Terence G Nye

Philosophising to myself Terence G Nye

I am a football fan and the club that I support has a poem that describes it in one word...'Fulhamish'. I love working with my hands and I love to write poetry. The former I made a career out of and the latter has become a hobby. Its interesting and for me probably inevitable that as I get older the mental side of life becomes much more important. Physical construction and mental poetry are both things I do and enjoy, but along with these things I have always been a wonderer and an enquirer. I have heard it said that you cannot be a poet and a philosopher at the same time. I disagree with that in the sense that I can be whatever I want to be. A builder can philosophise about the thing that he is making, decide whether it can be made in a different way, what use it is and whether it contributes to man's existence. If he chooses to express these arguments and ideas in meter and rhyme to make them more interesting and memorable then I for one say 'Good on him!' There always has and probably always will be plenty of things in the universe to philosophise about. In an ever changing and uncertain world this is inevitable. Long gone are the days of clockwork physics, Gods will and us being at the centre. A new revolution is starting where efficient machines are taking over from less competent human workers. Experience has told us the difficulty of predicting the future so how human life will improve or deteriorate is anyone's guess. Social media is also changing 'Life as we know it' so in that sense there is a lot to be discussed. These are issues that the young will have to deal with in the future. Young people have bags of intelligence and loads of energy but I worry that there is a strong element in society today that is set on infantalising and dumbing them down. I truly hope that they can resist this trap and choose a philosophy that is mature and tries to benefits everyone. I often philosophise to myself. I'm an ordinary man and live in an ordinary community. In the past I have 'Come Out' and confessed I was a poet, This was not a good idea as a lot of people think of poets as queer and to others we are romantic silly sods. Some think that to be a poet you have to be intellectual and arrogant, even unmanly. I write poetry about anything that pops into my head or I see on my travels. When I say to people that 'I am a builder' the men take me for a beer and ask me to give them a price for their new extension and the women just say 'Marry me'! I hope the stuff that I write might appeal to someone, somewhere. I have never been interested in descriptive poetry. To read how the leaves of trees shine in the warm spring sun doesn't do it for me. I like to read about the how and why, not how pretty it is. I don't write to make money or impress people, I am spending more and more time in my madman cave writing rubbish and hope these little snippets and muses gel together and maybe form something creative and interesting for both you and me.