Arguing With Plato Over an Apple (Part 2) – Mad Chaos: December 3, 1998

Phone Calls I Barely Remember

Because I had gone to sleep so late in the morning I didn’t realize I was speaking to Lyssa on the phone at 10:00 a.m. All that I remember was me holding the phone asking Lyssa when she had called me and as I was coming to Lyssa informed me that I’m always in a hallucinating mood after being woken up from sleep.

Lyssa basically told me she was bored at work and I was persistent in getting back to sleep. Speaking with Lyssa for a minute or two I hung up the phone and slept peaceably. Later around 1:00 p.m. Lyssa once again called me and this phone call was as unrecalled as the first one. Once again I wasn’t sure what we talked about but I do remember telling Lyssa that I would give her a call and talk to her when I woke up.

Well, I didn’t call her when I woke up because I had to get to the Gym and do other shit but I gave her a call at 6:30 p.m. just after she supposedly got back from work. Kuper answered the phone and asking him to tell Lyssa I had called I still haven’t received a call from Lyssa so I gather she’s out at Bradbury Pub or something.

Riding a Mental High

Writing in my Diary is no longer a hassle and I know I give too much credit to Biorhythm Cycles but I have a feeling I’m eager to write in my Diary because I am in my positive state for my mental cycle. Also, I’m not having stressful days or arguing with anyone which makes it all the more pleasing. My hectic mind has been working overtime since I’ve woken up and with my mind’s new attitude I have come up with a couple of new thoughts, some concepts, poems and some philosophy.

To tell you the truth I thought last night’s power of the mind wasn’t going to last until today. It was almost true to my mind when I didn’t have any pondering thoughts in my mind for most of the day but when I came home from the Gym, that’s when I started to glow.

Encyclopedia Hunting for Answers

Walking upstairs to find out the name for my Shakespearean poetry in the Encyclopedia I wondered what it would be like if I bought myself the Encyclopedia for a computer, how cool. How much knowledge would I be able to gain from that, there is no boundaries. Now I think to myself that I need the tool of the internet so I can reach limitless lengths of knowledge in fields that I find interesting. Fields like, philosophy, psychology, poetry, Medieval History, Shakespeare and much more interesting facts.

Sonnets and Big Ambitions

Well I found out that the blank verses that I’ve been writing are called Sonnets and they are in the style that Shakespeare himself introduced which I already knew. There was also the Italian Sonnet which alike of Shakespearean Sonnets it had fourteen lines but the rhyming was in a different order. Stumbling across philosophy in the Encyclopedia I started reading intently and the more I read the more I enjoyed the subject.

In my head I wanted to believe that one day I would become a great philosopher and that day may come when I can incorporate my philosophy within my poems which I probably already do. In reality, I have to get my poetry published and I want to be known as a major poetical influence in the 21st Century.

My styles of poetry now do not vary that much but I plan to take a course or two in Historical Poetry so I can learn the fundamentals and different styles of poetry so I can one day incorporate them into ‘Dramatic Poetry’. That is now one of my ambitions and the computer, instead of an occupation that will just be a form to gather information and then compose literature. As time progresses and I gain knowledge and then understanding I will evolve my ideas and make memorable poetry on a larger scale.

Plato Wins Me Over Partly

Just reading upon ‘Plato’ the great philosopher in my Encyclopedia I found all of his philosophy to be inspirational and would now like to read upon some of his works. God I wish I had the internet right now but I don’t but that’s the beauty of it. What the mind does not have, the mind will persistently seek for until the mind’s desire has been fulfilled. That there you could say is some philosophy and having read Plato’s style of thinking I am inspired to add a philosopher in my Dramatic Poetry when that day finally comes.

Philosophy could also be used for my conception on the use of ‘Exertion’ in bodybuilding and devising a scientific formula for that study. Right now all I’m doing with my mind is skimming over the surface, philosophizing but coming to no logical truths. However, as I have stated before, I believe that knowledge leads to understanding and that leads to evolution. This philosophy comes from a new Sonnet that I am creating and those words are already depicted in this Sonnet of mine. That makes three Sonnets this month and four in the space of a couple of days. Not to mention the five Haiku poems that I’ve fabricated last night.

Arguing With Plato

There is one important philosophical idea of art from Plato’s works that I must philosophize now with. Plato claimed that artists and poets cannot usually explain their works since artists do not even seem to know what their own works mean. Plato concluded that they do not create because they possess some special knowledge. Rather, they create because they are seized by irrational inspiration, a sort of “Divine Madness.”

That is the philosophy that Plato preaches but I do fail to agree with most of his beliefs. Irrational inspiration tends to explain my jumping out of bed and writing my poetical thoughts but just like philosophy I do study my poetry rather than write down what I do not understand. Inspiration however is not irrational. In a sense waking up in the middle of the night to write poetical ideas circulating in my head can be seen as irrational but in truth it is not.

Knowledge needs not be a factor of poetry as all poetry has philosophic forms and philosophy is not based on knowledge but ideas to become knowledgeable. Poetry is a free expression of philosophy and thoughts along with ideas as in philosophy are fundamentals of poetry. Poetry like philosophy opens your senses along with your mind to suggestions and opinion.

Plato himself was not a poet or an artist as such but he did create Dialogues and similar to poetry these plays did enact in the same manner as poetry. Poetry is created with intellectual thought, for intellectual minds to contemplate with an open mind. To say poetry and art in general is spurred by irrational inspiration is not truth as that would contradict Plato’s belief of immortality of the soul.

Plato believed in life after death and moreover, he believed that learning consists of recalling what the soul experienced in the realm of the forms which is practically life after death. Well, I thought to myself that I had some philosophy to preach here to argue against Plato’s belief but it doesn’t have to do with Immortality of the soul. Rather, inspiration is rational to a certain degree, let me explain.

Newton's Apple and Willpower

Learning to my belief consists of inspiration and ethically it would consist of will. There is no reasoning but to understand that learning comes from inspiration and to further motivate philosophical thinking you must have will to learn. There are two fundamental truths to learning, that of irrational inspiration and that of rational inspiration. Take for example Isaac Newton and the day he learnt the laws of Gravity. As an apple fell on his head he came to a conclusion that ‘What comes up must come down’.

That process of philosophy and learning was a form of rational inspiration as you can determine to some degree that he came to that conclusion being inspired by the apple hitting him on the head. Furthermore, this rational inspiration could not have completed it’s cycle of thought and come to a conclusion unless Isaac Newton used his willpower. It is not enough that you have inspiration of a philosophical thought but to learn from that rational inspiration you must use your will.

Irrational inspiration almost makes no sense with those two words so contrasting but there is a purpose. The confusing moment where Isaac Newton was hit on the head by an apple needed no will to gain the knowledge that the apple hurt his head. This course of learning was not conventional to Isaac Newton and his immediate understanding once his head started to ache was driven by irrational inspiration.

No will was needed to understand the truth that the apple did harm his head, his knowledge was immediate. This in sense is irrational to believe as philosophically you would ask “How do you know your head hurts from that apple.” Nevertheless, his thoughts had to be inspired in some way to come to the immediate conclusion that his head was harmed and since it is not a conventional method of knowledge it is deemed irrational.

Learning by irrational inspiration concludes to knowledge but the irrational aspect of the immediate knowledge gained has no significance to philosophy other than knowledge of consequence. If rational inspiration wills you to know more this knowledge of consequence can become philosophical in thought and an understanding can be made as to why your head began to hurt.

Einstein Gets Dragged In

Then there is Einstein who learnt to split the atom. Knowledge needed to be understood about these laws and for Einstein to split his atom after trial and error was due to his inspiration and will to achieve results. Einstein was no mad man, his inspiration wasn’t irrational as he had knowledge coupled with a purpose to achieve his results of learning. All in all, this philosophy has been entertaining to my mind.