I made it to Saturday.  Frost can be seen on the ground.  I have a to-do list which includes pruning rose bushes to cleaning a shower.  To live is to work; there is always work to be done. 

Any work can be transformed into agreeable activity with a certain angle of approach.  Cleaning a shower registers as unpleasant.  Noxious cleaning agents are used within a confined space.  However what better opportunity to listen to a podcast by Steven West, Philosophize This.  Several weeks ago during my last foray into shower maintenance, I listened to a lecture on the work of Michel Foucault.  Energized by West’s recounting of the arc of Foucault’s life and work I felt regret that I finished the chore so quickly, signaling an end to my listening pleasure.  Philosophy, the life of the mind, is exploration at it’s best.  Conveyed rightly it is a supremely captivating story.  Our domains of knowledge are bound together by philosophical inquiry, a necessary exploration, fraught with danger and anticipation — more needful now than ever as education universally is immensely stressed by the pandemic.  Absent philosophical speculation — knowledge and society too, fragment into disparate, incommensurate, antagonistic elements.  And so it is, this is happening to us.

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I regret that I did not see Tom Petty live in concert.  Petty died October 2nd, 2017.  I recall passing on the concert opportunity.  Now when I hear his music, I regret missing being in his presence when his work was performed personally, with passion and grace. 

According to Wikipedia:

Petty was born October 20, 1950, in Gainesville, Florida, the first of two sons of Kitty (Katherine) Petty, a local tax office worker, and Earl Petty, who was a traveling salesman….His interest in rock and roll music began at age ten when he met Elvis Presley.  In the summer of 1961, his uncle was working on the set of Presley’s film Follow That Dream, in nearby Ocala, and invited Petty to watch the shoot.  He instantly became a Presley fan, and when he returned that Saturday, he was greeted by his friend Keith Harben, and soon traded his Wham-O slingshot for a collection of Elvis 45’s.  Of that meeting with Presley, Petty said, “Elvis glowed.”  In a 2006 interview, Petty said he knew he wanted to be in a band the moment he saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show.  “The minute I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show—and it’s true of thousands of guys—there was the way out. There was the way to do it. You get your friends and you’re a self-contained unit.  And you make the music….

He dropped out of high school at age 17 to play bass with his newly formed band.

The quotation from Petty  a fitting similitude of the doing of philosophy:  You get your friends together … and you make the music.  Philosophy is music when done well, done right.

One of Petty’s most loved tunes is Runnin’ Down a Dream.  The subject, after all, is about us.

Runnin’ Down A Dream

By Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

It was a beautiful day, the sun beat down
I had the radio on, I was drivin’
Trees went by, me and Del were singin’
Little Runaway
I was flyin’

Yeah, runnin’ down a dream
That never would come to me
Workin’ on a mystery, goin’ wherever it leads
Runnin’ down a dream

I felt so good, like anything was possible
Hit cruise control and rubbed my eyes
The last three days the rain was unstoppable
It was always cold, no sunshine

Yeah, runnin’ down a dream
That never would come to me
Workin’ on a mystery, goin’ wherever it leads
Runnin’ down a dream

I rolled on, the sky grew dark
I put the pedal down to make some time
There’s something good waitin’ down this road
I’m pickin’ up whatever’s mine

I’m runnin’ down a dream
That never would come to me
Workin’ on a mystery, goin’ wherever it leads
Runnin’ down a dream
Yeah, I’m runnin’ down a dream
That never would come to me
Workin’ on a mystery, goin’ wherever it leads
I’m runnin’ down a dream