Philosophy: Not for the Young or Timid

Only after experiencing something firsthand can you truly understand it. History infuses certain things into your soul, guiding your intuition to convey them to the world through your writing. The writer is simply a mouthpiece, and does not actually grasp the full meaning of the words they are writing. Their age is irrelevant.

Imagine a journey. Philosophy is like a journey: it is a lifelong quest for knowledge and understanding. To understand philosophy, we must be willing to travel to new places and meet new people.

The true soil and nutrients for the seed are those who are meant to hear, remember, and ponder those words. These are the people who truly interpret the message and transform it into something new. Not the messenger.

Imagine a journey. Philosophy is like a journey: it is a lifelong quest for knowledge and understanding. To understand philosophy, we must be willing to travel to new places and meet new people.

Don’t think that a few examples can overturn the statement that philosophy is not something young people can learn to master. In fact, I don’t recommend that undergraduates “study philosophy” as a hobby.

Philosophy is not something that can be “studied” well. Philosophy textbooks typically focus on two things: the history of philosophy and the research tools of philosophy. The former is roughly equivalent to the paintings of predecessors, and the latter is roughly equivalent to the basic tools of painting, such as perspective theory and color theory.

A painter standing in front of a blank canvas, brush in hand, contemplating what to paint. This illustration represents the philosopher, who is faced with the blank canvas of the world and must use their thinking skills to create something new and meaningful.

However, the essence of philosophy is the art of thinking. Philosophers must be thinkers, and thinkers are essentially artists.

As an art form, philosophy cannot rely on “no contradictions with predecessors + correct use of tools” to guarantee the value and meaning of its conclusions. It simply cannot.

A dancer moving gracefully across the stage, their body expressing the music. This illustration represents the philosopher, who uses their thinking skills to create new and innovative ideas.A dancer moving gracefully across the stage, their body expressing the music. This illustration represents the philosopher, who uses their thinking skills to create new and innovative ideas.A dancer moving gracefully across the stage, their body expressing the music. This illustration represents the philosopher, who uses their thinking skills to create new and innovative ideas.

Many people approach “studying philosophy” with the belief that it is a subject like physics and engineering that can be mastered by grasping some undisputed knowledge and skills. This is a huge mistake.

The criteria for good philosophy has nothing to do with “right or wrong”. Its true standard is whether it is beautiful enough.

Always remember this basic fact: humans fundamentally do not know what truth and goodness are. We only have an intuition about beauty. We grope for the face of truth and goodness through the pursuit of beauty, and are in fact absolutely ruled by the simple logic of “the more beautiful, the more true; the more beautiful, the more good.”

A group of people sitting around a table, discussing a philosophical question. This illustration represents the collaborative nature of philosophy, where people from all walks of life can come together to share their thoughts and ideas.

While studying coloring techniques and line drawing methods, and referencing masterpieces, can help you paint pleasing wares, that is not art, nor does it make you an artist. Just as painting like that until death only makes you a painter, studying like that until death does not make you a real philosopher.

If not a real philosopher, then what is it? A pitiful creature who can only package their own greed, desires, and cowardice in elegant academic language. Their so-called “thinking” is all spent on layer after layer of packaging.