Ironical Soliloquy Bird
These photos were taken at the Rivera Boat House at Lake Geneva this past Sunday afternoon. Lake Geneva on a Sunday afternoon is close enough to Paradise as far as I am concerned. The lake stretches to the horizon, the surface sparkling in the sun, a platter of diamonds. We walked out on the pier to admire the Louise, a steam powered lake excursion boat which was moored at the end of the pier. As we returned I noticed a flock of gulls perched in a line on the edge of 
the tiled roof of the Rivera. Those birds had the best seat in the house. From their vantage point nothing was lost to their field of vision. And then to the side perched by itself was a solitary bird, somewhat removed from the rest. I remarked to Laura, that bird has to be the philosopher, keeping company with his contemplation.
Philosophy is not for everyone. It’s a discipline that requires solitude, concentration of mind and equally important friendship. One who 
contemplates needs others as collaborators, friends of wisdom, who aid in the development, in the assessment of concepts.
Here are the photos. Also offered are some quotations taken from Deleuze and Guattari, What Is Philosophy, on friendship.
Philosophers are friends of wisdom, those who seek wisdom but do not formally possess it. The philosopher invents and
thinks the concept. The friend is a presence intrinsic to thought, a condition of the possibility of thought itself, a lived reality.
…The basic point of friendship, two friends are like claimant and rival (who could tell them apart) a generalized atheticism: the rivalry of free men, the agon.
The philosopher is the concepts friend; he or she is the potentiality of the concept.
And a final quoted line that seems to apropos to a flock of seagulls feeding on left-behind picnic debris on the sand…..
The concept is like the ironical soliloquy bird that surveys the battlefield of destroyed rival opinions (the drunken guests at the banquet)
