Autumn Depression or Philosophizing in September

 Reflections under the autumn sky

Autumn is a funny time … Time of sun and rain, bright colors and fallen leaves, rest from rest and work. This is the time of antinomies and contradictions. When birds stop their morning trills and shoals go to warm countries, something happens in the head of each of us, something changes.

This summer was full of travel and new discoveries. With a team we crossed the ocean and saw what it is philosophical practice on the American continent. And such attention to philosophy in pre-school and school programs, as in Latin America, probably does not exist in any other place. With the last rays of the summer sun, we went to the Land of the Rising Sun and personally came into contact with the Asian reading of philosophy and philosophical practice.

Summer is the time of movement. Now it is left behind. Autumn is the time to stop. Remember, like Martin Heidegger said:

It is enough to stop at the nearby and think about the nearest: about what concerns each of us – here and now, here, on this patch of native land, now – at the present hour of world history.

Summer is a philosophical practice for the Other. Autumn is a philosophical practice directed to the self.

September has come and it’s time to “stop … and think about the nearest.” Someone might call such a gesture an autumn depression or moping. Indeed, the spleen has a place to be. But, as it seems, this is a necessary element of entering inward, self-immersion and stopping external running.

Philosophy and philosophizing in such contexts acquire a special note of sadness and, at the same time, some new color, a kind of something alive, not machine, not automatic …

         Осень - это время сбора камней. 
И пусть эти камни наполнят смыслом 
наше движение вперед...

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