Roberto Baschetti - Buenos Aires Zoo

April 8, 1966 is a date that is permanent in my memory. I was a conscript in the Argentine Navy. Even though it was a fall it was a hot fall. I was wearing my winter wool uniform. I was hot. I was reading the April 8 Time Magazine that had on its cover in bold letters – Is God Dead? I was sitting in front of the tiger cage in the Buenos Aires Zoo.

I was still and ignorant young man on Argentine literature so I did not know that a frequent writer, who adored tigers, Jorge Luís Borges often sat on that same bench.

My two years of studying philosophy in Mexico City College (I wanted to be an engineer but failed electricity) with Ramón Xirau had yet to filter itself into my brain. It was only years that after having been taught from its beginnings with the Pre-Socratics all the way to Sartre, that I became a Platonist and a Hegelian.

Now I would say that Time should have followed with a cover – Is Philosophy Dead?

All the above comes to mind when try to explain my situation to anybody, a sad one of missing a wife I was married to for 52 years.

I write a blog (7061), scan my plants (at least 3000 of them), take photographs with film and digital, feed myself and my female cat Niña and see my youngest daughter once a week.

The phone never rings. Most of the people I have known, that are still alive, do not have dementia or terrible diseases never call me. Perhaps, because they live with someone, I have begun to see my clingy Niña almost as a person. I often ask her, “Do you remember Rosemary?”

People tell me to make friends, to become more active and read more books. They are unaware what philosophic angst is all about. My grandmother would often tell me in Spanish, “Vamos a filosofar,” or “Let’s philosophize.

My Platonism makes me believe that Niña has in her an essence of catness and that in her genes she has the memory of ancient cats being stroked by pharaohs.

When I first read this poem I smiled at the deep philosophic thought is such a short poem.

Resumé

By Dorothy Parker

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren’t lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.

I long to find someone who will not react with thought stoppers, “Alex, meet more people and look for more activities.” And also someone who would say, “Alex let’s philosophize.”