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Picture by Alexey Volkov - Found Here

Some funny stories about Ancient philosophy

So, new semester, new MOOC. I am allegedly addicted to those weird distant classes on impossibly random subject, and I am not sure I can deny.
So, I signed up for an "Ancient Philosophy - Plato and his predecessors" class.
And OH GOOD LORD, 2500 years later, Philosophy is still awesomely fun.
Let me give you some examples:

There's a guy, Hyppolitus of Rome (170 - 235 BCE), who wrote a book "the refutation of all heresies", in which he refutes all pagan philosophies, because... because. The guy was a christian bishop, and he didn't really like those philosophical treaties, so he made a book about it.
The thing is, that the books and treaties that the ancient philosophers wrote has been lost through history and because how do you want to salvage ancient books and lore when humans have trouble remembering where they put their damn car keys five minutes ago.
Anyway, the original books are lost and have been so for a millennia or two. So finding honest  and complete historical sources from this time is a pain.
why am I telling you this? Remember the guy who wanted to  refute all the ancient philosophies because it was heretical and so on? Well, this guy's book ended up being one of the most prominent historical source in the preservation and diffusion of the ancient philosophy.
Call it Kharma or Irony, but as dead as he is, I think Hyppolitus might be pissed.

Another funny story:
So there was this guy, Heraclitus (540 BCE) who was called the Riddler because his work had a reputation to be obscure, complex and full of paradoxes.
To give you an Idea of how complicated we are talking about, let me quote Socrates talking about Heraclitus' book; "The parts I understood were very impressive and so wer the parts I didn't understand".
So basically, Socrates says "sounds great, butI couldn't get everything, the thing is damn complicated"

In short, I am having fun.

So I finished reading Harry Potter again

I must have read the harry potter series probably 10 times. Maybe more. I read it in both English and French. and I love every page of it.

And no matter how many times I read it, I am never psychologically prepared for people to die. [For the record, this article will be full of spoilers if you never read or watched the series, but you should be ashames if you haven’t at least done one of the two. It’s been years, seriously, what are you waiting for?!]

So, I just finished re-reading the entire series. Meaning that I just closed the seventh book, Harry Potter and the deathly hallows. And let me tell you this, I AM STILL NOT OVER IT! Not at all. I still cry like a child feeling that my best friends just died and the feeling of hollowness and loss is heart crushing.

Hedwige death was a hard blow. And I managed to get over Moody’s death, because hey, he had a long life full of adventure and died in battle. The man wouldn’t have wanted to leave too old to be constantly vigilant. It was the right way for him to go.

Dobby was a hero and I cried for him. He was an impossibly naive house elf, and seriously I liked him.

Why Lavander? She was a good girl. She wasn’t a grand hero like the golden trio, but she was a good person. She loved and laughed and fought for what she thought was good.

And why Colin Creevey? He was so sweet and so innocent!

WHY FRED? WHY?
I wept and cried and sobbed. Because it’s not fair! Because Fred and Georges were those who brought light and laugh, those who were loyal and brave and strong, but who recognized the necessity of making people dream and laugh. They believed in there project and worked hard to be successful in business, they were loving and fun. AND SERIOUSLY IT HURTS.

THEN LUPIN AND TONKS? SERIOUSLY?!
They just had a baby! Lupin, after all those tragedy in his life was finally happy! He had a son and a loving wife! He had faced so much and had been alone so long, WHY?
And Tonks! She was a mother, married to a man she loved and who loved her in return!

So yeah, I cried like a child, and writing this makes my throat tighten and I wish I could have my lovely monster to hug me, because I am seriously aching from the loss. They might be fictional characters, but they kept me company during hard times, the made me dream and laugh and cry and they taught me so much. I will probably never be over the Harry Potter series.

Embrace your difference

Here is something I first saw somewhere last year, and it reappeart recently on Neil Gaiman's Tumblr, so I thought I would post it here.
When I first watched it, I wasn't exactly at my best. I was at the end of my marketing master degree and as you probably know, I didn't exactly fit in with my classmates. I was some kind of alien creature to them, always with a book, always studying weird subjects, having hobbies and interest that to them seem peculiar if not utterly boring.
I have been through some dark days, through out my life. Not that I deserve to be patted in the back of congratulated for surviving, but I must admit that I have some kind of pride for managing to live trough out this. It wasn't easy, I am not out of trouble, but it gets better.
I was elated when my lovely twin told me "I think you're getting stronger".

I am different.
I am not remarkable, I am not exceptional, but I am different, and I am proud to be so. I'll hold on to this.

Just when you think you had a life

Taken from Neil Gaiman's Tumblr:

Peter Freuchen and his second wife Dagmar Freuchen Gale, in a photo taken by Irving Penn in 1947. Freuchen is a top candidate for the Most Interesting Man in the World.Standing six feet seven inches, Freuchen was an arctic explorer, journalist, author, and anthropologist. He participated in several arctic journeys (including a 1000miles dogsled trip across Greenland), starred in an Oscar winning film, wrote more than a dozen books (novels and nonfiction, including his Famous Book of the Eskimos), had a peg leg (he lost his leg to frostbite in 1926; he amputated his gangrenous toes himself), was involved in the Danish resistance against Germany, was imprisoned and sentenced to death by the Nazis before escaping to Sweden, studied to be a doctor at university, his first wife was Inuit and his second was a Danish margarine heiress, became friends with Jean Harlow and MaeWest, once escaped from a blizzard shelter by cutting his way out of it with a knife fashioned from his own feces, and last but certainly not least, won $64,000 on The $64,000 Question. 

My life is so plain and boring when I read that.