Category: Impermanence
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Nietzsche to his Friend Overbeck
"I am grieved by the transitoriness of things." So he preached the Eternal Recurrence of the Same, letting an ersatz Absolute in through the back door. Becoming became enshrined as Being. Thus was an attempt made to fix the flux and assuage the metaphysical need. Addendum After penning the above observation, I stumbled upon the…
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Ashes to Ashes; Dust to Dust
"Remember, man, thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return." Memento, homo, quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris. This warning, from the Catholic liturgy for Ash Wednesday, is based on Genesis 3, 19: In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane, donec revertaris in terram de qua sumptus es: quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris. How real can we…
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Brevity Protracted
The longer the life, the longer the exposure to the brevity of life.
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Is Religion Escapist?
Escapism is a form of reality-denial. One seeks to escape from reality into a haven of illusion. One who flees a burning building we do not call an escapist. Why not? Because his escape from the fire is not an escape into unreality, but into a different reality, one decidedly superior to that of being incinerated. …
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No Polity without Comity
No polity without comity, and no comity without commonality. E pluribus unum is a noble goal. But a durable and vibrant One cannot be made out of just any Many. Not just any diversity is combinable into unity. This is why the oft-repeated 'Diversity is our strength' is foolish verbiage that could be spouted only…
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Carpe Diem!
Seize the day, my friends, the hour of death is near for young and old alike. How would you like death to find you? In what condition, and immersed in which activity? Contemplating the eternal or stuck in the mud of the mundane or lost in the diaspora of sensuous indulgence? The clock is running,…
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Praeparatio Mortis
Living long is a kind of low-grade preparation for death: the longer one lives, the more obvious the vanity of life becomes. An old soul can discern it at a young age, but even he will see it more clearly as his body ages. Paradoxically, vanity will be better appreciated if one in younger days…
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Saturday Night at the Oldies: Decoupling Rock and Roll from Sex and Drugs
Five examples: Norman Greenbaum, Spirit in the Sky Johnny Cash, Personal Jesus. This is one powerful song. Clapton and Winwood, Presence of the Lord. Why is Clapton such a great guitarist? Not because of his technical virtuosity, his 'chops,' but because he has something to say. George Harrison, My Sweet Lord George Harrison, All Things Must Pass. Harrison was the Beatle with depth.…
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Omnia Vanitas?
Omnia vanitas, saith the Preacher of Ecclesiastes. But if all is vain, so too is the taking note of it; whence one might reasonably conclude that all is not vain. Vanity is not the last word. It is the penultimate word.
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Life’s Fugacity
As we age, the passage of time seems to accelerate. This is a mere seeming since, if time passes at all, which itself may be a mere seeming, time presumably passes at a constant rate. When we are young, the evanescence of our lives does not strike us. But to us mid-streamers and late-streamers the…
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Ash Wednesday
"Remember, man, thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return." Memento, homo, quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris. This warning, from the Catholic liturgy for Ash Wednesday, is based on Genesis 3, 19: In sudore vultus tui vesceris pane, donec revertaris in terram de qua sumptus es: quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris. How real can we…
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The Idolatry of the Transient
It is because we want more than the transient that we cling to it, as if it could substitute for the More that eludes us. And so in some we find an inordinate love of life, a mad clinging to what cannot last and which, from the point of view of eternity, ought not last.…
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Vain but Serious
There is a paradoxical tension between the vanity of life and its moral seriousness. Related: Amiel on Duty
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Not Enough Time! A Philosopher’s Lament
There is not enough time to understand this life in time, but then it is such a fleeting, paltry thing, such a blend of form and formlessness, such a chiaroscuro of light and dark, such a scene of desires insistent yet insatiable, ultimately unknowable and ultimately unreal — that the time allotted is perhaps time…
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Vanitas
Is vanity the last word? Or does the emptiness of this life point to a fullness beyond it? Vanity, I say, is the penultimate word.