The more I listen, learn and grow with Robert Wilson and the wealth of intelligence that he provides with his Cowboy Wisdom, CDs, books – everything that he offers to the rest of us – I have begun to grasp something that I didn’t see at the beginning of my journey with this man. And that is the fact that he is reinstituting something that has truly been missing in this world – philosophy.

Yes, I can see groups out there rolling their eyes. Who needs philosophy? (That, by the way, is the same as asking who needs intelligence?) We now live on what Socrates used to call “the grasping of the tangible,” which used to drive this famous philosopher nuts. We watch the green and red blinking lights of the stock market. We listen to the news to ascertain the difference between love and hate. We learn our bigotry, sloth, and any other deadly sin you want to name, through the power of our television sets as we listen and learn from presidential candidates to rulers of countries who prove on a daily basis that they do not give one iota about their own people. They care only what the world of business and industry cares about – the bottom line.

This almost feels like we are telling our children to learn from people who continue to make mistakes that cause everything from war to financial collapse, to become the people they will one day become. Even religious followers roll their eyes at the word philosophy even though it was a science based on divine insight, and the belief that the soul was immortal.

Philosophers, way back when, were the only ones that people turned to. Not medicine men, not scientific scholars – but the philosophers who actually made sense to the people. They began to believe that knowledge was an important thing to have. Observation, study, recollection, LEARNING, was the major issue of life. And that – the power of learning – went away.

But what if there are still words that make a difference? What if there are still people out there who can offer you advice in a manner that causes you to release your stress and feel empowered? You would begin to like yourself again. You would begin to learn and even make money, because you opened up your mind, you tossed out the lessons being taught on MSN Money, etc., and you took your own ideas – your own creativity – and established wealth. Can this happen? Or do we simply look back on men wearing toga’s and think of Animal House instead of the sheer brilliance that they used to teach others – proven brilliance that helped ‘the people’ find love, live longer and make money.

On absolutely every subject from politics to art, religion to science, to justice, medicine, virtue, vice, crime and punishment, philosophers – the people with WISDOM – had something to say that made sense.

Now, The Wisdom of a Cowboy and The Visions of a Cowboy are certainly titles that are not similar to Plato’s Republic, but in this modern age Mr. Wilson has hit the nail on the proverbial head. A cowboy, in fact, IS our modern-day philosopher. The icon in our heads is of a man who rides the range and collects wisdom through thoughts, nature, and his talks with any higher power he may believe in along the way. They are the older men who have that wisdom that can’t be learned from a television set – it can only be learned from being able to find that peace inside of themselves and achieve the empowerment that comes with it.

A cowboy, just like Robert Wilson, does not provide empty words. This is also not a man who can be categorized as one of those motivational speakers who stand on a stages in their business suits with the look of a salesmen in their eyes. Robert Wilson, as we’ve stated in the past, can give you a list of degrees and specialties if that is what you feel is necessary to prove himself as a professional. Being a hypnotherapist, a motivational speaker (which in Robert Wilson lingo is a confidant and a friend), a Licensed Neuro-Linguistic Life Coach, an NLP Practitioner… this list goes on. But in truth, this man is a pure philosopher who is driving the point home that WISDOM and KNOWLEDGE are NOT things of the past – they are things that MUST be honed by each and every one of us in order to make our lives better!

Most people believe that only if something is graspable in their hands, is it real. However, that would basically cut out all of the interesting things in life: art, poetry, creative writing, music – all of these and more are based on creative thinking and allowing your brain to accept things that aren’t tangible. They come from the mind. In essence, it would mean taking away everything that defines us as the people we are inside – how we operate and what we believe in.

Philosophy, logic, ethics – all of these things are real – perhaps not tangible, but absolutely the basis of who we are, and can not be overlooked. It comes as a true blessing – especially to the creative types and believers in this world – that Robert Wilson with his enigmatic words has even spread out across the radio waves with his Cowboy Wisdom. Not only is he offering shows that help one and all find a way to bring wealth and love into their lives, but he is also standing behind the writers, musicians, and creative beings who wish to give this world back the ingenuity, beliefs, hope and imagination that we’ve been missing.

The togas are gone, and a cowboy hat has replaced them, but the meaning is still the same. Robert Wilson gives solutions and a true learning environment using his phenomenal list of skills, changing the extremely negative into the extremely positive, and giving us all a path that will lead us back to the world of learning.

Amy Lignor
The Writer Companion