Category: Sage Advice
-
Dissertation Advice on the Occasion of Kant’s Birthday
Immanuel Kant was born on this day in 1724. He died in 1804. My dissertation on Kant, which now lies 40 years in the past, is dated 22 April 1978. But if, per impossibile, my present self were Doktorvater to my self of 40 years ago, my doctoral thesis might not have been approved! As one's standards rise…
-
A Budding Thomist Seeks Advice
This from a reader: I'm a junior year theology major. I recently found your blog and it's now one of my favorites. You are a voice of reason in this dark postmodern era. As someone pursuing a BA in theology and considering grad school, I love learning, reading, and writing. I've always wanted to be…
-
Advice for Introverts
Relations with extroverts should be left at the superficial level. Never seek a deep relation with a person who is surface all the way down.
-
Two Measures of Personal Success
One measure of success is how far you've gotten, and the other is how far you've come. The second is the better measure. On the occasions when you feel you haven't gotten very far in life, tell yourself, "But look where you started from, and what you had to work with, and the obstacles you…
-
Safe Speech
"No man speaketh safely but he that is glad to hold his peace. " (Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Chapter XX.) Excellent advice for Christian and non-Christian alike. Much misery and misfortune can be avoided by simply keeping one's mouth shut. That playful banter with your female student that you could not resist indulging in…
-
Around Strangers
For your peace of mind and theirs, refrain from giving strangers a piece of your mind.
-
Antagonize Parsimoniously
One is well-advised to follow the prudential analog of Ockham's Razor: Do not multiply enemies beyond necessity. Case study here.
-
Making Good People Better
Good people are even better in small doses. Enjoy their quality in moderation for best results. If familiarity breeds contempt, reserve builds respect.
-
Rules for Men
Keith Burgess-Jackson offers six items of sound advice, each both prudential and moral. Here is #1: Don't touch a woman without her specific consent. Consent, to be consent, must be informed. Don't resort to trickery, subterfuge, dissimulation, or manipulation (including getting her drunk or high). I would add a qualification: unless she is your wife and you…
-
Desideratum
It would be desirable to be able to survey one's faults and limitations with an equanimity that does not give way to acceptance, but combines with both a gentle resolve to work at self-improvement, and a detachment from the outcome of such work.
-
Know Thyself
If you are not dismayed by your self-assessment, then it was not objective.
-
The Near Occasion of Annoyance
If you want to be annoyed, life supplies the materials. But if you value peace of mind, you are free to sweep the irritant dust right out of your mind. Even better is to not let it in. A good maxim: Avoid the near occasion of annoyance. And that implies: Avoid unnecessary socializing.
-
The Wise Live by the Probable, not the Possible
The worldly wise live by the probable and not by the merely possible. It is possible that you will reform the person you want to marry. But it is not probable. Don't imagine that you can change a person in any significant way. What you see now in your partner is what you will get from here…
-
Abstain the Night Before, Feel Better the Morning After
Do you regret in the morning the spare supper of the night before or the foregoing of the useless dessert? Do you feel bad that you now feel good and are not hung over? You missed the party and with it the ambiguity and unseriousness and dissipation of idle talk. Are you now troubled by…
-
Studiousness as Prophylaxis Against the Debilities of Old Age
The abuse of the physical frame by the young and seemingly immortal is a folly to be warned against but not prevented, a folly for which the pains of premature decrepitude are the just tax; whereas a youth spent cultivating the delights of study pays rich dividends as the years roll on. For, as Holbrook…