Getting ready is a paradox.

When we say, "Let's get ready!" we're participating in a paradox. In one sense, we're inviting the unexpected to begin. We're excited about the unknown and we have a "bring it on" attitude.

On the other hand, the act of "getting ready" requires preparing for the unknown. Getting a hat if it's sunny. Bringing an umbrella. Checking the gas in the car.

So at the same time as proclaiming readiness for the world, we try to minimize any of its affect on us.*

___

* This entry is adapted from Breakfast with Socrates : an extraordinary (philosophical) journey through your ordinary day by Robert Rowland Smith

Self-help is a way of avoiding death.

The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said that we humans often cope with the anxiety of our impending death through religion.

Another way we cope with death is to, "Bravely throw myself into acts of 'defiant self-creation'. In other words, by making something of ourselves. By self-helping ourselves so that we become immortal.

Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein sum up the idea in their book Heidegger and a Hippo Walk Through Those Pearly Gates: Using Philosophy (and Jokes!) to Explore Life, Death, the Afterlife, and Everything in Between:

Think positive thoughts! Dare to dream the impossible dream! Visualize great goals! Harness the secret powers of the law of attraction! Then my life will have meaning, and that meaning will transcend death. (p.40)

Perhaps. Or maybe self-help is just a way of trying to succeed. I think it's presumptuous to dismiss a whole ares of self-knowledge by saying "it's a way of denying death".

Although, I do find myself wanting to agree with Soren Kierkegaard. I generally think poorly of the self-help movement. I view it as a way of voluntary brainwashing yourself, and I think that self-help ultimately leads to depression through narcissism.

Time theft is a serious crime.

Is time theft morally wrong? Let's examine the issue.

Time Theft Is Wrong

We'll define "time theft" as time spent at work not working when you should be. In other words, if you work an eight hour day and you're doing personal things outside of your 15 minute breaks, you're "stealing time".

Let's make the case of it being immoral. First, you agreed to work for your employer in exchange for a salary. Your employer has this expectation. When you waste time, you're breaking a promise to your employer.

You are also damaging your employer's ability to do business, satisfy customers and pay other employees. When you aren't working, your employer is less efficient and they make less revenue or lose more money.

So your "time theft" also hurts others who rely on the organization.

***

Time Theft is Okay

On the other hand, your employer probably has an expectation that some time theft is reasonable - as long as your important work gets done.

Also, your employer has an obligation to supply you with work (or to make clear that you need to initiate work on your own). Your employer should also supply you with the tools and training to get the work done.

If your employer does not supply you with work or with the tools to do this work, then you do not have an obligation to "complete" anything for them.

Conclusion

Overall, I conclude that there's a stronger case for arguing that time theft is wrong.

Other Points to Consider

* Would it make a difference if your own manager or boss "time theft" himself or herself? And that there was an unstated culture of time theft throughout the workplace?

* Would it make a difference if you stole time as a way of revenging some other injustice?

* How about if you stole time, but told your employer about it, so that they knew you weren't busy enough. Would that make it okay?

* What about if you realized yourself that by "time-theft" you actually made yourself more efficient and productive as an employee, because you've had that added rest. Would it still be unethical? Should you be allowed to make that judgement?

***

Note: I wrote this entry at work.

Do you truly know something if you know it for the wrong reasons?

This is called epistemology - philosophical discussions about the nature of knowledge. A friend and I were talking about this. He posed the above question to me and I told him it was a tough question but that my gut told me no.

If you know something for the wrong reason, you don't truly know that thing. I used the crude example of high school math text books with the answers in the back. If you turned to the back and wrote down the answers, you'd ace the assignment. But you'd obviously have no idea how to do math - so you truly wouldn't understand.

He agreed and used a better example. Imagine you're watching Wimbledon - but it was in actuality a re-run of last year's Wimbledon going on at the same time as this years. So, in fact, you thought you were watching this year's Wimbledon. And indeed it has all the same tennis stars and matches and lo and behold the same winner - Andre Agassiz.

So do you truly know the winner of Wimbledon? You'd say "Andre Agassiz" and you'd be correct. (Because he won last year as well.) But it seems obvious that you don't truly know the winner of this year's Wimbledon.

Only by concidence, your knowledge happened to be correct. You watched last year's Wimbledon, thinking it was this years, and that means your knowledge was incomplete, unbenowst to you.

Likewise, you also wouldn't truly know who won last year's Wimbledon - even though you just watched it on TV. That's because you thought you were watching this year's Wimbledon. So we have the same problem, but in reverse.

"If I were you I would..."

That statement is just so illogical. If you were me, you would do exactly as I just did - because you would be me.

You'd have no choice. If you were me, you would have experienced the exact same conditions in my life that caused me to do what I just did or choose what I just chose.

However, if you weren't me (which you are clearly not), then you may have made a different choice. I'm sure this is what you mean.

More interestingly, the topic brings up the whole idea of free will. Think of a major decision you made in the past. Now could you have chosen otherwise?

At first thought you might say yes, of course you could have. But then why didn't you?

I'd argue the answer is no - you could not have chosen otherwise. You think you could because it seems like you could have, yet ultimately, your choice could have been predicted by a supreme being or computer that had known everything that happened in your life plus every physical action in the universe.

We like to think that we have free will. It's important that we think this, otherwise we might as well let all criminals out of jail. But, in fact, free will is just another illusion that we puny humans need to help us cope and survive in the world.



That is all.