The philosopher's precision is pedantry to the plebeians.
(Am I obsessively alliterative to the detriment of good style?)
Category: Aphorisms and Observations
Central Planning
You say you're for it? Would you still be for it if I could show you that it is virtually certain that you will end up among the centrally planned and not among the central planners?
On ‘Making It’
One reason to try to 'make it' is to come to appreciate, by succeeding, that worldly success cannot be a final goal of legitimate human striving. 'Making it' frees one psychologically and allows one to turn one's attention to worthier matters. He who fails is dogged by a sense of failure whereas he who succeeds is in a position to appreciate the ultimate insignificance of both success and failure, not that most of the successful ever do. Their success traps them. Hence the sad spectacle of the old coot, a good flight of stairs away from a major coronary event, scheming and angling for more loot and land when in the end a man needs only — six feet.
Vita Brevis
This mess we are in, this predicament, the fall into time . . . leaves us no time for its solution.
Between the Inhuman and the Unphilosophical
It is inhuman to care not at all about the praise of one's fellows, but unphilosophical to care much.
Doubt and Belief
Doubting no more confers dubitability upon that which is doubted than believing confers credibility upon that which is believed.
Why Control Negative Thoughts About Other People?
Negative thoughts are of the other, but in oneself. They cannot harm what they are of, but they can pollute and disturb what they are in.
Against ‘Progressives’
Their need to change things argues no need in things for change.
The Idolatry of the Transient
It is because we want more than the transient that we cling to it.
Life and Chess
What has been said about chess may also apply to life: For a game it is too serious, and for seriousness too much of a game.
Moralizing
'Moralizing' is what liberals call moral discourse, just as 'judgmentalism' is what they call the making of moral judgments. 'Hypocrite' is what they call those who preach high standards.
Am I being fair? Fair enough. You are free to nuance the point to your satisfaction so long as you don't miss the truth behind my jabs.
Reason is a Whore?
Now that prostitutes have earned respectability as 'sex workers,' what should a latter-day Luther say about reason? That it is a lawyer?
New Day, Old Thoughts
It's a new day. Why begin it with the rehearsal of old thoughts, some negative, all useless?
A Proof of Your Wretchedness
You envy me?
On Natural Science
Natural science pursued for its own sake is a magnificent and noble thing. But in the end one ought to consider whether it is but a high-minded diversion, an extremely high-level form of Pascalian divertissement.