Ever notice the series of “Dummies” books that line up on shelves in book stores? It now covered everything from “Ants rearing for profit for dummies” to “Zebra painting for dummies”. In the pipelines are “Brain Surgery for dummies” and “Outsmart the Mafia for dummies”.

But seriously, what we need is “Philosophy for Dummies” spelling out the route the ignorants need to take in order to be able to carry on a conversation of some semblance of intelligence in case they get invited to dinners where the majorities are either people with high IQs like Paris Hilton and George Bush, or, I mean mostly celebrities.

This conversational skill is extremely important if one were to excel in everyday social ladder climbing and advancement in one’s career and the way towards this aim is a thorough grasp of some very basic philosophy of life, for example, take this Bertrand Russell’s take on the subject:-

“The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.”

If you do not understand the above pronouncement, much less to launch a speech clarifying the same, DO be alarmed, because if you do it shows you are at least acutely aware of your mental shortcoming and hence this proves my point that a book on the subject for er… dummies is absolutely necessary. And no, bumper stickers are strictly not philosophy much as I like to include them within its confines, I’m sorry.

However H L Mencken comes to rescue with his point of view on the subject:-

“Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself.”

Clearly this is a case of one philosopher trying to put his peers in very bad light and in the process, consciously or unconsciously, unceremoniously landed himself in the muck too.

My point is, if philosophers, that breed of human beings, whose signature pose is immortalized in a sitting statue, elbow on his knee, stroking his chin (wondering where his next meal is coming from), and with sagely names like Plato, Socrates, Descartes, and whatnots, can make jackass out of themselves, we shouldn’t worry so much as to what is made of this things call philosophy, because a wise man once said “Keep it simple stupid”, and that too is philosophy for you!