Idle Minds

Thinking that much has been accomplished by the mind that is not occupied completely with work, completely with children, or completely with a game. (Kind of admitting a flawed spot there).

The ancient philosophers sat around in discussions of every topic. I like to imagine that each day another person could bring up a topic that would then be discussed for hours on end. Everyone goes home thinking that they won the argument of the day, then they all wake up tomorrow and start it again. Fortunately, some of them wrote down strong conclusions from those discussions and took full credit for the ideas. At least we got something out of it.

I like to tell my students that one day someone was walking, accidentally kicked a stone over to find that the bottom of the rock had an inscription. It said that every circle measured 360 degrees around. They tend to doubt my sharing a truthful story, but they would probably follow their GPS over a cliff.

Instead, the great thinkers probably argued over the number to choose. Someone suggested 100, but they eventually realized that 360 was divisible by every number from 1 to 12 except, 7 and 11. Great choice.

Our closest experience to the philosophers gatherings is going to college. My college experience worked a little differently than this model for philosophers.

At our brotherhood of engineers gathering (a fraternity house dinner of 25 hungry students), someone mentioned that a guy from the house across the street threw a water balloon over onto our lawn trying to hit him as he walked to the house.

It was on!

We put our minds together and came up with a contraption designed to end the water balloon war (which simply began on a playful afternoon each spring). We called it the rocket launcher.

The launcher required 5 men to operate to send a balloon streaming across the street like an arrow from a bow. Two held the sides of the base, one pulled back the bucket with the balloon, then two held the guy who pulled back the bucket or he would be launched with it.  Water balloon fights with the house across the street occurred until they would break a window, then send the treasurer over with a check to pay for it.

Those were the days of great philosophy.

Could I just add that the attached photo was done by using the AI generated photo option. Apparently it used my title. Was kind of hoping it would make a water balloon launcher.

Have a Happy Friday.