Am I alone with this philosophical bent?

[PhilomenaPringle]

For all the time I can remember, regarding famous people, on TV or anywhere, if I think about them, I just wonder what they are doing right this exact very moment. They are in the same time-space as I am, so they must be doing something.

Just passing thoughts. I'm brushing my teeth at night and the radio is on playing Crocodile Rock (could be any track by any artist or group) and I think "What is Elton doing right now? Right this very minute? Cliff Richard, old but still alive. What is he up to while I'm brushing my teeth. Victoria Beckham? Is she having a lovely shower in her beautiful home? Or having a ding-dong with David. Or waiting for a pizza delivery which is as likely as it is unlikely.

They are occupying the same times on the planet as I am. So if I'm existing and doing stuff, then they are existing and doing stuff.

It's not an obsession. It's just a 'sometimes' thing.

So I said to DH tonight, ' here I am, putting my feet up after cooking a nice dinner for our friends, and we had a nice evening . . . .a lovely night.

But meantime Ukraine is being decimated.

And Ptn is decimating it. So I was just saying to dh, I wonder where his
mind has gone. What happened to make him so mentally sick.
And what is he thinking, right now, this very minute.
What the fuck made him so thirsty for blood and fight?

Anyway, I said as much to dh, and he said didn't want to get into
a philosophical discussion.

I sit here tonight wishing and hoping that there will be no more suffering
for the Ukranian people. Putin is determined that it will go on, on and on until the country is razed to the ground.

I'm sitting here, wondering what he's doing now. What is he thinking?
Is he just brushing his teeth for bed and planning another onslaught?

So. What is that man thinking, right now. He has the whole world against him.

By the time people have become so corrupt they've become the ruler of a country, they usually don't appear to be thinking much at all.

If you want to look at it from a philosophical perspective, have you heard if solipsism? You can never know what someone else is thinking. Or, logically, never really be sure they think anything at all. 🤣

As for the Beckhams, I think that house must be brainwave free entirely, and wouldn't concern myself too much with caring what they may or may not be doing. Why would you? It is of zero consequence.

Also OP you've made my day by managing to squeeze the word philosophical into a post referencing the Beckhams. 😆

In seriousness though many people can try to find reasons for psychotic behaviour like Putin's, but nobody will never know why they did these things. His recent actions since 2014 seem like a power grab he thought would play out easily - my uninformed guess - and he's now livid that's the the case. Backing down would lead to his demise.,so all very dangerous for everyone. 😔

I’m not convinced that this is a philosophical issue.

I don't think I've ever thought about this.

I get similar thoughts when I'm at church@PhilomenaPringle. Knowing that a million people around the world are listening to the same words and doing the same stuff I am is weird and familiar at the same time. I love the sense of connectedness.

“philosophy is an activity people undertake when they seek to understand fundamental truths about themselves, the world in which they live, and their relationships to the world and to each other”

seems pretty apt to me

Fair enough, I can’t quite articulate why it (wondering what Victoria Beckham is doing at this exact moment) doesn’t feel like a philosophical position to me. I’m quite possibly entirely wrong.

I don't think about celebrities. I do think about how many people are dying/giving birth/getting a cancer diagnosis/getting proposed to etc at any given time. Like, right now, how many people are petting a dog or cat. Or crossing a road. Or have just finished work for the day

I get this most often in winter OP. When I’m passing by houses with their lights on and thinking of all of those families inside, living their own lives. So near and yet so different.

Fair enough, I can’t quite articulate why it (wondering what Victoria Beckham is doing at this exact moment) doesn’t feel like a philosophical position to me. I’m quite possibly entirely wrong

I do'n't even know why I dug her up"

&&don't think about celebrities. I do think about how many people are dying/giving birth/getting a cancer diagnosis/getting proposed to etc at any given time. Like, right now, how many people are petting a dog or cat. Or crossing a road. Or have just finished work for the day

I dont think about people stroking their cats.
But I love cats! I have two cats and they seem to be content
living with me. Having said that, I agree with
what you say.

In my life,, there';s always fucking something else!!

Fair enough, I can’t quite articulate why it (wondering what Victoria Beckham is doing at this exact moment) doesn’t feel like a philosophical position to me. I’m quite possibly entirely wrong

No. Of course you are not wrong. I just dragged her in as a rep of rich people,
Still wonder what she's doing right this moment!

I'll be awake all night worriting about it.

To be fair, the petting cat one was just an example just to keep it light because the things I tend towards the darker side of life...

The real question is - why do you give one shit what Victoria Beckham is doing??

I recently had a baby, and often, when I'm changing her nappy, I find myself having a similar weird thought. Here I am, cleaning this tiny, helpless lump, moving her legs this way and that, and it occurs to me that every person in the world, good or bad, was once in this position. They were the helpless, utterly dependant baby lying on a table at the mercy of a caregiver, reliant on someone to clean and feed and keep them warm - everyone from David Attenborough to the king to Joe Average on the street to the likes of Hitler, Stalin and, yes, Putin.

I'm not sure if it means much, really except that it reminds me that everyone is human and came from somewhere. They probably didn't start out good or evil, so we have a huge responsibility as parents and society to nudge them towards the good end of the spectrum.

The real question is - why do you give one shit what Victoria Beckham is doing??

I don't care at all. I plucked her out of the ether, I don't give a bugger what she does or doesn't do.

I sometimes just wonder what it must be like to have enough money to buy whatever you want.

I bet she doesn;'t have to spend her entire life
savings to get basic dental treatment,.

Whatever. Who cares?

Nobody.

I;m not sure if it means much, really except that it reminds me that everyone is human and came from somewhere. They probably didn't start out good or evil, so we have a huge responsibility as parents and society to nudge them towards the good end of the spectrum

I hear you

Yes, I have these wonderings too, although less about famous people and more often about ordinary people. Like someone I maybe knew at school or even just met once and then our lives just went off on their own tracks.

Often when I look at pictures as well, or old TV footage of crowds, like on Top of the Pops or old sports events or whatever. I'll wonder how many are still alive, look at a face, young and carefree, enjoying a moment, and think, "You'd be in your 60s now, wonder what you're doing?" Or I think of them in that moment, caught on film, and wonder what they were thinking, what else they did that day...

I think it is a philosophical thing, in that it stems from the fact that everyone is the main character in their own life story. Here I am, with all my thoughts and feelings and desires and worries and 43 years of backstory, but to that person I was at primary school with, I'm a mostly-forgotten bit character, as they are to me. That's a bit of a weird thing to consider.

Sometimes I randomly think of someone whose life brushed mine, and I wonder if anyone ever just randomly thinks of me. And I'll never know 🙃

I haven't thought about celebrities in the way you mention, but I do often look around at people in passing and think that they have an entire life of their own. All these complex lives that most of us will never know about. It's often when travelling, passing so many individuals or even houses from the train. The scale of that is really striking at times.

I sometimes think like this. Helpfully there’s a celeb and her family on the next street so I can reassure myself by seeing one of them doing the school run, negotiating a toddler out of a puddle etc.

I don't think about what an individual is doing.

I do wonder how many other people, right this second, are...

Lying in bed browsing MN on an iPad... with a purple cover... and a dog licking their feet!

I like the way it goes from hugely general to quite specific.

How many people are
Lying in the bath, reading, reading Pride and Prejudice?

Whimsy.

In a hotel in Bath, I saw a piece of art work work called - Here we all are now.

It was a huge canvas full of people - a woman giving birth, Amy Winehouse, mass genocide, someone on a beach, a ballet dancer, someone playing cards etc

So you are definitely not alone pondering this.

I often think about how different peoples experiences of life are, especially due to an accident of birth, in a certain country.

Surely the activity of understanding Putin's mindset and motivations, or the Beckhams day to day comings and goings in their ££ multi-million existence when us mere mortals worry about our electricity bills or whether we can afford some Finest chicken rather than Value range, does indeed make it philosophical.

It isn't a position, it's an activity.

I do think about the fact that if Vic Beckham or one of their offspring get a dog, does that dog's life experience actually differ from a dog owned by someone in Innercity Tower Hamlets. For all I know they are both fed dog meat, they both get a walk a couple of times a day (presumably BeckhamDogs pooh is no different) and they both sleep, although BD gets a nice posh dog blanket. But not a lot the choose between them.

but it's never more than a fleeting thought, because my workload doesn't get sorted while I'm thinking about Posh's life compared to my own.

Unfortunately I think quite a lot of the world are quietly with him

I have pondered about Putin. What does he think about first thing in the morning or when he’s brushing his teeth. Does a man who has caused so much harm have idle thoughts about a bit of mould on the grouting or a possible twinge in the knee.