Aphorisms and Observations – Page 32

The Leftist as Retromingent

A retromingent is an animal that urinates backwards. Posturing as 'progressive,' the leftist does what to the past?

I Pity the Poor Activist

I pity the poor activist for whom the real is exhausted by the political. But I detest these totalitarians as well since they seek to elide the boundary between the private and the public.

We need to battle them in the very sphere they think exhausts the real. But it is and must be a part-time fight, lest we become like them. Most of life for us conservatives must be given over to the enjoyment and appreciation, in private, of the apolitical: nature, for example, and nature's God.

Regret Become Denial

There are past actions one disowns to such an extent that one comes to deny having done them. "I could never have done such a thing!"

Socratic Equality

We are not all equally ignorant, but we are all equal in being ignorant, though unequal in our appreciation of the fact.

Righteous Indignation

Is your righteous indignation perhaps only envy in disguise?

Righteous Anger

That there is more anger than righteousness in our righteous anger is no argument against it.

Resilience

The sufficiently resilient and adaptable can turn most of life's unanticipated slings and arrows to their advantage.

A Fallen Being

A natural but not inevitable concomitant of being a fallen being is being oblivious to the fact.

Sickness

The physically sick are rarely unaware of their state; the morally usually.

Worry and Regret and Time

Worry and regret form a pair in that each involves flight from the present; worry flees the present toward an unknown future, regret toward an unchangeable past. The door to Reality, however, is hinged on the axis of the Now. If access is to be had to the nunc stans it is only via the nunc movens. Past and future are but representations in comparison to the reality of the moving now.

Mountain Climbers of the Spirit

George Mallory fell to his death in 1924 while attempting to scale Everest. His body was found in 1999. It remains a mystery whether he summited.

Now one can admire Mallory's courage, dedication, and perseverance. But one must question the value of the goal he set for himself. Arguably, he threw his life away attempting a merely physical feat. He spent his incarnation pursuing self-glorification for a merely physical accomplishment.

How much more noble the mountain climbers of the spirit like Buddha, Socrates, and Jesus who attempted to surmount, not a hunk of rock, but the human predicament!

Category: Aphorisms and Observations