Category: Sage Advice

Worldly Success: How Much is Enough?

You have enough world success if it enables you to advance the project of self-realization on the important fronts including the moral, the intellectual, and the spiritual.  The vita contemplativa cannot be well lived by the grindingly poor, the sick, the politically and socially oppressed, the sorely afflicted and tormented.  Boethius wrote his Consolations of Philosophy in prison, but you are not Boethius.

You have too much worldly success when it becomes a snare and a burden and a distraction. 

We need some social acceptance and human contact, but fame is worse than obscurity.  Reflect for a moment on the character of those who enjoy fame and the character of those whose fickle regard confers it.

We need a modicum of worldly wherewithal to live well, but more is not better. Only the terminally deluded could believe, as the saying goes, that "You can't be too thin or too rich."  You could be anorexic or like unto the New Testament camel who couldn't pass through the eye of a needle.

We need health but not hypertrophy.

We need power, but not the power over others that corrupts but the power over oneself that does not.

How to Get Rich Quick!

John Blofeld, Beyond the Gods: Buddhist and Taoist Mysticism (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1974), p. 153:

For the sake of wealth, people already well above the poverty line slave all their lives, not realising that withdrawal from the rat-race would immediately increase rather than diminish their wealth. Obviously anyone who finds the full satisfaction of all his material desires well within his means can be said to be wealthy; it follows that, except by the truly poor, wealth can be achieved overnight by a change of mental attitude that will set bounds to desires. As Laotzu put it, "He who is contented always has enough."

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The Ultimate Hiccup Cure

A panacea that cures all your earthly ills in a manner most definitive.

Life in the fast lane often leads to a quick exit from life's freeway.  You may recall Terry Kath, guitarist for the band Chicago.  In 1978, while drunk, he shot himself in the head with a 'unloaded' gun.  At first he had been fooling with a .38 revolver.  Then he picked up a semi-automatic 9 mm pistol, removed the magazine, pointed it at his head, spoke his last words, "Don't worry, it isn't loaded," and pulled the trigger.  Unfortunately for his head, there was a round in the chamber.  Or that is one way the story goes. 

Such inadvertent exits are easily avoided by exceptionless observation of three rules:  Never point a gun at something you do not want to destroy.  Treat every gun as if   loaded, whether loaded or not.  Never mix alcohol and gunpowder.

Perhaps I should add a fourth: Never mix dummy rounds with live rounds. Variant: Dummies should stay clear of guns, loaded or unloaded, and ammo, live or dummy. 

How to Read an Online Article Without Distraction

I thank long-time blogger buddy Bill Keezer for pointing out something that should have been obvious. To read an online article at a money-grubbing site such as NRO, a site awash with advertising, moving images, noise, and what all else, click on the 'print' icon.  The article should  appear without the junk.  But you knew that already.

I may not have the prettiest 'skin' in the 'sphere, but at my site you will find no advertising, begging, moving images, noise . . . just solid content day after day, year after year.

 As one of my aphorisms has it, a blog is to be judged, not by the color of its 'skin' but by the character of its content.

I thank you for your patronage.  Rare is the day when traffic dips below 1000 pageviews.  In recent days spikes have been in the 3000-4000 range.  2012 was a banner year.

UPDATE:  The ever-helpful Dave Lull e-mails:

Usually I prefer using the free Readability browser add-on (the page formatted for printing is often too wide for me to read comfortably and is sometimes not an option):

http://readability.com/addons

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Nassim Taleb’s Argument for Banning Semi-Automatic Weapons

Just over the transom an e-mail from someone who wants me to review Nassim Taleb's latest book.  So I asked Mr. Google to tell me who this Taleb fellow is and he referred me to Nassim Taleb's Super-Simple Argument for Banning Semi-Automatic Weapons.  After reading this incoherent Facebook posting of his, I decided that time spent reading anything further by Taleb would probably be wasted. 

Beware of wasting time on the latest stuff.  What is hot now will be forgotten tomorrow.  Here is some good advice from Leo Strauss on reading and writing.

UPDATE (1/2):  This parody further dissuades me from reading Taleb.  There is a strong temptation to want to be be up on all the latest stuff. But isn't it foolish to succumb to this temptation if there are great books you have never cracked?  Life is short. Spend it well.

Do Not Multiply Enemies Beyond Necessity

Suppose you value an old friend, a neighbor, a family member, a hiking companion, but differ with him or her on one  or more points of ideology.  As a general rule, one admitting of exceptions, I recommend assiduously avoiding the points of difference and cleaving to the uncontroversial.  Do not multiply enemies beyond necessity!  It is a sound conservative principle.  We conservatives have no illusions about human nature or its improvability.  People are what they are, and they do not and will not change.  You cannot improve their thinking or their morals, not by much leastways, but you can make things worse by adding unnecessarily to the hostility in the world, hostility that can come back to bite you.

I once had a chess and hiking partner name of 'Bill.'  We were two miles into the 9.1 mile Black Mesa Loop in the western Superstitions when he came out with a remark of such incomparable moral and intellectual obtuseness that  my Italian blood began to boil.  He said that a prenatal human being is "just tissue."

As someone who has thought deeply and rigorously about this topic (see Abortion category), I had at my command a full arsenal of responses.  But I knew I would be wasting my time on the fellow.  Only a very few are teachable.  You can't make a piston out of ice.

So I said, "Bill, we have a long way to go in this unforgiving wilderness.  In the interests of a pleasant hike, I suggest we not talk about this topic."

As so we had a good day, and parted friends. 

Worldly Success

Seek only as much worldly success as is necessary for the pursuit of unworldly ends.  What the deeper natures want, this world cannot provide.  It cannot offer ultimate satisfaction or true happiness.

You say there is no ultimate satisfaction or true happiness? My point stands nonetheless.  This world cannot supply them.  To think otherwise is delusional.

Letting Go of the Past

Since the past is no longer, to let go of the past is to let go of thoughts of the past.  But these thoughts, like all thoughts, are in the present. So we are brought back again to the importance of cultivating the ability to let go of thoughts  here and now.  Mind control in the present automatically takes care of the two nonpresent temporal modes.

Be Gracious

Does someone want to do something for you? Buy you lunch?  Give you a gift?  Bring something to the dinner? 

Be gracious.  Don't say, "You don't have to buy me lunch,"  or "Let me buy you lunch," or "You didn't have to bring that."  Humbly accept and grant the donor the pleasure of being a donor.

Lack of graciousness often bespeaks an excess of ego.

We were re-hydrating at a bar in Tortilla Flat, Arizona, after an ankle-busting hike up a stream bed.  I offered to buy Alex a drink.  Instead of graciously accepting my hospitality, he had the chutzpah to ask me to lend him money so that he could buy me a drink!

Another type of ungraciousness is replying 'Thank you' to 'Thank you.'  If I thank you for something, say 'You're welcome,' not 'Thank You.'  Graciously acquiesce in the fact that I have done you a favor.  Don't try to get the upper hand by thanking me.

I grant that there are situations in which mutual thanking is appropriate.

Some people feel that they must 'reciprocate.'  Why exactly?  I gave you a little Christmas present because I felt like it.  And now you feel you must give me one in return?  Is this a tit for tat game? 

Suppose I compliment you sincerely.  Will you throw the compliment back in my face by denigrating that which I complimented you for, thereby impugning my judgment?

Related entry: On Applauding While Being Applauded