He seeks and seemingly finds wisdom, and that is good enough in my book. Yet, I suspect some will say he is not a philosopher because he makes no attempt to prove his assertions by stacking logic upon them . He seems to get his ideas by intuition, or at least does not offer another source.
Is it 'his' philosophy?
Some of his ideas seem to be restatements of the ideas of other philosophers (or 'real' philosophers, if you do not bestow the title upon him). QUOTE 1 seems to be a rewriting of the stoic principle of the dichotomy of control. QUOTE 2 seems to be built upon the ideas of Wittgenstein, or if you prefer (as I do), Aldous Huxley. Yet, I don't know if he considered these ideas original or not, or if he was exposed to the ideas that seem so similar to his. QUOTE 3 or QUOTE 4 might properly be attributed to him alone, yet the ideas do not seem new.
Is there value in what he says?
Of course, I say there is. I recently purchased and read "The World According to Mr. Rogers". It's not earth-shattering, but his reading his ideas is almost like a form of meditation. The big takeaway for me was the idea that strength cannot, should not, be defined as physical strength, as the ability to make others do work, to defeat them by force or to gather the most money or resources. Strength, as he defines it, is the willingness to go out and display your true self to the world, to do good without keeping score and to love and forgive yourself and others. He speaks of risks not in terms of battles or finances but in terms of emotions.
Quote 1
Quote 2It's not the honors and the prizes and the fancy outsides of life that ultimately nourish our souls. It's the knowing that we can be trusted, that we never have to fear the truth, that the bedrock of our very being is firm.
Quote 3In order to express our sense of reality, we must use some kind of symbols, words or notes or shades of paint or television pictures or sculpted forms. None of these symbols or images can ever completely satisfy us because they can never be any more than what they are--a fragment of a reflection of what we feel reality to be.
Quote 4When I was a boy I used to think that 'strong' meant having big muscles, great physical power; but the longer I live, the more I realize that strength has much more to do with what is not seen. Real strength has to do with helping others.
Sometimes, though, I wonder if we confuse strength with other words--like aggression and even violence. Real strength is neither male nor female. It is quite simply one of the fines characteristics that any human being can possess.