138 ■ FLOWscientists than one would think. Some focus their interest on health, and
try to find out everything they can about a disease that threatens them
or their families. Following in Mendel’s footsteps, some learn whatever
they can about breeding domestic animals, or creating new hybrid flow
ers. Others diligently replicate the observations of early astronomers
with their backyard telescopes. There are closet geologists who roam the
wilderness in search of minerals, cactus collectors who scour the desert
mesas for new specimens, and probably hundreds of thousands of in
dividuals who have pushed their mechanical skills to the point that they
are verging on true scientific understanding.
What keeps many of these people from developing their skills
further is the belief that they will never be able to become genuine,
“professional” scientists, and therefore that their hobby should not be
taken seriously. But there is no better reason for doing science than the
sense of order it brings to the mind of the seeker. If flow, rather than
success and recognition, is the measure by which to judge its value,
science can contribute immensely to the quality of life.
Loving Wisdom
“Philosophy” used to mean “love of wisdom,” and people devoted their
lives to it for that reason. Nowadays professional philosophers would be
embarrassed to acknowledge so naive a conception of their craft. Today
a philosopher may be a specialist in deconstructionism or logical positiv
ism, an expert in early Kant or late Hegel, an epistemologist or an
existentialist, but don’t bother him with wisdom. It is a common fate
of many human institutions to begin as a response to some universal
problem until, after many generations, the problems peculiar to the
institutions themselves will take precedence over the original goal. For
example, modern nations create armed forces as a defense against ene
mies. Soon, however, an army develops its own needs, its own politics,
to the point that the most successful soldier is not necessarily the one
who defends the country best, but the one who obtains the most money
for the army.
Amateur philosophers, unlike their professional counterparts at
universities, need not worry about historical struggles for prominence
among competing schools, the politics of journals, and the personal
jealousies of scholars. They can keep their minds on the basic questions.
What these are is the first task for the amateur philosopher to decide.
Is he interested in what the best thinkers of the past have believed about
what it means to “be”? Or is he more interested in what constitutes the
“good” or the “beautiful”?