The Philosophy of So [what]? The First Meaning of So?

Imagine a perfect summer day. You’re walking along the sidewalk in your neighborhood, minding your own business, completely satisfied by the merits of the fresh air, warm sun and the blue sky. Green is your favorite color precisely because of days like today. Trees and grass even weeds are growing everywhere, decorating the scene with their lush bodies and blades. You’re breathing it all in, enjoying it without really over-thinking it.

Suddenly a stranger strides quickly toward you from what must be his lawn. He has a look of absolute horror in his face, and you can tell right away that his look of mortification is not from something he just saw, but from something he is seeing right now. His indignation is directed at you, at something you’re doing. He’s pointing to your feet as he’s approaching and in a tone that can only be interpreted as accusatory, he screams, “You’re walking on the cement!”

What is your reply?

You’ve been granted eternal life, and your pleased to discover eternal life takes place on a tropical island where all of your food and drink, all of your basic needs are tended to by servants who actually anticipate your every want and need just as you’re about to think of one. Your primary responsibility is to have no responsibilities at all and you’ve taken to just lying by the beach and listening to the rhythm of the waves reaching the shore as if you were listening the steady pounding of your own heartbeat.

One day, as one of your servants sets down a cold glass of fresh pineapple juice on the table next to your beach chair, he leans over and says with eyebrows arched as if to imply some sort of extra meaning, “It’s Tuesday, you know.”

“So?”

We’ve come to the First Meaning of So?

So? as Oblivion, or So?-Oblivion, as it’s often abbreviated.

So? as Oblivion runs rampant, mostly to the benefit, and sometimes to detriment of the Philosophy and its complete adherence.

Most will note almost immediately the real irony for followers of So?-Oblivion is that they are so often unaware of themselves in its practice that it could it hardly be called a practice at all. In essence So?-Oblivion is truly being adhered to best when done merely out of natural attitude rather then any type of discipline.

This should come somewhat as good news, even despite the Doctrine of the Trinity of Meaning which states that all three aspects of So?’s meaning must be subscribed to for the sake of being a true “Practitioner.” Because despite the fact that one must go on to learn and practice the other two meaning of So?, the first meaning is practically a ‘gimme.’ It’s like the free space in Bingo.

Now the above examples are rather far-fetched and take place in purely fantastic realms, and they though might illicit a certain ‘feel’ for the First Meaning they’re not entirely reliable as hypothetical scenarios. That’s why it’s necessary to draw on the collected texts from the Living Experiences section of the So? Narrative, which are actual first hand accounts — testaments, if you will, of followers of the First Meaning of So?

It won’t take long for you to quickly identify how some of your own true to life experience fall right in line with First Meaning. You may even want to consider your own testimonies, or write them out.

The Philosophy of So [what]? In the Beginning.

Though it may seem like an exercise in tedium, it is important that from the very onset something be said about the significance or insignificance of small words and conjunctions. This is fundamental because in the very word So we have both a small word and a conjunction. Those facts, those pieces of identity, those properties, those characteristics that are the very foundations of So? are important not entirely in defining its very meaning but more in understanding its quiet and humble beginning, which is only now a simple part of its meaning.

In short, it’s a place to start. A Genesis. A manger birth. Or Matthew 1: 1-17.

There are few words shorter than So. I can think of only I and a. An argument could be made that, as a stand-alone, a has no meaning at all. Only when paired with another word will a indicate that word as one, singular or of a certain category.

And I, well it only has the one self-reflexive, egotistic meaning, doesn’t it?

Though So is as short as it is, and often accused of having limited meaning, we will see in due time and through revelation its dynamic qualities.

People of a certain age might recall with a certain fondness that brilliantly entertaining, effectively educational, dare I say edutaining body of informative musical cartoons titled School House Rock.

Arguably, one of the most memorable episodes, (and from what I know the only to be given homage by Snoop Dogg in one of his songs, Hydroponic), was titled Conjunction Junction.

When the question is sung in call-and-response style by the female chorus, “Conjunction Junction, what’s your function?”

The answer from the animated train conductor comes, “Hooking up words and phrases and clauses.”

Though So itself is left out from the song for favor of and and now and but, the definition covers our beloved conjunction too. It is a word first drawn for the sole purpose of bringing other words together. In almost all circumstances it has no place on its own. It is designed only to be used in relation to other words or clauses or to ‘coordinate words in the same clause,’ as one definition would have it.

“Do your homework now so you can play outside later.”

The temptation is to believe that like a, So is useless on its own, that it must only serve its function as a conjunction hooking up word and phrases and clauses.

But then recount from your own uses of the word, the multiple times you’ve thought it or declared on its own. You might even be thinking it now, reading this. So?

Though it cannot be denied the work it does to bring words and clauses together, this little conjunction is brave enough and has the power to create meaning standing all alone.

Not just one meaning, but three.

A Trinity.