On my Small Philosophers Way

I have loved to walk on small philosophers ways since I was a kid. My father took me there in the nearby Hague Forest and showed me the “Philosophers Path”. Of course I hadn’t the faintest idea what this special name for a forest track could mean, but it had to be Very Important, as my father followed this track every morning on his way to the Gymnasium where he teached Natural Sciences.

Later on, during my own school education, I discovered that “philosophy” was “somewhat” broader than the Natural Sciences - as my father’s strong conviction said. It had to do to with the walking and talking of early Athenians on the market, in the portico, between the collonades of the stoa, even in the garden. Their subject was the foundation of the universe, the world, the state, the ultimate beautiful and the good (“kalokagatheia”). We learned also about the works of Camus and Sartre and finally about Indian Philosophy (Upanishads).

Of course this was only the beginning of a lifetime love affair, with harsh study, peak experiences, painful break ups, a quest with many desillusions but ultimately unforgettable meaningful and... it brought me back where I wanted to be today: on my small philosophers way. This time in Utrecht, an old Dutch town, where in the early Nineties I had found my own walking way to the Gymnasium, where Mischa was at school.

Utrecht is a very old and beautiful town full of churches, cloisters, almshouses. You can wander through narrow lanes, alongside canals, over bridges, and on the outskirts of the town wall. Just as you can still find it in the works of the early seventeenth century painter Herman Saftleven. And with some study, effort and imagination in the real town world.

You will have understood that my small philosophers way of walking and meditating on the beautiful and the good can be followed anywhere in forests, through dunes, alongside sea and riversides, or on mountains. And finally in old town corners, cloisters and other ambulatories. But always outside schools, colleges, academy buildings. Why? Well, thats another story but in the end it has to do with Freedom, Peripatheia, Fresh Air, Barefoot Practice, Art & Poiesis. “A lot of beautiful words,” She would remark: You have to do it first every day of your short life.