Earlier I praised the idea of combining a favorite piece of music with an outdoor or camping situation. The argument was platitudinous, perhaps.
Last night I made the idea concrete. Recall that my old pup and I took a nice walk near sunset, with the rocks reflecting the lowering sun. I felt quietly euphoric for several reasons.
I was back inside my camper before the sun literally set. The view probably got better and better outdoors but I preferred to look at a quadrilateral of coloring light on the ugly unpainted plywood wall inside the camper.
And I played some famous music by Schubert: it goes by different names, such as "Serenade" or "Schwanengesang" (Swan Song.) But it helps to use a number when looking things up: D. 957. I prefer the solo piano version, arranged by Liszt.
Even though I was familiar with the music and have almost overplayed it the last month, it seemed twice as enjoyable right then and there. Why is that? Should I even try to analyze it?
Maybe there is a mood to sunset that I underestimate because I do everything in the morning.
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This is an example of how vapid, pompous, and verbal a "mighty idea" can be, and how lively it can seem when it becomes freshly incarnated in daily experience. Thus I will continue to have less and less interest in philosophy, and more and more interest in metaphors, novels, or cinema.
Comments
In truth, it isn't that you will "have less and less interest in philosophy" (spoken as if you could WILL such a thing.) You are simply saying that you've had enough of philosophical dialectic; however, symbol, metaphor, archetype, myth, etc. are your current top choice to study the modalities of philosophy expression.
George
There is an anecdote in Franklin's Autobiography that showed him going through a loss of interest in metaphysical argumentation. It is relevant here.