Thinking with Humor

When I get "up-north" to our favorite spot on the lake in Onekema, Michigan, I love the sunshine of a bright day which warms me to my very soul. I am also grateful for a rainy day when I can get in the car and head twenty miles farther north to the little tourist town of Frankfort, Michigan. Here resides my favorite, small book store which I have frequented all the years I've been coming to this northern paradise. I know the people there, and am glad to see the same faces year after year, and to talk with them about books. Small book stores still have enthusiastic bibliotects, and what a joy it is to get their "read" on the year's favorite page-turners. This year, once again, I was not disappointed.
Now some of you may know of this book that Margarette told me about since it was published in 2007, but it was news to me. I think Margarette sets aside a book for me each summer and then waits for me to come into the book store to tell me about it. At least, I hope this is so. This year's book is called, "Plato and a Platypus Walks into a Bar," by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein. Some of you may or may not know that I was a Philosophy major in college which somewhat alarmed my parents who were hoping that I would have some kind of paying job after their four year payments to Marquette University. But, be that as it may, I have always been interested in the BIG questions of life; what's it all about anyway, and what's my plan and purpose in it? I have not picked up a Philosophy book in years until now. But, to call this book a Philosophy book would be a misnomer. It is written for the purpose of understanding the concepts of philosophy, yes, but understanding it through humor. For the first time, I am getting some of this stuff that I never understood before, and am laughing while doing it. This is an "everyman read,"....fun, funny, smart, interesting and enlightening. I love books I can say all those things about!
To illustrate a paradox in which something can be and also not be at the same time, the authors ask this question with this story.
"The town barber shaves all townsmen and only those who do not shave themselves. Does the barber shave himself? If he does, he doesn't, and if he doesn't, then he does."
If you want a lot of laughs and do a little thinking at the same time, I recommend this book. And now to prove that there is more to life than what meets the eye, I am going to swim underwater in the lake.