The theme header quotes as shown in my blog RJsCorner header above is a foundational part of where I am in my life right now.

• Think For Yourself
• Question Everything
• Never Stop Learning

They are some major drivers in my life, and they have always been there in the background since I was a small child. In my early years I, like most other kids, asked “Why” enough to make my questions annoying to the grown-ups around me. Unlike most other kids I never really stopped asking those questions. That has gotten me in more trouble than probably anything else I have done in my life. 😙

It got me kicked out of a Lutheran Church because I asked the “wrong” questions. Asking socially inappropriate questions made my dating life limited to one or two dates for their bluntness. I likely lost many possible friendships because I asked “weird” questions. Questioning everything has gotten me in trouble. I think my Aspie traits are behind my constant questions. They cause me to be blunt and focused without regard to the feelings of those around me. Or at least that is what they tell me. Now, in the last stages of my life, I have to ask myself whether my questioning everything mantra has been worth it? I and emphatically answer

YES!!

I can’t imagine a life where I just take whatever is given me without questions. My life has been fuller because of questions and especially because of the work to find the answers.

Finally, getting to the title of this post, I guess I am an armchair philosopher, or maybe a blue-collar philosopher down to my core. No, I haven’t had any formal education in philosophy, but I kinda think that if I had it would probably have driven me in out of the field. Too much memorizing other poeple’s thoughts instead of creating my own. I don’t want to get bogged down in the historical details of critical thinking. I enjoying look at life and asking myself if it is possible to have followed a different path than we have collectively gone as a nation or a world?

Is it possible for us as a country to start asking more questions instead of just accepting what is put in front of us? The lies, alternative truths, and conspiracy theories seem to be drowning us now. We simply take too much for granted and without questions.

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Closing out this post, I intend to bring up armchair philosopher type posts more often to try to get others to ask questions, instead of blindly following something as too many lazy minds do today. For some reason I have taken up studying the words of the great philosophers of our times. Plato, Socrates, Kant, Nietzsche fascinate me with how they viewed their worlds. I think you probably know most on this list except maybe Kant. So, here is a little about him to the right.

I have been asking myself more philosophical questions the last year or so, and have been reading more about philosophy. That is bound to come up more frequently in 2021. Won’t that be interesting? 🧐