Category: Sage Advice
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The Absurdity of Envy
You envy me? What a wretch you must be to feel diminished in your sense of self-worth by comparison with me! I have something you lack? Why isn't that compensated for by what you have that I lack? You feel bad that I have achieved something by my hard work? Don't you realize that you…
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On Writing Well: The Example of William James
This from a graduate student in philosophy: I have always been an admirer of your philosophical writing style–both in your published works and on your blog. Have you ever blogged about which writers and books have most influenced your philosophical writing style? Yes, I have some posts on or near this topic. What follows is…
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Self-Control and Self-Esteem
"Self-control is infinitely more important that self-esteem." (Dennis Prager) Delete 'infinitely' and you have an important truth pithily and accurately expressed. With self-control one can develop attributes that justify one's self-esteem. Without it one may come to an untimely end as did Michael Brown of Ferguson, Missouri, who brought about his own death through a…
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Unnecessary Conversation Avoided
Whether it is haiku or not, it is 17 syllables, and a good addition to the Stoic's armamentarium: Avoid the near occasionOf unnecessary conversation. Avoiding the near occasion is not always practicable or even reasonable, but pointless conversation itself is best avoided if one values one's peace of mind. For according to an aphorism of…
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Time to Join the NRA?
I am not now, and never have been, a member of the National Rifle Association. But that might change, and for the same reasons detailed by a former Jewish lefty, or rather Jewish former lefty, Roger L. Simon in How the 'New York Times' and Loretta Lynch Made Me Join the NRA. Did you catch…
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Between the Inhuman and the Unphilosophical
It is inhuman to care not at all about the praise of one's fellows, but unphilosophical to care much.
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Attitude, Gratitude, Beatitude
Happy Thanksgiving to all my Stateside readers. The attitude of gratitude conduces to beatitude. Can it be said in plain Anglo-Saxon? Grateful thoughts lead one to happiness. However you say it, it is true. The miserable make themselves miserable by their bad thinking; the happy happy by their correct mental hygiene. Broad generalizations, these. They…
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Why Control Negative Thoughts About Other People?
Negative thoughts are of the other, but in oneself. They cannot harm what they are of, but they can pollute and disturb what they are in.
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How to Keep your Home a ‘Safe Space’ and Issue a Reality-Based ‘Trigger Warning’
Loaded with double-aught buckshot, the instrument of home defense depicted below has the power to separate the soul from the body in a manner most definitive. Just showing this bad boy to a would-be home invader is a most effective way to issue a 'trigger warning' in a reality-based sense of that phrase. But let…
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New Day, Old Thoughts
It's a new day. Why begin it with the rehearsal of old thoughts, some negative, all useless?
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Write it Down!
If you are blessed by a good thought, do not hesitate to write it down at once. Good thoughts are visitors from Elsewhere and like most visitors they do not like being snubbed or made to wait. Let us say a fine aphorism flashes before your mind. There it is is fully formed. All you…
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Parents
Honor them for what is or was honorable in them. As for the rest, forgive and forget, or at least forgive. Honor the honorable; forgive the rest.
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Living Well and Living Large
One can live well without living large. And in most cases living large will militate against living well. Schopenhauer's exaggeration is apropos: "Every limitation makes one happy." It is true. In many if not most cases, restrictions, limitations, reductions in options, and the like are conducive to contentment and well-being. But only up to a…
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It Pays to Publish, but Don’t Pay to Publish
This just over the transom: Dear Colleague, British Journal of Education, Society & Behavioural Science (ISSN: 2278-0998) is an OPEN peer-reviewed INTERNATIONAL journal. We offer both Online publication as well as Hard copy options. Article Processing Charge is only 100 USD as per present offer. This journal is now publishing Volume 10. Only 100 semolians? …
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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 37 years in the past, is dated 22 April 1978. But if, per impossibile, my present self were Doktorvater to my self of 37 years ago, my doctoral thesis might not have been approved! As…