Philosophy Now Forum

I read about it in a book by Chris Guillebeau. I have not yet finished the book.

Do you have any pursuits that make your life interesting and worth living ?

Guillebeau himself wanted to go to all 192 countries in the world and he did.

John Francis decided to walk everywhere and he did, for example 20 miles to a party he was invited to.
I feel close to John in spirit because I also walk a lot in my city instead of going by tram or by bicycle.

Some people walk across the US.
Do you have any ideas ?

One woman got a date in every state of the US. Because dating in San Francisco seemed to her to be always the same.

Bernice Towers, a simple washer-woman, decided to stitch all her clothes that needed mending. She has stitched altogether 13,549 stitches in the rest of her life, of which she kept exact account. She employed three bookkeepers, and a chartered accountant to do the year-end statements of her stitches. She died of too much pleasure counting her stitches.

Eugene Stottenheimer, a simple clinical psychologist with Ph.D., decided to put a stitch in every one of his clothing, one in each state of the United ones of America. He did. He says he got never more fulfilled with any other pursuit in his life.

Helen Battisberger, of Toronto, Ontario, decided to take all her breaths that she breathed from 55 years of age onward, by herself, without anyone helping her or taking her place. She is still doing it, at the ripe age of much later. She said her life was empty, void of meaning, purpose or oxygen,when she decided to undertake this enormously enormous enorm.

Arthur Roman Zins, a simple man suffering of sadistic personality disorder, has personally undertaken to take the elevator or the stairs to his home in an apartment building every time he had to go home. He died laughing, with a smile on his face, of a massive cardiac arrest due to a coronary blood-flow-deficiency-related heart attack, on the seventh step between the eight and ninth floors.

George Beton, a simple English teacher, decided to swallow each gulp himself of the myriads of glasses of wine he had consumed, until he died. He smoked, too. He said he had a ball... but he lost it when he was eight years of age.

Naps (and *coffee) make the rollercoaster bearable.









*and smokes...and a good pair of shoes

A pursuit of what exactly?

I can say with great confidence, after I found out that there isn't anything really to be found, but the "wander" or questioning (and with this a contributor) of things,
the search on itself being the aim, and result, combined,
I have found peace of mind.

You can find great similarities with a feynman, or a lovelock, saying quite the same; not being afraid of the unknowing of things,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkhBcLk_8f0

but this hardly counts to make a point, any point.

Whatever makes the clock tick for anyone,
for others it might very well be "recorded" repetitive stitches of clothing or whatever (obvious results of a cultural given).

I can only say that when I can not fly like a butterfly,
from flower to flower, thought to thought, field to field, idea to idea,
cross examined, and back again,

life is meaningless.

A pursuit of what you feel like pursuing.

A man in Korea did a Refusal Therapy. He made unreasonable requests (asked in restaurants to allow him to cook his own meal, asked policemen to allow him to sit in their cars) and endured the refusals.

Birdwatching and ultrarunning and sailing around the world are other exaples.

Running the Amazon from the source to the end can be another.

You have to leave your comfort zone and to do a sacrifice of some kind.

Writing 10 000 limericks.

Walk around the world, along the equator, on your step machine placed under the table.

How many steps (60 centimeters each) would it take to walk the length of the equator ?

There is also the wearable measuring the steps which I don´t know from personal experience.

would you walk the equator as effected by gravity?

-Imp

I meant the length that is like the length of the eqator.

We could take the distance to the moon or to the sun.
How many marathons would it be ? Would a life span of a human being be enough ?

How long could a person stand on one foot ?
Reaching 24 hours without a break would be a kind of record and thus a pursuit if one trains every day to get to this result.

duszek wrote: ↑Mon Jun 17, 2019 4:21 pm I meant the length that is like the length of the eqator.

We could take the distance to the moon or to the sun.
How many marathons would it be ? Would a life span of a human being be enough ?

5280 feet in a mile.
Approximately 3 feet to a stride.
Approximately 1760 strides to a mile.
Approximately 45760000 strides to walk the equator.
Approximately 20000 strides a day, easy.
Approximately 2288 days.
Approximately 6.2 years if there’s not lollygagging, which there will be.

Much easier than traversing Tibet via a series of full-length prostrations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-hsCfIOasM

duszek wrote: ↑Mon Jun 17, 2019 4:25 pm How long could a person stand on one foot ?
Reaching 24 hours without a break would be a kind of record and thus a pursuit if one trains every day to get to this result.

How long could a person stand on three feet?
if you are going to stand on a 12" ruler, you might as well stand on a yard stick...

-Imp

Thanks for the calculations Walker.

Do you have some walking achievements of your own ?

One might walk the island Great Britain along the shore, it would take a about a year I suppose, without haste and with bird watching.
Or the island Guernsey or Australia.

I learned to simultaneously walk and read as a youngster, so I could read more. I thought nothing of it until I did it as an adult and was met with incredulity. Now, they're making it illegal in places (reading phones), or trying to.

The senses learn to simultaneously scan the surroundings and comprehend the text. The incredulity was met on a synthetic track in a small university town of all places, where we lived when I worked in a nearby city, which was too far away to walk and maintain the daily scheduling of events, but even then when removed from childhood I would remember Thoreau’s calculations when figuring the cost of a train ride vs. walking to a much more distant city, and apply the principle to office work vs. the totality of elemental existence, which led to a more outdoorsy life.

Walker wrote: ↑Mon Jun 17, 2019 6:22 pm I learned to simultaneously walk and read as a youngster, so I could read more. I thought nothing of it until I did it as an adult and was met with incredulity. Now, they're making it illegal in places (reading phones), or trying to.

The senses learn to simultaneously scan the surroundings and comprehend the text. The incredulity was met on a synthetic track in a small university town of all places, where we lived when I worked in a nearby city, which was too far away to walk and maintain the daily scheduling of events, but even then when removed from childhood I would remember Thoreau’s calculations when figuring the cost of a train ride vs. walking to a much more distant city, and apply the principle to office work vs. the totality of elemental existence, which led to a more outdoorsy life.

Walking and reading is one thing one can do.

Walking and creating texts, philosophical or literary,
walking and preparing speeches or posts,
or training on a step machine and doing these things, so that there is no danger of slipping or having an accident with someone on the way.

Outdoorsy life for me too, yeeees.