Philosophers are Ageless
Philosophers are ageless. They practice learned ignorance, so they are open to being surprised by something and interested to understand it. They practice self awareness, so they are rather conscious of their own rational and emotional reactions to the world, which is already a first step in having authorship of those reactions. They practice critical thinking, so they are agile and light in their thinking, not dogmatic, when proven wrong. They practice distance, so they are able to observe themselves and others from a point of clarity. They practice their teacher role, passing down to the next generation their methods, so they are commonly found amongst the youth who are reliably a fountain of new ideas. They practice their student role, so they are always in search of new inspiration, of learning something new. They practice irony, so they do not take themselves, the other, or their work too seriously. They mediate dialogues between students of wisdom who lived centuries ago and students of wisdom today, so they transcend time.
Philosophers are lovers. Philosophers love wisdom, love the process of thinking as their ritual activity to attend to wisdom, and love others as their source of inspiration for novel ideas. With routine effort to offer affection to the Muses, and due admiration to Athena, the philosopher’s pen expresses a phrase just so, a concept that resonates as inherent to humanity, and the philosopher recognizes that they have participated in the divine nature of being made in god’s image, with a soul god-breathed. It is through thinking and dialogue and writing that they have a moment to touch the infinite, to transcend themself, to give birth to ideas through articulation of language, ideas that have been echoed through millennia or have never yet existed in the world just so. Philosophers, as those who play with paradigms and habitually express ideas and read with an appetite to know all of the wisdom of the world, are uniquely positioned to respect that they will die, and therefore appreciate that they, in this transient instant, are alive. Philosophers are lovers, and lovers are ageless.