Category: Human Predicament
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Two Types of Humanity: The Mystic and the Profligate
Julian Green, Diary 1928-1957, entry of 30 December 1940, p. 104: Does our body never weary of desiring the same things? [. . .] There are only two types of humanity . . . the mystic and the profligate, because both fly to extremes , searching, each is his own way, for the absolute; but,…
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Homo Faber, Homo Mendax
Man the maker is a damned liar. He is a fabricator in both senses of the term. A little god and a little devil. Neither the Father of all nor the Father of lies, he is a chip off the old blocks. This observation has a Manichean flavor. But if there are not two co-eternal…
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Life in Time
A life in time is a paltry substitute for eternal life, but at least we know we are alive, and in time, whereas we don't know much if anything about eternal life. On rare occasions, however, some of us catch a glimpse of something that seems to fits the description. These occasional glimpses fuel a…
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Life is Hierarchical
An old lie of leftists is compressed into one of their more recent abuses of language: 'equity.' So-called 'equity' is wokespeak for equality of outcome or result. 'Equity' in this obfuscatory sense cannot occur and ought not be pursued. It cannot occur because people are not equal either as individuals or as groups. That is…
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Look on the Bright Side!
The world is rife with pathologies of all sorts: spiritual, psychological, moral, and medical. But it's all grist for the thinker's mill. That is the bright side. One can allow oneself to become depressed at how pathetic we all are — in different ways and to different degrees — or one can cultivate wonder at…
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List and Precision Obsession
You are list-obsessive if you write down an already completed task just so you can cross it off your list. You are precision-obsessive if you point out that a task, completed or not, is not the sort of thing that can be crossed off a list. An admirable concern for precision can veer off into…
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Spiritual Myopia
Our eyes on the distant, we become far-sighted; our fingers clutching the paltry, petty and myopic.
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On the Death of a Neighbor
My neighbor Ted across the street, 85 years old, died the other day. Last I spoke with him, two weeks ago, he seemed as hale and hearty as ever. Ted and I enjoyed 26 trouble-free years of neighborly, if superficial, acquaintanceship. In this world of surfaces, relationships kept conventional and superficial are often best. Not…
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Birthdays
People celebrate birthdays. But what's to celebrate? First, birth is not unequivocally good. Second, it is not something you brought about. It befell you. Better to celebrate some good thing that you made happen. "It befell you." Riders on the storm . . .Into this house we're born, into this world we're thrown. Thus Jim…
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Family Life with the Cheever’s
I'm sure family life has its compensations. But it is not for everybody. I live with an angelic wife and two black cats. All four of us will die without issue. My contact with relatives is minimal. Blood is thicker than water, but consanguinity is no guarantee of spiritual affinity, and in some cases the…
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Peace through Strength: A Variation on the Theme
Your willingness to be conciliatory will be taken for weakness unless you are perceived to be dangerous.
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Vehicles
I knew a man who knew all about his truck, its engine displacement, gear ratios, you name it. But when I asked him about his blood pressure, he replied that the doctor said it was OK. I thought to myself: Ken needs to get his vehicular priorities straight lest the via dolorosa through this vale…
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“It Takes One to Know One”
Half of the time. It takes intelligence to recognize intelligence in others. But the stupid cannot see the stupidity in others — or in themselves.
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Four Attitudes Toward Embodiment
Am I ineluctably trapped in a dying animal? Is embodiment an axiologically negative state of affairs or is it an axiologically positive one? Here are four possible attitudes toward having a material body. They may be loosely associated, respectively, with the names Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Benatar. a) To exist is good, but it would be…
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Moral Progress: Our Tantalusian Predicament
If I drive to Santa Fe, the town stays put while I get closer and closer. Moral progress is different. A good part of the moral journey involves the recession of the destination. This morning I discovered that C. S. Lewis had had a similar thought. "No man knows how bad he is until he…