~ The Meaning of Life ~

[Bill Wiltrack]

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Thank you. Seriously, thank you. I think I have well earned the right to be the de facto leader of The PhilosophyNow Forums.


No one has added more valuable content to this forum over the past few years - certainly 2015 included.


I changed the scope of the forum. Over the years I introduced short posts, images & GIFs, the use of font size as a common tool, and focused threads upon current topics & personal value of opinions.


...this forum used to be extremely stuffy. Doing nothing but talking about old dead philosophies; old dead philosophers.


I added honesty. I made each post into a work of art and exciting content.



You're welcome.





I thank all of you for your praise and I enjoy seeing all of you post, as honest as you can, on the world's greatest philosophy forum that has ever existed to this point - The PhilosophyNow Forums.





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[Walker]

[Bill Wiltrack]

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This site has provided a great forum for me to give literal meaning to my thoughts and feelings.




I thank the great work of the Moderators for their continued commitment and I appreciate the foresight of Rick Lewis in creating and maintaining his vision for modern philosophy forums.



I know Rick wants me to submit a column for his snail mail magazine.

And I realize I guaranteed long ago that whatever month I appear in his rag....I-I - mean mag, that that month will be the highest volume of sales that he will ever experience up to that point. But I don't know if I am ready yet.


I still want to push the importance of the on-line content.

It curdles my stomach when I see ancient philosophers appear in his magazine because most of whatever appears here at The PhilosophyNow Forum site is WAY BETTER than any dead pseudo-philosophers may have jotted-down in the past...


WE KNOW MORE. WE HAVE EXPERIENCED MORE. OUR VOCABULARY IS WAAAAAAAY MORE EXTENSIVE. We have experienced more mind altering drugs and more pressure from the intense civility that approaches us from within and from without this Ethernet where we seemingly exist.




Thank you again for the support & emulation. That makes it all worthwhile...




In brotherhood, Bill Wiltrack.






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[Hobbes' Choice]

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You guys - BOTH you guys are continuing to creep me out.

Why? You're the one who finds a transsexual attractive.

Can't even imagine who you guys hang-out with..

Don't know about Hobbes but my hangout, so far, includes women, men and homosexuals of various stripes.

The only people I will not have much patience for is someone overtly religious. And none at all for Tories.

I'll hang out with any one who is a good and interesting person. In Brighton, gay bars are often the most civilised.
David Bowie helped make that possible.
He's a great loss to art.

[Walker]

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You guys - BOTH you guys are continuing to creep me out.

Why? You're the one who finds a transsexual attractive.

Can't even imagine who you guys hang-out with..

Don't know about Hobbes but my hangout, so far, includes women, men and homosexuals of various stripes.

The only people I will not have much patience for is someone overtly religious. And none at all for Tories.

I'll hang out with any one who is a good and interesting person. In Brighton, gay bars are often the most civilised.
David Bowie helped make that possible.
He's a great loss to art.

Ladies. Gentlemen. Howdy. My respects to you all, and to the memory of David Bowie. Hope all is well with you, that life is good.

You know, I never thought of Bowie in the defining terms of transexual. Is that what they're called? Cross-dressers? I'm not sure of all the distinctions. I suspected Bowie was an act. Something to watch, because he was popular and I wondered why. Why would something like that be popular? I was young and didn’t know much about the ways of people. So many of my generation had been raised to invalidate though the prejudices of the previous generation. Coming of age was expanding consciousness beyond those old predudices, and someone doing what Bowie did was very strange to see. Freak show. But, what the hell was going on?

Life and years taught me that Bowie was amazing. Nobody knew how to take that guy in the his early years of fame. For awhile I thought he was a woman pretending to be a man. And I didn’t see the talent at first. I thought the voice was mediocre, at best. But there’s this thing about artists. Capacity-wise it helps to be a bird, but the essentials are to carry a tune and learn some tricks, and not even that when there’s no such thing as a wrong note.

Most likely I have a heightened sensitivity to sound.

It’s the recognition of the sound that he creates that counts for an artist in Bowie’s medium. The distinction, what sets that sound apart from all other sounds in the universe, so that when you hear it sung fresh, you instantly know who it is.

I read the same thing about The Duke. You can look at his shadow and know it’s The Duke by the posture, the hat. He had a way of walking on his toes rather than his heels, so that he moved like a dancer. Watch the walk. He’s an artist. The Duke was a dancer, stylized and conscious of the lighting, the angles, the mark of where to stand. And how to get the cash. His gift as an artist was to transcend those limitations and show us humanity, through his actions. His physical being was his instrument. His body, his voice, his mind. This is the same as Bowie.

I remember the Bing Crosby special. That’s what sold me on Bowie. It was a little skit and I got something from it, whether or not what I got was factual, it is what I remember. It was a skit set in a home, supposedly Bing’s, at Christmastime. With an audience, in studio and at home. Bowie was dropping in for a visit and to sing some harmony. It was a meeting of generations, of styles, of what it meant to be a man. Bing was old school and a bit of a wise guy. Put-down artist. Smug from his accomplishments in life, his fame.

I met man and his wife once. I did some work for them. They were old. They told me that on their honeymoon Big Crosby was at the hotel, and he hit on the wife. On her honeymoon. I asked them what they thought of this, and they said something, what they were supposed to say, what they had tuned over the years in telling the story. I saw unstated pride in the telling, that they had told it before, and I thought it peculiar. But I didn’t judge them because they had seen so much more of life.

Bing and Bowie were playing themselves in the skit. Bowie … that’s what sold me on Bowie. I saw then and there, that he was decent man. What a valuable thing that is to be, for the soul, for everyone that he encountered. Some have to work harder at it. (raise hand)

There is that gender bender thing about Bowie. I think it showed an early fluidity of consciousness, a mind not bound to the fears within others. In a way he saying, yes I’m your monkey, and I entertain you, but listen to what I have to say, because it’s important for you to hear and I challenge your ideas of who you think it is that you are.

I hear Prince is like that, though Prince seems like the Catylin Jenner type. Someone Catylin would like, which may be of interest to the Catylin fanclub and Posters. Remember the old Posters, Farrah Fawcett started that trend. I don’t know if that Prince is a good man, though. Probably depends on what good means these days. Meanings change. It’s like the word sick. Last I heard, sick meant pretty good, which is sick if you go by the old definition. I’ve heard on a radio show, I think it was, that 10 minutes in his presence will alter the consciousness and identity of even the delusional and though I don’t know if that’s true it’s a brilliant line for someone to have written or said, if they did.

[Bill Wiltrack]

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[Walker]

[Obvious Leo]

I echo the thoughts already expressed at the death of David Bowie. His was a unique creative talent which inspired many artists to dare to be different and to celebrate their own individuality through whatever artistic medium they chose. He rose to prominence in the popular culture at exactly the right time for me and the impact he made on this budding contrarian at the time has stayed with me forever. Ziggy did his shit in his own way and people could either like it or make their own arrangements, but no sooner did we figure him out than the shape-shifting Bowie had transformed himself into a new character. The thin white duke redefined performance art and he will be sadly missed.

[Hobbes' Choice]

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A pale imitation whose existence was made possible by the ground that Bowie broke.

Screen Shot 2016-01-11 at 20.13.28.png

When this image appear on British TV, the world changed.

[Hobbes' Choice]

You know, I never thought of Bowie in the defining terms of transexual. Is that what they're called? Cross-dressers? I'm not sure of all the distinctions. I suspected Bowie was an act. .

I read what you wrote, in full.

Guess what - you don't get it.

[Obvious Leo]

I read what you wrote, in full.

Guess what - you don't get it.

HaHa. I read it too and thought the same thing and that this bloke doesn't get Bowie at all. I didn't bother commenting directly because I reckon to get Bowie you sort of had to be there as part of the broader cultural zeitgeist. Very few Americans would have had a hope of understanding the early Bowie in his correct context although he later deliberately incorporated many of the American musical styles into his own work.

[Walker]

It was a long time ago, like I said, and he was decent. The rest is ornaments.

*

“but no sooner did we figure him out than the shape-shifting Bowie had transformed himself into a new character.”

Uh huh. You two had him figured out. You and everybody else who thought they did.

[Obvious Leo]

It was a long time ago, like I said, and he was decent.

It was a long time ago that Bowie started out in his career but his influence on artists ever since has been profound. More than any other musical artist Bowie was an innovative creator of new musical styles, many of which never caught on in the broader community but all of which reflected different aspects of his restless creative spirit. That he was above all a decent human being is something we can heartily agree on. David Bowie was a thoughtful genius but his true legacy is that he was also a warm and generous bloke who loved his fellow man. If the notion of living the examined life is to have any meaning at all then we could hardly do better than offer him as an example of it.

[Bill Wiltrack]

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[Walker]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzPeX6BOVek

(Bill, if you would be kind enough to click the link, you'll find singing and playing to the rhythm of your latest good gif changes.)