The willing and knowing use of the ability to reason, without irrational additives, is essential to the effectiveness of any human person in his or her personal and interpersonal activity.

This ability to reason out solutions to identified problems is referred to as ‘thinking’. Thinking could be carefree, structured or critical. The same ability to reason, albeit with scholastic critical structure, is philosophy. However, one can interchange the words, thinking and philosophy.

Some may also concede philosophy as “a principle or set of guiding principles” which a person uses to wades through the tides of life.

Statements such as “God is good”, “Life is War”, “No Pain, No Gain” are a few of the ‘philosophies’ as guiding principles which some used to reason out their ways in life.

Everyone is a philosopher of one kind or school or the other. Even the younger members of the human race, children, are not left out of the art or act of philosophizing.

Every individual has the tendency to ‘think’ or postulate in the direction of doing or moving away from obstacles to survival; getting as far away from pain, penury and the final penalty of life activity, death as much as it is possible for as long as it is practicable.

Mankind desires and works toward attaining pleasure, good health and abundance of survival aids.

This is in direct converse, or in opposition, to efforts at withdrawing from non-survival persons, things and activities.

Of course, ‘thinking’ has little to do with whether or not the individual is sane or criminal. Insane, criminal or disabled, a person makes decisions, has a way of addressing issues confronting them, and that is the ‘philosophy’ of that person.

The diversity in ‘purposes’ and directions of life and living by human beings, as you might have found out, can be confounding in an attempt to understand the individual person.

What is a man, woman or child’s idea of self and life? What makes for the way a person act, emote and think?

Why do people do what they do or act the way they act? You may make sense of one person one minute and wonder what happened to them the next day.