Catnap Philosophy

I’m convinced the Art of the Cat Nap can literally change the world.  I am not sure if it’s the in between R.E.M sleep where the imagination, subconscious high five passing the baton or what.  It just makes every thing I need answered become clearer much quicker.  When I get stuck on my brains spin cycle that’s my cue to take a 20-minute catnap.

Some might call that a “brain break” or in new age terms meditation.   The trick to it is to ask the big question you’re wresting with, take deep and slow breathes that calm you down into not thinking mode. I like to relax to the place where my minds eye see’s a cyclone or what looks like an eye of a tornado like portal swirling in my head.  Sometimes I drift off to sleep, sometimes I go to the half doze zone and can’t remember if I got creative ideas from there but sometimes I jolt back awake by getting a direct answer to my prayer, wish or big question I was struggling with from before the nap.

I love after the nap and keep a notebook handy like capturing a dream – it goes away fast if you don’t hold onto the flashes of what seemed so brilliant at the time.  It feels like herding butterflies with my hands slicked with coconut oil…really tricky to catch but fun!   Am I the only one this happens to?  None of my friends talk about this topic?  So, in true CathyV form, leave it to me to talk about it.

Before my nap I asked, okay honestly, I demanded an answer.  “Okay, God, seriously I am really getting pissed over here waiting.  WHAT THE PLUCK am I supposed to do with my random & weird skills for real, I mean apart from consulting gigs here and there with no end in sight for financial security and career longevity.  I am so tired, just tell me what IT is that I do, so I can go do that?”

Oh how the humor of life never ceases to crack me up on the daily!   A very clear inner voice woke me up asking me a question back.  “What does a Philosopher do?” So of course I wiki Google it to find out.  Isn’t that for old long hairy beardy weird men in caved isolation?  Some days I feel like that, but there aren’t any “real” philosophers left in our day?  Would Eckhart Tolle, Wayne Dyer, Joel Osteen, Oprah, Ellen, George Clooney; any outspoken celebrity with an opinion seems to be one.

But, who in our modern day and age is a true philosopher and what do they really do?  Here is a list of life old and modern day philosophers if you’re interested like I am now, thanks to the catnap I’m off down into another wormhole.  http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy

The only one I recognized on the modern list is Ayn Rand.  Like a super geek I am clicking through each person on the modern list for some sign from above to please send me another bread crumb trail to follow to the Holy Grail called what to do with my next life chapter…and that answer needs to happen fast!  No offense God, but I need to know. NOW!

More importantly, if I am on a philosopher’s road to enlightenment, I want to know how and what and when they get paid?  I really don’t know?  Do you? So now…like an itch I must scratch; I must find out.  I CRAVE wisdom, learning, absorbing information not to claim a stance or opinion, just to know what different ideas and ways of thinking and believing exist.  I like to take it all in as a consideration, not as a fact.

I always have been super weird about seeing perspective differently than what’s normal for the circles I seem to be surrounded by.  I put meaning into everything and I always have, it drives people NUTS, so I’ve learned to just keep it to myself…and then blogging was invented.  At least you can choose not to read anything I write, but on the flip side I get to write it out so I don’t explode. Win Win!   So I looked it up. “What do Philosophers do”?  Here’s what I found.  Enjoy the irony and laughter.  I certainly am.

“A philosophy is a way of thinking about the world, the universe, and about society. A philosophy is a group of ideas, worked out by a philosopher (someone who has studied ways of thinking about the world). The ideas in philosophy are abstract, which means that they are “things that cannot be touched”. But this does not mean that philosophy is not about the real world. Ethics, for example, asks what we should do in our everyday lives, and metaphysics asks about how the world works and of what it is made.

Sometimes people talk about how they have a “personal philosophy”, which means the way a person thinks about the world. This article is not about people’s “personal philosophies.” This article is about the ideas that have been thought about by philosophers (people who think and write about ways of thinking) for a long time.

What is good? What is beauty? Do we have free will? Does God exist? Does the world around us exist? What is a person? What is truth? What is evil?  What is the relationship between mind and body? What is science? What is philosophy? What is love? 

WHAT do Philosophers  do?  They ask questions about ideas (concepts). They try to find answers to those questions. Some thinkers find it very hard to find those words that best describe the ideas they have. When they find answers to some of these questions philosophers often have the same problem that is how to best tell the answers they found to other people. Depending on the meaning of the words they use, the answers change.”

So, that’s makes more sense of my entire life and obsession with understanding how the world works now.  I am a philosopher of the CV2 upside down & backwards perspective!  I make up words and alternative ideas about life’s true meaning.  Kids and animals are drawn to me like elephants are telepathic with sound lanquage. It’s a spiritual gift.  In numerology I am a 7, the most metaphysical and spiritual number to be.  Einstein was a 7 too.  Unlucky in love and success “alive”, but very lucky in thought and legacy; I guess I should celebrate my fellow #7 company philosophically and metaphorically speaking.  (Insert a very strange Confucius blank stare here)

Now what?  As much as I love catnap philosophy enlightenment moments, I still find that it’s always time for wine to help me make sense of life.  Can get I paid to think about my thoughts and share them, like in books?  Hmm…I happen to be working on my first of 12 self published Kindle books as we speak…what a strange coincidence.  In the meantime I’ll go back to sales consulting for peanuts on the dollar until my big Philosophy Career break call comes!

I figure if I have this many words, I might as well logically categorize them into book form.  Maybe I’ll get a few cents from the effort, but most of all I will be officially a published author – bucket list item – CHECK!  That’s worth a million bucks philosophically speaking! 😉  Just being me, over here thinking about my thoughts….CathyV