Life is hierarchical. It is therefore unjust not to give grades. A school in which all are equal is no preparation for a life in which all are not.
Category: Aphorisms and Observations
Silence and Wholeness
Perusing an old file of juvenilia for blog-fodder, I decided that the contents are mostly too juvenile for reproduction here. But then I came across an aphorism penned in December, 1971 when I was living in the shadow of the medieval Festung or fastness in Salzburg, Austria:
Silence is a grating clangor to the unwhole man.
The Use of the Body
There is such a thing as excessive concern with the body's health and excessive fear of its destruction. The body is to be used — and used up. It is your vehicle here below; it is not you. It is an experience mill, so grind away. If thinking raises blood pressure, am I going to give up thinking? If reading weakens eyesight, will I give up reading? Physical health is a means, not an ultimate end. A healthy body aids the working out of my intellectual and spiritual salvation. But the point is to work out my intellectual and spiritual salvation.
Analogy. One takes good care of one's writing implements. But the point is to write something. The pencil achieves its end — in both senses of the term — by being used and used up. Similarly with the body and its organs.
So use the body, and use it up. You can't take it with you. But don't misuse it. Use it or lose it, but don't abuse it!
A Boomer and His Experiences
Do you help your neighbor to help your neighbor, or to add the experience of helping your neighbor to your collection of experiences?
From an advertisement: "Ever since we invented the first personal shredder, Fellowes has been dedicated to improving every aspect of the shredding experience." The shredding experience? Now we boomers have done all manner of wild and crazy things in quest of experience, but does anyone shred for the experience of it?
A culture of narcissism in which the focus is on the self and his experiences as opposed to the world and its objects.
Inappropriate Niceness
Most of us prefer nice people to surly pricks. And no doubt we should all try to be nicer to our world-mates. But there is such a thing as inappropriate niceness.
I am following at a safe distance the motorist in front of me. Then said motorist brakes for a jaywalker, not to avoid hitting him, but to allow him to cross. The jaywalker is violating the law; why aid and abet his lawbreaking? Why be nice to someone who shows no respect for the rules of the road? Why risk causing an accident? These are some questions the inappropriately nice should ask themselves.
The Aristotelian and the Old Man
For the one, potency is reduced to act; for the other, potency is just reduced.
Slow Thoughts in a Fast Medium
There is a bit of a paradox in my project, the blogging of philosophy. Sauntering along life's byways, cooling his heels at the margins of society, the philosopher bids us slow down! Whither the headlong mad rush? Quo vadis? Take thought, he suggests, take heed. Socrates knew how to stand stock still in the scene of strife and consult with his daimon. Wittgenstein, denounced in these pages as a Cave philosopher, yet had the good sense to recommend as salutation among philosophers, "Take your time!" (Der Gruß der Philosophen untereinander sollte sein: Laß dir Zeit! Vermischte Bemerkungen.) And in a place unknown to me, Franz Brentano, once a Catholic priest and no stranger to the contemplative disciplines, observes that "He who hurries is not proceeding on a scientific basis." (Wer eilt, bewegt sich nicht auf dem Boden der Wissenschaft.)
So in the belly of the blogospheric beast I too do my bit to slow things down.
Anti-Commie Haiku
Utopic heads in fog,
They broke real eggs
For an unreal omelet.
How to Judge a Blog
A weblog should be judged, not by the color of its 'skin,' but by the character of its content.
Our Exigent Predicament
What do we lack? Not much — just knowledge, resolve, goodness, and reality. Our minds are dark, our wills are weak, our hearts are foul, and we are soon to vanish from the scene entirely.
Pro Bono
Lawyers sometimes work pro bono. When they do, they are not paid for their services. May we infer that when they are paid, they work pro malo?
In Today, Out Tomorrow
The Sweet Waters of Lethe
It is often pleasant to remember that an unpleasant memory has not been recalled in a very long time.
Whittaker Chambers on Beethoven
Whittaker Chambers (Witness, p. 19) on the Third Movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony:
. . . that music was the moment at which Beethoven finally passed beyond the suffering of his life on earth and reached for the hand of God, as God reaches for the hand of Adam in Michaelangelo's vison of the creation.
Well, either the adagio movement of the 9th or the late piano sonatas, in particular, Opus 109, Opus 110, and Opus 111. To my ear, those late compositions are unsurpassed in depth and beauty.
In these and a few other compositions of the great composers we achieve a glimpse of what music is capable of. Just as one will never appreciate the possibilities of genuine philosophy by reading hacks such as Ayn Rand or positivist philistines (philosophistines?) such as David Stove, one will never appreciate the possibilities of great music and its power of speaking to what is deepest in us if one listens only to contemporary popular music.
Life’s Chess
The opening is hopeful and the middle game absorbing. But then comes a series of checks culminating in mate.