Jenia asked:

Hello.

My name is Yevgenia. I am 17 and live in Kazakhstan. I would like to talk with people who think about
world, life, future and happiness. Because I can't find such people here, in my town. I have wonderful
parents. My dad all of his life wants to become philosopher, but can't find people understanding him. I
don't know what I must do. All people around me think about food, love and so on. They only live —
no they only exist. I want to be useful for world. When I look in people's eyes I see emptiness. They
look like robots. I feel pain. I think that anybody would be absolutely happy only then when all will be
happy. I mean each man, each animal and finally each particle. And I hope people will do that, but in
the future. We must only help them: don't kill, be good, love all around us. That idea of my dad. He
told me and I understood. But I can't find anybody who thinks so too. I'm young and I must do
something. I don't know what? Maybe you can help me. I want to do all possible in order to be good.
Please I need to know — What are you thinking about? Tell me your ideas. I hope you help me with
your words.

P.S. I don't know English very well. And it's difficult explain my thinking in my language (Russian), all
the more in English. And I'm sorry for my mistakes.

Goodbye. I wait for your letter.

============

Hello, Yevgenia! Thank you for your wonderful question. (And your English, I think, is quite good. It is
certainly better than my Russian, which is nonexistent! :-) ) It sounds as though you and your father
would like to have meaningful conversations with people, but find that the people around you are not
willing. How frustrating! Some people, for whatever reason, are simply trying to make it through the
day. They don't have the energy left over to think about much. Other people seem to be afraid to
think. They're afraid that if they try to think, they'll fail and be forced to think of themselves as stupid.
They're afraid that if they ask "What is the meaning to life?" they won't like the answer they come up
with. These people are like little children who are worry that a monster lives under the bed, but are
too afraid to look. I'm glad that you are not one of those people! I know, though, that it can be lonely, if
you don't have someone to talk to about things that are important and meaningful. First, I'll give you
some ideas I have about that. Then, I'll talk a little about being happy and good. Okay?

You've already done one important thing to find a philosophical community — you've looked on the
World Wide Web! There are lotsof good discussion groups online. Also, there might be more people
in your area who want to talk about ideas than you suspect. People around the world are starting
philosophy cafes — also called "Socrates Cafes" — in local bookstores or coffee houses. If you know
of a place that might be willing to have a group of people gather to chat, you could ask to put up a
notice, announcing the time and day of the first meeting. You could also advertise around town. I'll bet
that a number of people would show up, very happy to have a chance to think and talk about
meaningful things! Your father might be willing to help you, too.

Now, about happiness. You wrote that nobody can be absolutely happy until everyone else is happy. I
don't think that is right. Think about it this way. Suppose that there are only three people in the
universe — Ann, Bob, and Carol. Further, suppose that they are not completely happy. And finally,
suppose that none of them can be happy until the other two are. Now, how can any one of them, say
Ann, become happy? There are two facts here, as the situation is described. 1) Because Ann can't be
happy unless the other two are, Ann can't be happy until both Bob and Carol are happy. 2) But
because neither Bob nor Carol can be happy until everyone else is happy, neither one can be happy
until Ann is happy. But do you see what this means? Putting ideas 1 and 2 together, we get the fact
that Ann can't be happy until Ann is happy! Ann needs to get happy before she gets happy! =:-O This
is a paradox, so something must be wrong with the situation as described. In particular, I submit that
people canbe happy even though not everyone else is. I do think that you need to be a good person
in order to be happy — you need to treat yourself and other people well, you need to extend wisdom
and compassion to everything, no matter how unhappy or dead inside that thing seems to be — but
you don't need everyone around you to be happy. Ultimately, your own happiness may very well be
one of the things that makesthose around you happy!

There's a saying where I live: "Never cut down a tree in winter." That's because, where I live, trees
loose their leaves in the winter and so you can't tell the dead trees from the living ones. What you
need to do is care for allof the trees, because only in the spring, when they bloom, will you know
which ones are alive. People are a lot like that, I think. Sometimes they seem dried up and dead,
cruel, or mean, or only interested in unimportant things. But you should always remember that it might
be winter for that particular person, and sometimes winter lasts a long, long time. Sometimes people
are afraid, or busy, or beaten down for decades. Water them anyway. Let your happiness be in the
watering, not in the blooming, and when spring eventually comes, there will be more blossoms than
you can imagine. At least I think so. That's always been the way it worked for me.

Dona Warren

Department of Philosophy

University of Wisconsin — Stevens Point

Hello Jenia, my name is Katharine. I'm 28 years old and I live in southern England. (You can see a
picture of me here.)

I struggled to find the right words to respond to your letter. Many people here, when they write
philosophy, use a lot of long, complicated words, and often it is difficult to understand them. Your
letter is breathtakingly simple and direct by comparison.

You must indeed have wonderful parents, if they have helped you to learn and talk about such ideas.
But you feel lonely because you do not meet anyone else like yourself — there is no-one you can
really be friends with. You might be surprised to hear that it's not so easy to find people here in
England who want to talk philosophically about life. When philosophy is being taught in Universities,
students are not taught to discuss life, peace, or happiness.

Here is one of the great benefits the internet can bring us, and that Pathways helps to achieve. It is
best when we can discuss such important things with other people one-to-one and face-to-face, but
when that isn't possible, it's much better to be able to discuss them by e-mail than not to be able to
discuss them at all.

I think that getting to know people, I mean their character and personality, is important in helping us to
understand their thoughts and ideas. As you say, it is difficult to tell other people what you really think
in any language. But we will succeed, as long as you are honest and say exactly what you think and
feel, and as long as you really want me to understand you, and if I really want to understand. It's just
that most people don't really want to go that deeply into their thoughts and feelings.

You also say you want to do something to improve society, to make the world a better place. To do
something is much more difficult than thinking about it or talking about it — although some talking and
thinking are important to help you do the rightthing.

Personally, I don't believe it will ever be possible to achieve world peace — there are too many
people who don't want to know — but I do believe it is possible and worthwhile to do smaller things
that will make a difference. As one example: I work in a Montessori nursery school, teaching and
looking after children from 2 to 5 years old. I try to hold their interest and attention, to correct them
when their behaviour might offend others, to question them and make them think more carefully or in
new ways. But I can't do much about what happens in their home life, which in some cases is
affecting their development or behaviour. Many parents would take their children away from the
school in anger, if the teachers tried to tell them very much about what they should do at home to
help their children.

I hope you will find my reply interesting and helpful, and that you will want to write to me some more. I
also hope you will get many more letters from readers of Ask a Philosopher.

Katharine Hunt

Your father must be a fine man. I was moved by your letter, and I am sure that our readers will be too.

Your letter will be posted on Ask a Philosopher...and will also go out tomorrow in Issue 48 of our
Philosophy Pathways electronic journal.

My thoughts? A philosopher might question what it would mean for a particle — say a particle of
wood or iron — to be 'happy'. Yet your statement, 'I mean each man, each animal and finally each
particle' is very powerful. One instinctively grasps what is meant, even if one cannot find words to
adequately express that meaning. A 'happy universe' would be one where every part of the universe
— every particle! — was like a singer in a choir, singing out chords of joy. Or like a tiny piece of glass
in a magnificent stained glass window, with the sunlight streaming through.

You might be interested to read the words of one of our contributors from the Russian Federation,
Dmitry Olshansky, who has posted his personal thoughts on philosophy in the Philosophy Lovers
Gallery at:

http://www.philosophos.com/philosophy_lovers/postcard_gallery_9.html.

Geoffrey Klempner

Hello Yevgenia.

Yevgenia, your letter is very beautiful.

I have every sympathy with your father's and your own frustrations of doing philosophy in isolation —
because since graduating I have spent my working life very far from academic philosophy or any
like-minded people with whom to discuss things.

You describe the emptiness you see in other people's eyes. This is a very common feeling — travel
on the crowded London Underground and you will see that emptiness all the time. The trouble is that
when I catch my own reflection in the window I see that I look just the same as everyone else! I have
come to think that this habit of seeing emptiness in other peoples eyes is a very negative and
destructive thing — perhaps we are just seeing our own emptiness reflected back at us? (Is Hell other
people, as Sartre said? — no it is not.) What I think can start to happen here is that, if one makes the
effort to look a little harder one can begin to see this not as an emptiness but as a wonderful space of
infinite human possibilities and potentialities — of nobility, vanity, joy, suffering, silliness, wisdom,
hopes, fears, aspirations, frustrations... and to be quite honest also weariness, failure, duplicity,
wickedness... that's life. It is up to us to fill out the apparent emptiness by being truly involved with our
fellow men and not just wallow in our own angst.

You will (unlike me!) be able to read Tolstoy in the original Russian. You might notice that his stories
almost always start with descriptions of of the most apparently superficial, empty, comical people in
apparently silly and facile social situations. But slowly, as the story unfolds things imperceptibly
change, 'till after a while, we seldom know quite when, those silly empty figures have become real
people capable of the most profound humanity — suffering, heroism, compassion, love, joy... And so
he is able to write the greatest stories ever told — BUT they are about bone-headed army officers
and and St. Petersburg social butterflies! So much for what one might or might not
see in the eyes of a stranger — even one who may never share own own particular philosophical
passions and interests. And maybe we too can come to see in a stranger a little bit of what someone
like Tolstoy could.

You feel that "anybody would be absolutely happy only then when all will be happy" and say you are
young and "must do something". These thoughts are surely true and we all have to come to terms
with them in working out our destinies...

But you personally are not responsible for the whole of humanity, "the poor ye will always have with
you" and we have to learn discretion and fine judgement about when we need to be our brothers
keeper and when we have to hold back and let others work out their own destinies... and there are
seldom any easy answers.

As Bob Dylan said: "May you always do for others" but also "and let others do for you".

Don't try to boil the ocean...

Read a lot...

Listen to music...

Take it slow (and remember, as Wittgenstein said, that in philosophy the one who wins the race is the
one who comes in last).

Remain faithful to the visions of your youth, and again, as Bob Dylan said: may you stay forever
young.

I hope these mere words may be of some help.

Fondest regards, Rob.

Robert de Villiers

Maybe what you see in the eyes of others is not emptiness. Maybe they feel pain too. For sure, they
are not robots. If you want to be useful to the world, you could start now, close to home, and try to
connect and communicate with those you see as robots. Perhaps to be useful to the world you need
to find a place in it and understand how others really feel first. Some people think that a small amount
of suffering is needed in the world. Only if this is so would you seek to be good and useful.

Rachel Browne