Plato’s cave

  Existential anxiety causes verbal diarrhea. I am an unwilling eavesdropper. …in coffee shops, I hear—without wanting to—the conversations of those nearby and their monologues on the phone:  everyone now talks constantly on their phone, loudly, saying trivialities.  In other words, not only do I not enjoy hearing about the “pending ironing of clothes,” but it also irritates me.  Nor am I interested in what “the godmother said.”  Nor in the “leaky faucet that needs replacing.”  Nor in “headaches and constipation.”  Forty years as a doctor, headaches and constipation have occupied me enough: that’s enough.  And “numbness in the hands” and “unsteadiness in the legs,” too.  I’m sorry, I’m exhausted.  And geopolitical problems, as well.  I’ve reached a conclusion.  Everything is the Americans’ fault.  Everyone else is a saint.  I am insignificant and beg to be left alone in my insignificance. Whoever disturbs me in my cor...

  …I decided to philosophize a bit, with the help of Grok3 AI. I must admit that it performs admirably, providing clear answers in a split second: straightforward, understandable, concise, without… empty talk. Platon Manias Questions: Question A. …What is the meaning of Jean-Paul Sartre’s well-known phrase “existence precedes essence”? Answer: Jean-Paul Sartre’s phrase “existence precedes essence” is central to his existentialist philosophy and encapsulates the idea that humans are not born with a predetermined purpose or essence, unlike, for example, an object (a knife has the essence of cutting). Instead, humans first exist, meaning they come into the world without a predefined nature, and then, through their choices, actions, and freedom, they create their own essence, that is, their meaning and identity. In simple terms, the phrase means that there is no innate destiny or divine plan that determines what we are. We are free to shape our lives, but this freedom comes with the re...

…The view that one people is the “cause of evil” and that it’s enough to eliminate them to solve our problems is not only criminal but also foolish and short-sighted: Alright… the Germans killed 6 million Jews and Romani people.. and what did they achieve? The Jewish nation survived elsewhere… and prospered and thrived. And the Germans, they burdened themselves with a terrible stigma and immense guilt… …that will follow them for centuries. A stigma that makes other peoples view them with dislike and suspicion. The same happened to the Turks: What did they achieve by exterminating one and a half million Armenians and 350 thousand Pontians? The Armenians and Pontians survived elsewhere as ethnic groups…But the stigma of barbarity and the complex will follow Turkey. The same happened to the Americans with Vietnam and recently with Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan: They tried, supposedly, to impose democracy and freedom… on primitive and oppressive regimes… ..and all they achieved was to cause...

  God is in favor of experiential learning. My intuition tells me that the story between Israel and Iran will likely end badly.  Both are fanatically religious peoples… and that’s fine in small doses… but in large ones, it’s deadly.  I see various Jews seriously claiming that they are the chosen people by God:  “people chosen by the God,” one said seriously in an interview I saw on YouTube.  And I’ve heard it from others too.  If you feel you are “God’s chosen,” you obviously believe you have more rights to survive than all the other peoples around you. Then I remembered a Muslim, a Pakistani doctor in Saudi Arabia, telling me seriously that all scientific discoveries that have been made - and will be made in the future - are written in the Quran in embryonic form.  He was an elderly doctor who had studied and practiced medicine and his specialty for many years in a completely rational way, but he didn’t realize that the immense complexity of science c...