Dang, I can’t believe another week has gone by. But here we are, so what are we gonna talk about today? Well, I’ve been reading this book about the history of philosophy throughout the world. It’s an expansive topic to cover in a book, I’m almost done and I felt that the author did a good job at tackling the differences and similarities in a nuanced way which didn’t pick favourites.

Even before reading this book, I had spent time reading through classic examples of both Western and Eastern philosophy. Some examples include: the I-Ching, Nietzsche, Victor Frankl, works by the Stoics, Dao De Ching and others. Now, I’m not saying that I’ve read everything out there but I’ve dipped my toes in enough times to get a feeling for the water.

A passage and illustration in this book really highlighted to me a key conceptual difference between the two broad camps of philosophy. Eastern philosophy is more linked to what is known as Intimacy, I’ll explain what that means in a moment because it isn’t what you think it is. Western philosophy is more aligned with what is called Integrity, once again, these concepts have poorly chosen names because it invites people to make incorrect assumptions.

Okay, I’m hoping when I explain this, that it makes sense but here we go.

So, imagine that every member of society is represented by a small equal sized circle, that also means companies, businesses, cultural customs, nature and the environment… everything gets a circle not just people.

For Intimacy, make the circles overlap one another so it kinda looks like chainmail, each circle interlinks with the others. This is one of the core principles of Eastern culture and philosophy. Even though you are your own person; you alongside everything else is not distinct from the rest of the whole. In other words, the land, society, language and people are linked together, so your thoughts and actions should be in relational to the whole and not focused solely on yourself.

Integrity, is a bit different. Instead of overlapping circles, the circles stand apart from one another as to clearly distinguish one thing from everything else. Now, you might argue that even though the circles are apart, they still sit in relation to one another. And that is true, but in the integrity concept, each circle has their individual identity and essence shown to be their primary feature. This idea of integrity is more typical of how Western cultures think and act, more in an atomised way where it is about individual freedom and individual success.

Having said all that, let’s not fall into a binary way of thinking; even though Eastern cultures tend to focus on the group rather than the individual, while the Western cultures are a bit of the opposite. In reality, both Eastern and Western cultures have a mix of Integrity and Intimacy, it just depends on which receives more emphasis.

What was the point of all that? I’m glad you asked, because even I thought I was rambling. Well, the first point is, philosophy is cool because we can learn there actually is a whole lot we have in common with other cultures (so when you see me, see yourself). The other point is, incorporating intimacy and integrity into your own life is an important part of self development. You need to derive and develop your individual essence and character but having said that; you also need to think about your impact within your culture and community, are you adding to the burden of others or are you easing the burden?

Anyways, hope that helped, the book by the way is “How the World Thinks” by Julian Baggini.

Thanks once again my Hedites, you always make me so proud, I sometimes think “Man if they even apply a quarter of what I talk about, I know their lives will change for the better in time”. And I know that because I’ve seen it with my own eyes.

You’ve got what it takes!!!