Cogito,ergo sum!

Tuesday 5th September 2023. La Roche-Posay.

In the interests of balance….as I had a hot and active day yesterday, I am doing nothing today. I am in a pretty place, by a river I can swim in. I am parked in shade and a nice town within a short walk.

I woke at 8.30am which is late for me thinking about Descartes again. I had a thirst for knowledge and realised that the Latin phrase, “Cogito, ergo sum” which means “I think, therefore I am” was one of his key philosophies. Now, I won’t try to unpack the possible meaning of that phrase as it probably needs an essay rather than a blog….and I’m not too sure what it means myself! However, it could be a little similar to one of my favourite philosophies which is “Wherever you go , there you are”!….and just to prove it, here I am! I am the same person here as I am at home.

In having these thoughts I am, again, proving the accuracy of Parkinson’s Law that says that work (or blogging) expands in relation to the time available to it.

After a late breakfast and while it was still reasonably cool (25 degrees), I walked along the river into town.

It was great to see my first French market of the trip.

I made two purchases…..at local stalls and at good prices.

I do appreciate nice honey and this was from a local lady selling nothing but honey. Other stalls sold honey but they were all more expensive and seemed to be part of a bigger stall….it’s nice to get it from the producer. I also like prunes but have never had prune jam. It may help with the ‘impasse de farte’. The prune jam was bought from an old chap needed to press a button on his throat to speak which meant that not only could he not understand me but I couldn’t understand him either. I would have liked to buy more tempting food but when you are only shopping for one person everything you buy takes two or three days to eat and I only need to buy provisions to get me to Tim’s house on Thursday.

So what do I do when I give myself a day off travelling or cycling? I took a chair to the riverside and I listened to more podcasts about ‘laws that aren’t laws’. I promise to keep it brief but one of them is ‘Peters Principle’ – that’s from a chap with the surname ‘Peters’ who coined the idea that in any hierarchy people are promoted to a position of incompetence. That could be either people who are good at the base role but continue to be promoted to a position in the hierarchy that they are not suited, eg. A salesman could have been a good salesman but have no skills to be a manager. This happens all the time. I must have finished in the Police as an Inspector, so I succeeded in becoming fully incompetent at a middle rank. I recall many people above me who took much longer to become incompetent! Perhaps I should take pride in the speed at which I became incompetent!

A second law is Stieglers Law, which says that discoveries that are named after the discover/inventor are most often not responsible for the discovery/invention at all. Hence, Peters, Murphy and Parkinson must have stolen other people’s ideas to steal the kudos! Stiegler named the law after himself so he can’t have been the first to have that idea either! They are all fraudsters!

Other things that I do….reading a book (a Jack Reacher novel), having numerous swims and doing todays Wordle…..look away if you haven’t done it yet….

I surprised myself by keeping busy for a whole day. I was totally in the shade and I have felt much cooler than yesterday….although I think it only just tipped over 30 degrees today. The van feels a lot cooler than yesterday too as it’s been under shade and not moved.

Ooo I nearly forgot, I have also made some adjustments to my Rugby Fantasy Team due to injuries and some second thoughts.

So, back to the original philosophy….’Cogito, ergo sum’, if I think does that confirm my existence? I think so….but what if I have second thoughts, could that mean I have a double life and if so who is the imposter?

I think I will need to travel again tomorrow, for the sake of the blog readers.