Category: Sage Advice
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An Ideal Spouse
My opinion of Maureen Dodd went up a notch when I read this NYT column in which she quotes a Catholic priest. He proffers good advice about marriage one piece of which is: Don't marry a problem character thinking you will change him. Excellent advice, Schopenhauerian advice. You will remember his riff on the unalterability…
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Fragment of a Credo
I cannot know whether my life makes ultimate sense. But I can live as if it does, and if I do I will live better than if I live as if it does not. I cannot know whether my life is bounded by bodily birth and death. But I can live as if it is…
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Lavelle on Living in the Present
Louis Lavelle (1883-1951), The Dilemma of Narcissus, tr. W. T. Gairdner (New York: Humanities Press, 1973), p. 153: Life breaks the surface of reality and emerges at the present moment; we must not hold our gaze fixed on a future which, when it comes, will be merely another present. The unhappy man is he who…
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Good, Better, Best
From the mail bag: Is the way you interpret Voltaire's saying the way it was originally intended? I'm probably wrong here, but I always took the saying to mean this: a willingness to settle for what is "better" makes it likely that one won't acquire what is "good". Good, better, best. Positive, comparative, superlative. …
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A New Year’s Resolution
I make it every year and I break it every year: Handle each piece of paper only once! Let's say you have just come in with the mail. Without pausing to pour coffee or stroke the cat, fire up the shredder and open the trash barrel. Shred the credit card applications, pay the bills, file…
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Socializing as Self-Denial
You don't really want to go to that Christmas party where you will eat what you don't need to eat, drink what you don't need to drink, and dissipate your inwardness in pointless chit-chat. But you were invited and your nonattendance may be taken amiss. So you remind yourself that self-denial is good and that it is…
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Negative Thoughts
Squelching them is good in two ways. It is good to be rid of them since their presence keeps the positive from streaming in. And the very act of squelching them is a form of self-denial, something without which there can be no moral or spiritual progress. Resistance strengthens; indulgence weakens.
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Short Views, Long Views, and the Feel for the Real
The long views of philosophy are not to everyone's taste. If not bored, many are depressed by the contemplation of death and pain, God and the soul, the meaning or meaninglessness of our lives. They prefer not to think of such things and consider it best to take short views. Is it best to take short…
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A Life Well-Lived
A life well-lived must be devoted in some measure to inquiry into the well-lived life.
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Suggestions on How Best to Study
Just over the transom: Noting your desire to correct spelling, here are two that I spotted: "…gave an argment [sic] a while back (1 August 2010 to be precise) to the conclusion that there cannot, as a matter of metaphyscal necessity [sic]…" Holy moly! Thanks. I just corrected them, and then found three more. My…
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I Stub My Toe
I just stubbed a bare toe on the oaken leg of my computer table. But it took a second or two after the moment of impact for the pain to 'register.' So I philosophized: if there was no pain at the moment of impact when the (minor) damage was done, but there is pain now…
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Mind and Tongue
When alone, watch your mind. When with others, watch your tongue.
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Thought Check
More important than a 'gut check' might be a thought check carried out at regular intervals. Say to yourself: what is the quality of my present thoughts? Positive or negative? Ennobling or degrading? Useless or useful? Where are they drifting? What is their likely issue? Conducive to happiness or to ever more negativity and misery…
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Carpe Diem!
I quoted Jim Morrison on the eve of the 40th anniversary of his death: "The future's uncertain, and the end is always near." This morning I discovered that Rob Grill, lead singer of The Grassroots, has passed on. Their first top ten hit, "Live forToday," made the charts in the fabulous and far-off Summer of…
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Your Own Worst Enemy
Be open to the possibility that it is the person looking back at you in the mirror.