The Dudeism Forum

I've finally completed the first chapter of a book I'm writing, "Ignorant Wisdom: The Foolish Heart of Agnosticism". However, the next chapter on Ignorant Virtue is by far the hardest to write, especially, for an old brain damaged hippy dippy like myself used to over-indulging himself. I mean it quite literally when I call myself brain damaged, I fell down a flight of basement stairs at three years old and was in a coma for a week. I'm really lucky to be alive and it amazes me everyday that still am after all the stupid crap I've done. Does that help encourage anyone to help poor little old me? I could tell you more things that could possibly curl your hair about my life, but I'm working on figuring out how to put them all in the humorous context of ignorant wisdom.

I take a sort of perverse pleasure in grossly distorting and paraphrasing R. W. Emerson as saying, "Ignorant virtue is it's own reward, to have clueless friends you must first be a clueless friend". This I consider the bedrock assumption of ignorant virtue and I've always felt the biggest compliment anyone can give me is to say I helped them in some fashion when that was never my intention. It is just so nice to hear someone appreciated me for merely being the ignorant brain damaged hippy dippy I am. Anyway, ignorant virtue is the subject of the next chapter and I'm just not that virtuous frankly. I don't' chase after women or rob banks or whatever and believe it is certainly within my power to laugh at my own shortcomings, but any help would be appreciated as would any insight into exactly what the hell ignorant virtue means. I'll give a few more examples and then leave it up to this less than sterling crowd to throw rotten tomatoes or otherwise join in the fun. First, here's a stupid ditty I made up:

Ignorant wisdom is childishly knowing,
When complete idiots stop watching, where the hell they are going,
Somehow the foolish path isn't quite what it was,
Yet remains the unchanged,
As all the forks in the road,
Inanely look the same!

Ignorant virtue is the social implications of being able to laugh at ourselves with the gentle na?ve laughter of the toddler. It begins with accepting or embracing our own ignorance and stupidity, thus, becoming capable of helping ourselves as well as each other. So far, so good, but abstractions alone just don't tell the tale and I need feedback from the Dudely Lama or the maintenance guy or whoever. The funnier, the better.

Sounds like a definite achievement, wuliheron dude. Would be interesting to read your book.

Have you heard of the book by Alan Watts' "The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety"?  Check out - http://voices.yahoo.com/review-alan-watts-wisdom-insecurity-message-6760676.html

Quote from: DigitalBuddha on June 18, 2013, 05:45:27 PM
Sounds like a definite achievement, wuliheron dude. Would be interesting to read your book.

Have you heard of the book by Alan Watts' "The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety"?  Check out - http://voices.yahoo.com/review-alan-watts-wisdom-insecurity-message-6760676.html

Perfect, just the kind of ignorant crap from the kind of ignorant dude I love to read.

Quote from: wuliheron on June 18, 2013, 06:01:53 PM

Quote from: DigitalBuddha on June 18, 2013, 05:45:27 PM
Sounds like a definite achievement, wuliheron dude. Would be interesting to read your book.

Have you heard of the book by Alan Watts' "The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety"?  Check out - http://voices.yahoo.com/review-alan-watts-wisdom-insecurity-message-6760676.html

Perfect, just the kind of ignorant crap from the kind of ignorant dude I love to read.

That's just like his opinion, man. 

Quote from: DigitalBuddha on June 18, 2013, 06:06:32 PM

That's just like his opinion, man. 

Yeah, but his opinions are sometimes more ignorant than most which is exactly what I need.

P.S.- I still don't know if I'll ever publish my book. The only reason I started writing it was to sort out all this ignorant crap for myself and it's got so much ignorant academic mumbo jumbo I'm not sure I want to have to deal with all the ignorant bullshit I might hear. I've spent decades talking to ignorant Taoist masters, physicists, psychologists, etc. and those people can turn even the stupidest potty humor joke into an argument over human rights or religion or whatever. I even spoke with one guy who specializes in fuzzy logic and his work is classified by the US government as "vital to the national defense". As if anyone could ever keep a good joke secret for long. 

Hey Dude,

I really dig the thoughts you're injecting on these here boards.  Nice to meet you.

Anyway, with regard to the next chapter in your book (figuratively or literally, I guess), I thought I might chime in.  You know, when the Greeks wrote about "virtue" they weren't really referring to morality.  "Virtue" has only been equated with "morality" in these here modern and misguided times.  The question of virtue for the Greeks as well as others was basically, "how do you live a good life?" where "good" really meant meaningful or fulfilling.  That's why you get so many different answers (hedonism, stoicism, etc.) to the question of virtue.

So, anyway Dude, if you think about virtue in this way "Ignorant Virtue" makes some sense.  Essentially it's an investigation into how ignorance (and accepting ultimate ignorance) can lead a person to live a meaningful, fulfilling life.

That's just like my opinion man.  I also dearly love Alan Watts (and was in fact re-reading The Wisdom of Insecurity just this weekend), so anything he says is probably in the running for Dudely Message of Our Time. Also, some of the ideas you talked about with respect to "childish knowing" remind me of Ben Hoff's ideas in the Tao of Pooh (particularly when he talks about the idea of the "uncarved block").  Might want to check that out, too, if you haven't already.

Peace.

Quote from: wuliheron on June 18, 2013, 05:33:13 PM
I've finally completed the first chapter of a book I'm writing, "Ignorant Wisdom: The Foolish Heart of Agnosticism". However, the next chapter on Ignorant Virtue is by far the hardest to write, especially, for an old brain damaged hippy dippy like myself used to over-indulging himself. I mean it quite literally when I call myself brain damaged, I fell down a flight of basement stairs at three years old and was in a coma for a week. I'm really lucky to be alive and it amazes me everyday that still am after all the stupid crap I've done. Does that help encourage anyone to help poor little old me? I could tell you more things that could possibly curl your hair about my life, but I'm working on figuring out how to put them all in the humorous context of ignorant wisdom.

I take a sort of perverse pleasure in grossly distorting and paraphrasing R. W. Emerson as saying, "Ignorant virtue is it's own reward, to have clueless friends you must first be a clueless friend". This I consider the bedrock assumption of ignorant virtue and I've always felt the biggest compliment anyone can give me is to say I helped them in some fashion when that was never my intention. It is just so nice to hear someone appreciated me for merely being the ignorant brain damaged hippy dippy I am. Anyway, ignorant virtue is the subject of the next chapter and I'm just not that virtuous frankly. I don't' chase after women or rob banks or whatever and believe it is certainly within my power to laugh at my own shortcomings, but any help would be appreciated as would any insight into exactly what the hell ignorant virtue means. I'll give a few more examples and then leave it up to this less than sterling crowd to throw rotten tomatoes or otherwise join in the fun. First, here's a stupid ditty I made up:

Ignorant wisdom is childishly knowing,
When complete idiots stop watching, where the hell they are going,
Somehow the foolish path isn't quite what it was,
Yet remains the unchanged,
As all the forks in the road,
Inanely look the same!

Ignorant virtue is the social implications of being able to laugh at ourselves with the gentle na?ve laughter of the toddler. It begins with accepting or embracing our own ignorance and stupidity, thus, becoming capable of helping ourselves as well as each other. So far, so good, but abstractions alone just don't tell the tale and I need feedback from the Dudely Lama or the maintenance guy or whoever. The funnier, the better.

Quote from: MindAbiding on June 18, 2013, 06:40:28 PM
Hey Dude,

I really dig the thoughts you're injecting on these here boards.  Nice to meet you.

Anyway, with regard to the next chapter in your book (figuratively or literally, I guess), I thought I might chime in.  You know, when the Greeks wrote about "virtue" they weren't really referring to morality.  "Virtue" has only been equated with "morality" in these here modern and misguided times.  The question of virtue for the Greeks as well as others was basically, "how do you live a good life?" where "good" really meant meaningful or fulfilling.  That's why you get so many different answers (hedonism, stoicism, etc.) to the question of virtue. The guy even ignored his own kids and his wife was the most notorious shrew in all Athens.

So, anyway Dude, if you think about virtue in this way "Ignorant Virtue" makes some sense.  Essentially it's an investigation into how ignorance (and accepting ultimate ignorance) can lead a person to live a meaningful, fulfilling life.

That's just like my opinion man.  I also dearly love Alan Watts (and was in fact re-reading The Wisdom of Insecurity just this weekend), so anything he says is probably in the running for Dudely Message of Our Time. Also, some of the ideas you talked about with respect to "childish knowing" remind me of Ben Hoff's ideas in the Tao of Pooh (particularly when he talks about the idea of the "uncarved block").  Might want to check that out, too, if you haven't already.

Peace.

Man, you just blew my mind with that crap! Suddenly I see Socrates in an entirely different light. All these years people have been pushing the dude on me like some kind holier than thou patron saint of virtue and it just never made sense to me that a guy who like to drink so much, run around barefoot, was ugly as sin, asked people embarrassing questions, and had questionable hygiene could ever become a model of virtue. He even ignored his own kids and his wife was the most notorious shrew in all Athens.

P.S.- I'm thinking of publishing some stuff here, but because it's an ignorant philosophy it champions agnosticism and anarchism and I don't want to offend anyone's Dudely spiritual sensibilities.

Welcome to lour nice quiet beach community wuliheron dude.
Have you checked out the Dudespaper? http://dudespaper.com/
The Dudely Lama is always looking for gud writers to add a few words or more maybe.

Peace dude!

Quote from: cckeiser on June 18, 2013, 08:21:14 PM
Welcome to lour nice quiet beach community wuliheron dude.
Have you checked out the Dudespaper? http://dudespaper.com/
The Dudely Lama is always looking for gud writers to add a few words or more maybe.

Peace dude!

Yeah, I sent him or her or himher  an email and they seemed real interested in my philosophy. Maybe too interested. Every time I actually manage to get across to someone what its about they all go real quiet. The last guy was this Socratic philosopher with like 700 books on philosophy who keeps telling me he has a hard time following what I'm saying. I tell them all I'm speaking plain English dude and using the dictionary definitions of words and I welcome any problems they can point out with my grammar or whatever, but I think they either just don't get it man or, for whatever reason, they are rendered speechless or something.