Nautilus

Day 7.

Pascal’s dad did not enroll young Blaise in school. John Locke did not approve forcing children to study. The notion that philosophy is the work of the devil growing up becomes useful once one outgrows the idea.

Discouragement to engage in popular culture, though, has negative consequences. Most don’t feel compelled and partake only on occasion. But to those who lack basic cultural references, a daunting challenge awaits. One could overcompensate and try to consume everything.

If one insists, there is a silver lining. It’s easy for adults to discount new things only as a bit different and not worth paying attention to. As a fraction of the sum of all past days, the value of each new day grows ever smaller after all. Maintaining childlike curiosity is hard.

Thus drastic changes in one’s worldview after youth present unique opportunities. Negative spaces left by discarded thoughts are useful scaffolds when building anew. Old ideas are new again. The ability developed through experience to grab thoughts by their affordances remain.

All the while, value systems are almost immutable. One could with great effort reorient the viewpoint of the mind. But the collections of the instances of existence that make the layers of the self remain. And so does the need for new layers to be of the compatible shape to add to such. Enough for today.