we try to join in any argument, immediately taking sides. While this may be good in the human social context, because you 'look' engaged, I maintain that unless you already had an opinion, it's better to listen to both sides and remain neutral until you have your own criteria for taking a side. Lastly, the final point in my statement indicates that not all arguments deserve your time to consider. Now, I never said what the criteria was for what is important to you or not, and obviously, that's up to you (though the other parts of my personal philosophy may point in a particular direction).

   The 'one person' is everyone, including yourself. It is an inherent property of existence as a human being, that you are limited in your personal experience and knowledge, this applies to others as well. You have your biases, and they have theirs. You can do your best to seek out your own biases, to be confident in the accuracy of the knowledge you have already gained, and maintain conscious awareness of your own ignorance. However, you cannot count on such diligence from others, nor should you. Put another way, given the infinites of human experience, it is -if anything- highly unlikely that two human beings have come to all of the same conclusions on everything, unless one is mindlessly following the other. I suggest taking anyone you admire, like, or see as a role model, and actively seek out points you disagree with them on. Furthermore, stop for a moment and consider why you agree with them on the points you already do, in your own terms. If you find yourself in a crisis of confidence, you're doing it right.

   This is a very socially isolated tenet, because the style of comedy can vary from context to context. But here I refer to comedy in a society with freedom of speech, and in particular, here and now. Today, comedians have the freedom (though in some rare cases to the detriment of their public image) to speak truth to authority, or to question social norms in a forum where society expects them to. Comedy can make fun of our ignorance, our biases, our firmly held beliefs, and say things that we could never say ourselves. What is really happening when comedian John Mulaney makes a "playfully anti-Semitic" joke? More importantly, what does mean when you laugh? When Lewis Black points out the absurdity of bottled water, and even the ignorant behavior of this or that public official, I believe he is doing a service to society, by taking advantage of his place as a comedian, and making us think. We need people to make a mockery of the status quo, of the figures of power in our lives, and comedy does an excellent job.

   I've always had a struggle dealing with what art is, and what good art is. Then, one day, I found myself realizing I was enjoying art that others did not merely "not like", but actually found "bad". As common as such occurrences may be, acknowledging them isn't necessarily so. So there I was, finding myself on both sides of an argument, saying I didn't like art, but liking something that was technically art. I had to reconcile this. It was probably my first step outside of the more regimented view of the world that a logical mind falls into. I wanted a right or wrong answer, but I kicked and screamed towards the realization, not just that I couldn't find one, but there just wasn't one, and I had to accept it. I firstly realized that art does not exist, it's a label that human beings apply to anything they choose. Therefore, when one says something is art, it cannot be anything more than an opinion, as there are no metrics to measure the validity of such a claim. As opposed to a claim that an object has a certain mass, is produced to certain specifications, or intended for a particular task. So why a game? It seemed like a good analogy at the time I was struggling with the concept, but I've come to see it as more and more appropriate. The game is played between those debating "art". When you decide to challenge someone about their opinion of this "art", you've already accepted the premise that it is art, and you're playing the game. Even when you're judging the art itself, you're really just challenging the artist. The rules are undefined, and so the game often begins by defining the rules; or the rules are assumed by both parties, and either their respective rules agree, or their disagreement will manifest itself later. The rules being this or that criteria for what "good art" is. Which of course, there is no correct answer. It's philosophical in the sense that (at least on the surface to us humans), it seems like a fundamental debate about the nature of something. But it's a game, because the rules and the outcome are not deeply important. It can be enriching or entertaining to those involved, and even to spectators, but it's still a game, that never really finds any deeper truth. I like what I like, based on my own criteria that are personal, emotional, cultural, historical, and all-around arbitrary; other people have their own criteria.
So, can one claim to "like" or "dislike" this or that art? Certainly. Can it have a lasting effect on a life? Certainly. Can it evoke emotion? Certainly. Can it lead to a completely unrelated realization of a more tangible truth? Certainly. Can it be said to be good or bad? Certainly not. It would be as much of a contextual misunderstanding, as asking if a neutron were a democrat or republican.

   I imagine it could be put in other terms, but at the core I'm referring to a feeling of a unique care or concern with something, to an extreme degree. It most certainly does not matter where it comes from, be it a mental disorder, a traumatic experience, or simply an unexplained interest in something that others simply cannot fathom. Passion enables someone to focus an extreme amount of concentration to a single topic, and enables a deeper understanding, a better ability to act, or a perfection of form to develop. There are so many allusions to this truth in history. People often say "Rome was not built in a day", I think that -in a way- speaks to passion. You cannot become Pythagoras, or Einstein, or Fermi, or Poe, without the long nights alone, the care for nothing above the obsession, developing it, concentrating on it for countless hours. Even the socially awkward recluse that Newton may have been, he was one of the greatest contributors to human understanding in history. Regardless of what others might have seen, or would even still see today, as a fault in his nature in need of correction. I think Gladwell was mistaken when he suggested that 10,000 hours could make one successful at something. That time spent was a symptom, not the full pathology. An effect, not a cause. Not everyone has an obsession, a thing they're innately passionate about. But they can find something they care about and consciously devote themselves to it...