Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Aphorisms and Observations

  • Unreasonable Disappointment

    I cannot be reasonably disappointed if I fail to achieve what was never in my power to achieve.

  • The Realist Speaks

    Most people are basically decent.  Just don't put them under too much moral pressure.

  • Ockhamite Advice for Leftists

    Do not multiply enemies beyond necessity! By libeling those who disagree with you, for example.  Making enemies for no good reason is generally foolish.  It can come back to bite you.

  • Can One Give Up Smoking by Smoking?

    By smoking a generic brand, perhaps?  Or a meta-brand, were there such a thing?  As little is it true that one can give up philosophy by philosophizing. And yet some try.

  • Disgust With Others

    How much of disgust with others is disgust at oneself for allowing oneself to be in their midst?  And similarly with delight?

  • The Measure of Seriousness

    Money is the measure of seriousness.  And for most the only measure and the only seriousness.  I tell myself to avoid misanthropy, but it is a moral challenge. (I tend to alliterate even when I am not trying to: money, measure, most, myself, misanthropy, moral.)

  • Time To Be Unreasonable

    It is not reasonable to be reasonable with everyone.  Some need to be met with the hard fist of unreason.  The reasonable know that reason's sphere of application is not limitless.

  • Avoid Misanthropy

    The timber of humanity, though crooked, is nonetheless mostly sturdy and termite-free. 

  • A Good Aphorism

    A good aphorism should swim suddenly before the mind fully formed.  If you have to piece it together it will show its seams.  Grunts of effort rarely produce good ones.  Bukowski's "Don't try" finds application here.  The good ones are grantings — from Elsewhere.  Be grateful for them, on Thanksgiving, and every day.

  • Aphorisms and Poems

    Aphorisms and poems have this in common: neither can justify what they say while remaining what they are.

  • Embrace Life

    One must embrace life if only to have grist for the analytic mill.

  • People

    People judge falsely, by what we do, and what we have. They ought to judge by what we are.  But they are nothing themselves, so how could they?

  • Affinity

    There is the affinity of the blood-related, and what could be called the affinity of propinquity: the affinity of those who grew up together.  But the only true affinity is spiritual.  It has nothing to do with blood or proximity.

  • The Matter of Memory

    Today's deeds are the matter of tomorrow's memories.  So act today that tomorrow's memories won't be regrets.

  • Whence the Poignancy of Farewell?

    Death presides over all of life, but in leave-takings, while remaining in the background he steps out of the shadows just enough so that the glint of his scythe strikes the eye.  A harbinger of the brunt's striking of the neck and the ending of this, our ambiguous sojourn.