The Christian is a Platonist about one man, Christ: he pre-exists both his conception and his birth. But there is no Platonism about any other human. The rest of us enjoy no Platonic pre-existence. We are literally nothing until we are conceived. One could say that orthodox Christians are anthropological exceptionalists with respect to one man. And he is indeed a man. If he is fully God and fully man, then he is fully man.
Category: Aphorisms and Observations
Bridges or Walls?
We already have a 'bridge.' Its name is 'legal immigration.' Now we need a wall. Its name is 'rule of law.'
The Moral Horror of Murder
The murderer takes what no man has the power to give.
Body as Vehicle
Your body is your vehicle on the highways and byways of the mundus sensibilis. Does it not make sense to keep it ever roadworthy? Is it not morally incumbent upon you to do so? Either maintain it or get it off the road.
Socializing as Self-Denial
You don't really want to go to that Christmas party where you will eat what you don't need to eat, drink what you don't need to drink, and dissipate your inwardness in pointless chit-chat. But you were invited and your non-attendance may be taken amiss. So you remind yourself that self-denial is good and that it is useful from time to time to practice the art of donning and wearing the mask of a 'regular guy.'
For the step into the social is by dissimulation. Necessary to the art of life is knowing how to negotiate the social world and pass yourself off under various guises and disguises.
If he’s not your president . . .
. . . then you are not my fellow citizen.
Self-Reliance
Self-reliance is a principle of worldly wisdom only. Rely on Other-reliance for the ultimate wisdom.
Prayer Wheels
'Mechanical' prayer fully mechanized.
Contingent and Necessary
That we exist is contingent, that we won't necessary.
(To spoil the aphorism by translating it into the patois of 'possible worlds': we exist in some but not all possible worlds; but we are mortal in every world in which we exist.)
Unnecessary Conversations
These include those with oneself. Limit the unproductive inner rants and rehearsals. There is no inner listening if one is talking to oneself.
Would You Have Nothing to Do with Politics?
Having nothing to do with politics would make sense only if you could reasonably expect that politics would reciprocate and have nothing to do with you.
Reason and Rationalization
Reason is weak in discernment but strong in rationalization.
Time Balm
Time flattens the peaks of emotion and fills the valleys of despond. Tormentors from the past are now shades pale and insubstantial, too weak to haunt. Absence wins out over presence. One needn't work at the purgation of memory: time does the work for us.
Human Predicament
It angers us that what angers us does not anger others.
Thinker, Thought, Sentence
If thought is to sentence as soul to body, then thinker is to thought as God to soul.