When the sun shines bright one is less likely to be depressed by the thought that mood can be affected by something as mundane as the sun's shining bright.
Category: Aphorisms and Observations
Coming Together and Moving Apart
Is it an unalloyed good that people be 'brought together'? I rather doubt it. Mark Zuckerberg would seem to agree by his actions if not by his words. The man who touts his Facebook as bringing people together has had a huge wall built around his Hawaiian compound. Apparently, those who engineer 'bringing together' think of themselves as very special people who have every right not to be brought together with those they bring together.
The Infirmity of Truth
Having the truth is no defense in the court of the politically correct. For that court lies in the precincts of power, and here below truth is no match for power unless those who are truthful also have power. But the paths to power are often paved with lies and their necessity. Rare then is the truthful one who attains power with his truthfulness intact.
An Excuse for Idolatry?
The Transcendent being inaccessible, we accept substitutes.
Agenda Fetishism
You know you're list-obsessive when, having completed a task, you add an entry to your 'to do' list just so you can cross it off.
Reason Weak and Strong
Reason proves weak in the search for truth, but strong in the rationalizing of behavior.
A Paltry Nobility
A paltry nobility it is that extends only to a recognition of one's baseness. Such is a nobility of thought that cannot implement itself in action.
It takes all kinds to make a world . . .
. . . the mess that it is.
The Keeper of a Journal
He who keeps a journal is a conservationist of the inner landscape, a steward and secretary of the interior.
After Enough Time Passes . . .
. . . de mortuis nil nisi bonum lapses.
(In justification of some negative remarks about Senator John McCain (R-AZ) posted on my Facebook page. I pointed out that while McCain served with great distinction in the Vietnam war, he failed to translate military valor into civil courage, while Donald J. Trump, who did not serve, has it in spades.)
A Paradox of Plenty
Complain if you like about the low level of your students, but bear in mind that you probably wouldn't have a teaching job if if it weren't for the decline in standards that is both cause and effect of the expansion of 'higher education.' A better term would be 'higher remediation.'
Not Enough Time! A Philosopher’s Lament
There is not enough time to understand this life in time, but then it is such a fleeting, paltry thing, such a blend of form and formlessness, such a chiaroscuro of light and dark, such a scene of desires insistent yet insatiable, ultimately unknowable and ultimately unreal — that the time allotted is perhaps time enough.
Gloomy Days
On sunny days the truth of our predicament is less visible than on gloomy days.
Night Thoughts
Night thoughts are the specters that haunt the philosopher in the twilight zone between sleeping and waking. Recent examples:
- Man is noble in that he thinks the thought and raises the question of the Absolute while questioning the question.
- Man is noble in that he is wretched. Only a spiritual animal can be wretched.
- Man is spirit in that he is capable of self-degradation. His nobility manifests itself in his self-abasement.
- Man is flesh and yet free.
- Man is a question he poses to himself.
Words and Distinctions
The wise do not quibble over words, but they do insist on distinctions. One of the latter is that between distinctions and the words in which they are couched.