des·ti·ny [ déstinee ] (plural des·ti·nies)

Definition:

1. the apparently predetermined and inevitable series of events that happen to somebody or something

2. the inner purpose of a life that can be discovered and realized - encarta

When we start out in life, is it at all possible for us
to have a sense of our destiny; a sense of what
awaits us and the meaning of it all?

I think most of us would answer this question with
a simple “No”; music legend Bob Dylan, however,
thinks differently

A few years back, at the time of the publication of
his memoirs, Chronicles: Volume One, he had this
to say about his sense of what was before him when
set out for New York City back in 1961

conformity is defined as,

1. doing and thinking as others: behavior or
thought that is socially acceptable or expected
- Encarta

throughout the day, consciously or not, we choose
to either accept or reject conformity

that is, at some level, we decide whether we will
think and act in ways that are accepted and
expected

but -

what do such decisions say about us?

what factors influence our decisions?

what are the consequences of choosing to conform?

and

What should we do - conform, or not conform?

let’s see how some of our best thinkers have
addressed these questions -

The average man is a conformist, accepting
miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow
standing in the rain.
~ Colin Wilson

Fashion is what you adopt when you don’t know
who you are.
- Quentin Crisp

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the
majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
~ Mark Twain

The conventional view serves to protect us
from the painful job of thinking.
~ J.K. Galbraith

Follow the path of the unsafe, independent
thinker. Expose your ideas to the danger of
controversy. Speak your mind and fear less
the label of “crackpot” than the stigma of
conformity.
- Thomas John Watson, Sr.

The opposite of courage is conformity. Even
a dead fish can go with the flow.
- Jim Hightower

Be who you are and say what you feel, because
those who mind don’t matter and those who
matter don’t mind.
~ Dr. Seuss

The individual has always had to struggle to
keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If
you try it, you will be lonely often, and some-
times frightened. But no price is too high to
pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The reward for conformity is that everyone likes
you but yourself.
- Rita Mae Brown

We are half ruined by conformity, but we
should be wholly ruined without it.
- Charles Dudley Warner

Be neither a conformist or a rebel, for they are
really the same thing. Find your own path, and
stay on it.
~ Paul Vixie

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), among modern
philosophers, was one of the first and the very few
to focus on the phenomenon of Love

Schopenhauer’s philosophy of love is remarkable in
that it not only addresses one of our most pressing
concerns, love, but it also introduces concepts that
would later become central to the work of Charles
Darwin and Sigmund Freud -

concepts relating to the drive toward propagation,
unconscious factors influencing mate selection and
variation among individuals across generations

Schopenhauer’s assertions about love include:

- love is an issue that philosophers have tended to
overlook or dismiss

- love is a central, if not THE central, concern of our
lives; and it is a key aspect of what he calls our
“Will to Life”

- beneath our conscious preoccupation with love is
a powerful, more basic, more important and largely
unconscious desire to reproduce, to propagate the
species

- we are unconsciously driven to seek out a mate
whose attributes, in conjunction with ours, will result
in offspring whose ability to survive and reproduce
exceeds our own

the video below reviews Schopenhauer’s assertions
about love in greater detail

the above video is an excerpt from Alain de Botton’s
“Philosophy: A Guide to Happiness”

“You Got to Go With What You Got” is a central tenet
of baseball philosophy

one of the great things about it is that each word is
short, simple and awkwardly placed

also, its grammatically incorrect; and at first, you’re
not really sure what it refers to

it seems like something the great baseball philoso-
pher Yogi Berra might have said - a Yogiism

and therefore you sense that there is some deep
meaning hidden among those simple and jumbled
words

in baseball, “You Got to Go With What You Got” is
often applied to pitchers

each pitcher has a repertoire of pitches; for example,
a fastball might be his best pitch - his strikeout pitch

he may also have a decent curveball and slider,
pitches he can rely on

but one of the mysteries of baseball is that on any
given night, one, two or all three of the pitches in
his repertoire may be ineffective and -

he gets knocked around in the early innings

you might hear the TV play-by-play announcer say,
“He just doesn’t seem to have his fastball tonight.”

to which the color commentator will respond,
“Yeah, he’s just gonna have to go with what he’s
got, his curveball and slider”

and all this is part of the greatness of baseball,
part of its philosophy; a philosophy we can apply
to our daily lives

you and i may not have a repertoire of pitches
per se; but we have repertoire of skills and assets;

and we rely on these when we “take the field”
each day to go up against challenges at our place
of work

your “best pitch” might be the love that you bring
to the job

or maybe your best pitch is smarts - your
intelligence and experience

then again maybe it’s will - persistence and
determination to see things through

but whatever the repertoire of skills; whatever your
chief skill or asset happens to be -

some days you just don’t got it, it just isn’t there;
you are without your best pitch, and maybe another

like the savvy, veteran pitcher, you have to make do -

You got to go with what you got.

What is being?

this question was central to the work of Martin
Heidegger, one of the twentieth century’s most
influential philosophers

Heidegger believed that Western philosophy had
focused on beings and ignored the more basic
question of being itself; dismissing it as too vague
or too obvious to pursue

Being and Time, Heidegger’s best known work,
places the focus on this most basic question

in this work, our being is examined in the context
of time; and the concepts of intention and becoming
are key

the BBC video below highlights Being and Time and
its key premises