What were we chasing with all this reading of ancient Greek and philosophy? Is there some hidden jewel of real value worth finding, or rather just a piece of paper smartly folded, origami? Philosophy is the science of the poor. Perhaps one could write of us in this way:

"I haven't written any philosophy," he told him so. He, the speaker, started to turn red. It became clear to him that he should write something philosophical, and when he started his task, it overwhelmed him.

"How ought one to live?" There were so many answers already given, but why were there so many answers? His philosophy would answer both questions!

This quest for an answer some would say ennobled him; others, would say that he became contemptuous, a poseur of the highest order with his black thick-framed glasses and his sickly, small frame of a body that barely filled out a black t-shirt and jeans. Neither opinion was true. Instead, he was sad and infinitely lonely. On his way to work he would sometimes ride his bicycle, a dull black, partially rusted single gear heavy beast that you might more likely see in Holland; or he would take public transit. On those days beautiful women would pass by him in a swirl of color. As he got closer and closer to the San Francisco's financial district the more that these women's finely tailored clothes would stand out next to his poor, tattered jeans.

Standing on the street, he would consider each woman and ask questions to himself regarding each one. A certain slight ache at each asking, a swirling path made by newspaper that was dizzying and random, a glance which if held was always inconsequential: the moment never come.

Instead he went to café's at night. For every page in a book of companionship such as Michelle Tea's Valencia, there is a page written in a gold-leafed book made of vellum in some portion of Dante's Purgatorio regarding his nights of inconsequence and philosophy. The reader will be spared all but a few of those pages.

"I am alone, but I must answer this question."

He would read Kant's Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, and delighted in imagining himself in two worlds: the world of pure spirit and freedom, where whatever is willed makes the world as it should be, a better place without the lies and the hurt. The second, the world of ends and means, made demands on the first world. It asked for money, and if it didn't get it, it would steal. Lies were not just forgiven but justified. This world lied like a vast, expansive sea of compromise.

He would escape this world of compromise, if only for as long as he read and studied philosophy on a sticky wood table and hard chair in some dingy and dimly, lit café. It was rare for a woman that he could imagine himself with walking into such a place, holding a philosophy book in her arms as if she were cradling a cat, or a baby. Even if she did arrive and show up, he was at a loss as to how to meet her. "But perhaps there is no how?" he thought. Thinking that there was one was the problem. An ethicist would insist that there is a general way of meeting her in the same way that Kant would insist there is a general way of being in the world that is right and just. However, who he was, and who she would be were altogether unique, of a kind.

So, is this how the story of a youthful, self-styled philosopher who straddled both the 2^nd and 3^rd millennia would be written. Perhaps it is better if I let him speak for himself:

I, Juan Pablo Sun, was 25 years old when I came up with a wonderful, philosophic proof: The application of the principle of the identity of indiscernibles to consciousness. This principle, of paramount importance in Leibniz's philosophy, can be stated thus:

No two things in the universe differ by number alone.

Such a principle, for Leibniz, proves God and the goodness of the world, but that is not my concern.

This proof, written in 1997, has no audience. Nobody - least of all my contemporaries - has cared to comment on it. Perhaps this silence is due to the use of an antiquated 18^th century notion of consciousness, or to the use of a geometric method indispensable to the atheist Spinoza, or perhaps worst of all, the notion of proof - as if there were certainties.

On a weekday, was it spring? Summer? It was certainly night. I remember now; it was Friday. Mike Overstreet, the only friend whom I thought capable of understanding my proof and myself met me at a café in North Beach. He studied English literature at State. We shared a love of classical music. He opened my eyes to the joy and utility of urban cycling, but would he understand?

I was not only there to meet with Mike and share my proof. Although I did not know it at the time, I was in love with Cecilia Freitas. Would she show up and join me for a drink? This café, stylish, beautiful, and young, enveloped me with phrases: orders for drinks, questions and answers, punch lines to jokes. If you want to truly not know this neighborhood, ditch this café and go to the Savoy Tivoli. If you wish to learn how un-philosophic and vulgar we have become go there. No mercy for meatmarkets.

Cecilia Freitas came from Mexico City. Her hair, dark as night, sometimes smelled of jasmine. She had studied philosophy under Subcommandante Marcos at the university. The point, where she and I could've become lovers or not at all, would happen months later. At that time she was my dreamed of future: her soft hands entwined with my hands, he black hair, long, full, falling onto my face with my mouth receiving her kiss. So I dreamed.

Behind the bar there is an espresso machine, rows of bottles to make any drink and pictures, mostly black and white, mostly from 20 to 30 years ago. The cars (old chryslers) and the clothes (Jackie O. dresses, Zoot suits and fedoras) gave their age away. Also behind the bar is Louie, the owner, tall and blonde and handsome: his hair in a crew cut, his muscular torso bulging out of a colorful Hawaiian shirt. Unknown to me, although I had come upon such a wonderful proof, is the fact that Cecilia came primarily not to have a drink with me, but just to catch a glimpse of Louie.

The café is becoming crowded. I try to find a table upstairs, the more intimate and quiet of the two levels. No such luck, but it doesn't matter. I have the proof - all two pages - printed out and folded in the pocket of my gold corduroy jacket. Mike need only read it in the midst of jazz and the banter of Friday nighters using the café as a base of operations for planning a night of hedonism.

I look around me. A woman in a black dress and black knee-highs walks up to me. "Is this seat taken?" I tell her that I am waiting for a friend and then feel uncomfortable for having a whole table to myself. I am alone. Everyone else is peering into each other's eyes while talking. I stare at pictures on the wall. I take timid sips from my drink. I try to flirt with the single women, but none of them will flirt with me.

It feels right and proper that jazz should be played in a café. Whatever is fine and yet with the sense of humor in American culture can be found in Jazz. I am thinking of the Duke and Louis Armstrong. For romance, of course, I think Miles Davis. Jazz was so new and exciting to me then. That music was like firecrackers every day in a café, but now, 5 years later, I cannot bear to listen to jazz, especially the kind that swings.

So far, I have tried to live my life like these various, great philosophers: Descartes, Spinoza, and Schopenhauer. The imitation of Descartes was easy, especially during college. Like him, I wanted to wake up no earlier than noon. I arranged my college classes to accommodate that desire. Spinoza believed that having intellectual knowledge is not enough. One must support one's self through a trade of some sort. Spinoza made a living grinding glasses in Holland. I made a living programming computers. Schopenhauer arrived at his philosophy by the age of 25. I vowed to do the same and did so - hence, my proof.

Mike arrived with a smile and three day old stubble on his face. My pint of beer, almost gone, caught Mike's eye. "Can I get you another round?"

I took the two sheets of paper out of my pocket and unfolded them. I handed them to Mike and waited. My mind wandered. How did I end up here in North Beach at a café that I hardly ever frequented, in a neighborhood rife with tourists and kitsch. Do they really come here expecting poets? The naivete and silliness of the view that there's truth in advertising: I feel sorry for all those who try to look for a Kerouac in North Beach.

Was that woman, who wanted to take my chair, a philosophy reader? Did she like poems? Did she try to write them? I recall with great difficulty all the times I have tried to talk to a woman at a bar or a café. This difficulty is due to the result each time: failure. I do not think I am being unrealistic in the women that I approach. I look for intelligence above all else.

"What's your motivation in writing this?"

I tell him, "Thinking about my ideal relationship plunges me into such melancholy that this proof cures me from thinking about such impossible things."

He looks unimpressed and unmoved. I try to explain what I find beautiful about the proof but he remains fixed in his reaction. No matter. Cecilia has just arrived. There are several in her group, mostly men, waiting outside. I introduce her to Mike. She looks happy.

"We're going on a bar hop. We were just at Giancarlo's."

"So are you all going to hang out here?"

"No, we have to head out to our next place. I've gotta go! Bye!"

I wanted to share my proof with her. This woman, who lived in Madrid and Brussels, and had Subcommandante Marcos as a philosophy teacher, would surely understand. Was that brief, brief exchange our Friday night?

"She's cute, but I don't think she's interested."

When I got home, I had really bad stomach pains. I tried to sleep, but every hour I would wake up. Curling myself into a ball & thinking about Cecilia helped for a bit. I imagined her caring for me, and me caring for her. I pretended to hear her voice and reading poetry to me. We would picnic at a park and lie next to each other talking about our future. I curled up into a tighter ball as tears streamed down my face as the pain grew and grew without abatement. I passed out and woke up the next day. The pain was still there, but manageable.

At the hospital, they diagnosed me and gave me a prescription. At the pharmacy, I could no longer wait in line, so I took a chair and threw it at the window where the pharmacists were. I felt dizzy.

While at the psychiatric ward, I sent the following proof to Cecilia:

How Ought One to Live, or The Principle of the Identity of

Indiscernibles Applied to Consciousness

If you asked me, "How ought one to live?" I would simply reply with, "Not alone." All ethics hitherto has been an attempt to overcome this alone-ness.

Before I delve into the philosophical implications of this, I'd like you to take a keepsake from a beloved in your hand, and listen to music that you labeled as "our song." By "our" I mean you and that beloved person, of course.

Hopefully, that will get you into the head space that I'm in right now while I'm writing this.

Having found a little free time from work, I decided to ponder the relationships, both amorous and platonic, that I have had in the past. I wondered to myself if there was any wisdom to be gained by reflecting upon my experiences, and if through such reflection I would be able to find the answer to the question of what would constitute a fulfilling life. That other people should constitute and share in this life seemed obvious to me given the many solitary hours I have spent this year, for the most tearful solitude is happiness that cannot be shared. A life with others in search of the good life, which seems to be

an ethical and moral life, is the end I'm after. Yet, it didn't seem obvious, but rather obfuscated what sort of life this should be. I tried to imagine the ideal relations I would have with friends, but each time I did so, the more convinced I became that such imaginings or day dreams would bear more fruit if I had friends with whom to day dream about friendship to begin with. This led me to a paradox that in order to know friendship, one must have friends, but if one has friends, then one already knows what friendship is. However, after long and arduous hours of contemplation, I think I may have come upon

the dissolution of this paradox. And although my mental powers seemed capable of the task, my will seems to be quite incapable of carrying out its dictates. I have not led a moral life or good life, but rather still follow my own self-interest living for fame, riches and sensual pleasures which seem to me - at times, or rather most of the time - to be the true good. How I shall get out of this state I do not know, for fame and

riches no matter how much never seem to be enough, and sensual pleasures dull my mind to a state of acquiescence. After enjoying them I feel remorse and sadness, but feel that

the only way to eliminate such sadness is to indulge in them again. Still, perhaps if I keep the following deductions and proofs in my mind, I may be able to change my life for the better. Here is what I have thus far found to be true:

Scholia

It is my plan to inquire into the nature of the words which people use for interpersonal relationships, such as "love," and "friendship." Since these words represent relational properties, then each use of the word is unique. Moreover, since each use is unique, what the word signifies cannot be known by a single mind. Hence, determining concepts such as friendship and love before being in such a relationship is in bad faith, for you assume that the other will conform to such a definition. Moreover, if there is doubt regarding how two people stand with each other, then there is no knowledge of their friendship.

Hence, doubt is cast upon the goals of any "self-help" program that promises illumination into the nature of human relations.

For the first time, in the proof above, the question, "How many can know an epistemological object?" has been answered, for in the past it has always been assumed to be one knower.

To this, Cecilia wrote back:

"You must understand that I do not understand you, that you must find someone who does, and that the answer is still, ‘No.’ I’m sorry but that’s how it is."

And you, dear reader, do you understand me? We live in an age apathetic to philosophy. To speak philosophically is to invite silence. At least that is what my doctor makes me believe, but during the times I am medicated she doesn't have to do that.

I am wearing a uniform, the kind that you find in these places. I am let out of my room by an orderly, big, muscular. He leads me through a corridor that smells of cleaning fluid. I am led into a room with a green leather couch on one end and a black recliner on the other end. Dr. Cassandra Calypso sits quietly on the recliner. I sit on the couch. Our sessions go something like this:

- I want to help you and I realize that you're afraid.