More than 2,600 years ago, the first philosopher in the history of Western thought was born in ancient Greece, and the philosopher Thales, known as the "ancestor of human science and philosophy", was also the first great thinker in history to be ridiculed by ordinary people. 
It was a starry night, and Thales walked through the wilderness, watching the dry elephants at night, and prophesied that it would rain the next day. But just when he was full of ambition to look up at the starry sky, he didn't pay attention to the mud puddle under his feet, and he fell into it and fell half to death. In the face of the well-wishers who rescued him, Thales's first words are still: Believe me, it will rain tomorrow!
It is said that an old woman who watched the excitement laughed at him: "Thales, you can't even see what is under your feet, and you want to know the things of heaven?" This is perhaps the first joke in history to mock a thinker, and many people throughout the ages have used this story to teach the next generation: don't "daydream" like those "unrealistic" philosophers!
It's a pity that, like many popular "jokes" in history, most people, who only see the first half of the paragraph, are self-righteous, but they are never willing to read the story patiently.
In fact, after a long period of observation of local celestial phenomena, Thales** will have a bumper harvest of local olives next year, and farmers will need a lot of machines to extract oil. Thales quietly stockpiled all the local olive presses. In the following year, he sold all the oil presses to the farmers who were helpless in the face of the full warehouse of olives, and became the one who made the most money in that harvest season.
More than 100 years later, Plato, one of the greatest philosophers in the history of human thought, gave Thales a very serious meaning to the story, arguing that the key was that "what they were concerned with: What is man? What should humans do compared to other creatures? What should be endured? They are relentless in their research on these issues. ”
More than a thousand years later, Hegel, the giant of modern philosophy, mentioned Thales again, but this time the object of ridicule was those who had satirized Thales. Hegel said, "Only those who lie in the pit forever and never look up to the sky will not fall into the pit." What he means is: Look up at the starry sky, even though you may fall into the pit, but the one who looks up has the wisdom and hope; And a person who only buries his head in mundane things and does not know how to look up to the stars to seek true knowledge, even if he lies in the pit of the earth and will not fall, he will be trapped in the pit forever, and he will not have the wisdom and hope for development.
Pessimists like Wilde still say that even if they all live in the gutter, there are still some people looking up at the stars.
In today's pursuit of natural science and the belief in the supremacy of wealth, many people can't help but question: why do we still need to study philosophy? Do we still want to look up at the stars?
It is true that philosophy cannot be directly applied to productive activities, but this does not mean that we have to abandon philosophy. On the contrary, the more developed the material life, the more we must learn to reflect and think in a philosophical way.
Philosophy is born out of curiosity, and it uses thinking as a tool to pursue true knowledge, which can give people a broad vision, a bright mind, and a wise attitude to life.
However, in the current era of information and opinions, there are still many "pan-chicken soup" philosophical forms on the market, so what is the difference between it and real philosophy?
Chicken soup "tends to be emotionally inflammatory, tendentious, and limited, while philosophy is relatively calm, simple, and can stand up to scrutiny; "Chicken soup" tends to tell you what to do, while philosophy is more of a way of thinking about things and allowing you to think for yourself.
Read less chicken soup, let yourself and the people around you read more philosophy, it penetrates into everyone's bones, and figure out the true meaning of life itself, that is, understand the ideology and culture of the current society, so that you can live without being confused. ** Learning to power the country
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