Aphorisms and Observations – Page 41

On Self Help

He who truly believes in self help will limit his consumption of self help books.

Do Think Twice

Think twice about attacking a man who owns a printing press.

(I am alluding to a famous song in the title. Which?)

Unable to contain her curiosity, Pandora opened her box and a multitude of evils escaped into the world. The blogger, unable to contain his curiosity as to the comments he might receive, opens his combox and a multitude of evils _________________. (You finish the sentence.)

Vehicle and Cross

In this life the body that begins as a vehicle ends as a cross. It carries us until such time as we carry it — and are nailed to it, and expire on it and of it.

The Eliminative Materialist

The eliminative materialist is a bit like a man who blows his brains out to be rid of a headache. No head, no headache, no problem!

The Discursive as Distraction

The search for the Real takes us outside ourselves. We may seek the Real in experiences, possessions, distant lands, or other people. These soon enough reveal themselves as distractions. But what about ideas and theories? Are they simply a more lofty sort of distraction? “Travelling is a fool’s paradise” said Emerson. Among lands certainly, but not among ideas?

If I move from objects of sense to objects of thought I am still moving among objects. To discourse, whether in words or in thoughts, is to be on the run and not at rest. But is not the Real to be found resting within, in one’s innermost subjectivity? Discourse dis-tracts, pulls apart, the interior unity.

Noli foras ire, said Augustine, in te redi, in interiore homine habitat veritas. “Do not wish to go outside, return into yourself. Truth dwells in the inner man.”

Surface and Depth

We are too superficial to fathom our depth, and too deep to acquiesce comfortably in our superficiality.

Intellectual Hypertrophy

Weight lifters and body builders in their advanced states of muscular development appear ridiculous to us. All that time and money spent on the grotesque overdevelopment of one's merely physical attributes ^___when in a few short years one will be dust and ashes. But isn't the intellectual equally unbalanced who overdevelops his logical and analytical skills to the neglect of body, emotions, and spirit? Is the intellectual wrestler all that superior to the physical one? Is one kind of hypertrophy better than another? What good is discursive hypertrophy if it is paid for in the coin of mystical and moral and physical atrophy?

On Making a Splash

Years ago an acquaintance wrote me about a book he had published which, he said, had "made quite a splash." The metaphor is unfortunately double-edged. When an object hits the water it makes a splash. But only moments later the water returns to its quiescent state as if nothing had happened. So it is an apt metaphor. It captures both the immediate significance of an event and its long-term insignificance.

Imagination

One can remember having imagined something, but one cannot remember something imaginary.

Talk is Cheap?

Often it is. But the right word, at the right time, addressed to the right person, spoken from the heart with purity of intent can be priceless.

Jack and Phil

He doesn't know jack but he thinks he does, which is why he needs phil.

Preacher and Slacker

There is someone worse than the preacher who falls into hypocrisy, namely, the moral slacker who is not even to the point where hypocrisy is possible.

Accept Love, Accept Aversion

We must learn to accept people's love, good wishes, and benevolence as gifts without worrying whether we deserve these things or not, and without worrying whether we will ever be in a position to compensate the donors. Similarly, we must learn to accept people's hate and malevolence as a sort of reverse gratuitous donation whether we deserve them or not.

We are often unjustly loved and admired. So why should it bother us that we are often unjustly hated and contemned? Try to see the latter as balancing the former.