Epicurus as quoted by Pierre Hadot in Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault (Blackwell 1995, p. 87):
We must concern ourselves with the healing of our own lives.
He proposes a TETRAPHARMAKOS, a four-fold healing formula:
God presents no fears, death no worries. And while good is readily attainable, evil is readily endurable.
Epictetus, Enchiridion, tr. E. Carter, XXXIX:
The body is to everyone the measure of the possessions proper for it, as the foot is of the shoe. If, therefore, you stop at this, you will keep the measure; but if you move beyond it, you must necessarily be carried forward, as down a precipice; as in the case of a shoe, if you go beyond its fitness to the foot, it comes first to be gilded, then purple, and then studded with jewels. For to that which once exceeds a due measure, there is no bound.
Indeed, as one may observe here.
From a reader:
I have a few questions, they're very practical in nature. I was hoping if you could give me a brief outline of your method of study and how you read books? How do you keep track of such a vast amount of resources? I'm on information overload because, well, I'm a 21st century twenty-something who likes to read blogs, books etc.
Anyway, I enjoy your blog. Hope you can help! Thanks.
A great deal could be said on this topic. Here are a few thoughts that may be helpful. Test them against your own experience.
The Cloudview Trailhead is the one nearest to my house. It is a bit hard to get to as one must negotiate a number of turns. One fellow didn't like people driving onto his property in search of it so he posted a sign: Not the Trailhead! Some time ago I notice he had replaced his sign with a new one depicting an arrow that pointed in the trailhead's direction.
Therein lies a moral: how much better to be positive than negative! The first sign said where the trailhead is not. The second one did that too (by implication) but also pointed out where the trailhead is.
And while we are on the topic of the power of positivity, why does Colin Fletcher, the grand old man of walkers, and author of the backpacker bible, The Complete Walker, refer to trailheads as roadends? I say good man, be positive! It is not the end of the road, but the beginning of the trail!
And while I'm we have Fletcher's tome in mind, it is not walking, it's hiking as we say this side of the Pond: a walk is what I take to fetch a newspaper, or what I would take to fetch a newspaper if I were to read them, whereas a hike is on another level entirely. We need to mark this distinction, do we not?
It is a curious fact that a man who has no time for his own wife easily finds time for the wife of another. Not valuing what he has, he desires what he does not have, even though at some level he understands that, were he to take possession of what he now merely desires, the pattern would repeat itself: he would again desire that which he does not possess over that which he does possess. He should learn to appreciate what he has.
The Buddhists have a saying, "Conquer desire and aversion." But this goes too far: desire and aversion are not to be conquered or extirpated so much as chastened and channeled. They are to be mastered. Without self-mastery, the highest mastery, there can be no true happiness.
Do I live up to this admonition? Or am I posturing? Is my posture perhaps a slouch towards hypocrisy?
Well, it depends on how broadly one takes 'join.' A while back, I joined a neighbor and some of his friends in helping him move furniture. Reasonably construed, the motto does not rule out that sort of thing. And being a fair and balanced guy, as everybody knows, I recently joined the Conservative Book Club to balance out my long-standing membership in the left-leaning and sex-saturated Quality Paperback Book Club. (It would be interesting to compare these two 'clubs' in respect of their target memberships — but that's another post.)
And what if I join you for lunch, or join in a discussion in a chat room? A good while ago, the anonyblogger who ran The Will to Blog, but then lost the will to blog and deleted his site, opined that my motto ought to preclude my being a conservative. But surely one does not join a set of beliefs. One joins a political party, an organization, a church, and the like. Our anonyblogger might have been making the mistake of thinking that an independent thinker cannot arrive at any conclusions, for, if he did, then he would be joining something, and lose his independence.
Suppose you are working on an article that you plan on sending to some good journal with a high rejection rate. You know that what you have written still needs some work, but you submit it anyway in the hope of a conditional acceptance and comments with the help of which you will perfect your piece. This is a mistaken approach. Never submit anything that is not as good as you can make it. And this for a reason supplied long ago by that master observer of the human condition, Baltasar Gracian (1601-1658):
Never show half-finished things to others. Let them be enjoyed in their perfection. All beginnings are formless, and what lingers is the image of that deformity. The memory of having seen something imperfect spoils out enjoyment when it is finished. To take in a large object at a single glance keeps us from appreciating the parts, but it satisfies our taste. Before it is, everything is not, and when it begins to be, it is still very close to nonbeing. It is revolting to watch even the most succulent dish being cooked. Great teachers are careful not to let their works be seen in embryo. Learn from nature, and don't show them until they look good. (The Art of Worldly Wisdom #231, tr. Christopher Maurer.)
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, VI, 20, Loeb Classical Library no. 58, p. 141, tr. Haines:
Suppose that a competitor in the ring has gashed us with his nails and butted us violently with his head, we do not protest or take it amiss or suspect our opponent in future of foul play. Still we do keep an eye on him, not indeed as an enemy, or from suspicion of him, but with good-humoured avoidance. Act much the same way in all the other parts of life. Let us make many allowances for our fellow-athletes as it were. Avoidance is always possible, as I have said, without suspicion or hatred.
This is indeed Sage Advice. Avoidance is always possible and sometimes necessary if one would live well. Marcus bids us avoid, if not our "fellow-athletes," then their rude antics. But I would add to the list certain thoughts, words, and deeds.
Thoughts that weaken, demean, or are otherwise useless are best avoided. For as Marcus says in another place (V, 16), "The character of thy mind will be such as is the character of thy frequent thoughts, for the soul takes its dye from the thoughts." Would close inquiry into the particulars of Anna Nicole Smith's ill-starred life improve me? Do I really need to know why David Carradine was found dead in Bangkok hanging from a rope?
Idle talk is another source of needless vexation. The teachable soon learn that the occasions are rife on which keeping one's mouth shut is the best policy.
The wise also avoid the vexation of unnecessary action. Having burdened yourself with boat, RV, jet ski and motorcycle, you are now both owner and owned, and you will expend your spirit in actions for the maintenance of these mere conveyances.
Here, in no particular order, are my maxims concerning the practice of tipping.
1. He who is too cheap to leave a tip in a restaurant should cook for himself. That being said, there is no legal obligation to tip, nor should there be. Is there a moral obligation? Perhaps. Rather than argue that there is I will just state that tipping is the morally decent thing to do, ceteris paribus. And it doesn't matter whether you will be returning to the restaurant. No doubt a good part of the motivation for tipping is prudential: if one plans on coming back then it is prudent to establish good relations with the people one is likely to encounter again. But given a social arrangement in which waiters and waitresses depend on tips to earn a decent wage, one ought always tip for good service.
Immanuel Kant was born on this day in 1724. He died in 1804. My dissertation on Kant, which now lies 31 years in the past, is dated 22 April 1978. But if, per impossibile, my present self were Doktorvater to my self of 31 years ago, my doctoral thesis might not have been approved! As one's standards rise higher and higher with age and experience one becomes more and more reluctant to submit anything to evaluation let alone publication. One may scribble as before, and even more than before, but with less conviction that one's outpourings deserve being embalmed in printer's ink. (Herein lies a reason to blog.)
So finish the bloody thing now while you are young and cocky and energetic. Give yourself a year, say, do your absolute best and crank it out. Think of it as a union card. It might not get you a job but then it just might. Don't think of it as a magnum opus or you will never finish. Get it done by age 30 and before accepting a full-time appointment. And all of this before getting married. That, in my opinion, is the optimal order. Dissertation before 30, marriage after 30. Now raise your glass with me in a toast to Manny on this, his 285th birthday. Sapere aude!
Cartoon borrowed from site of Slobodan Bob Zunjic
Some say Seneca was a hypocrite. But even if it is true, even if he did not believe or practice what he preached in his voluminous writings, what would it matter when he has bequeathed to us such gems as the following?
Of all men they alone are at leisure who take time for philosophy, they alone really live; for they are not content to be good guardians of their own lifetime only. They annex every age to their own; all the years that have gone before them are an addition to their store. Unless we are most ungrateful, all those men, glorious fashioners of holy thoughts, were born for us; for us they have prepared a way of life. By other men’s labours we are led to the sight of things most beautiful that have been wrested from darkness and brought into light; from no age are we shut out, we have access to all ages, and if it is our wish, by greatness of mind, to pass beyond the narrow limits of human weakness, there is a great stretch of time through which we may roam. We may argue with Socrates, we may doubt with Carneades, find peace with Epicurus, overcome human nature with the Stoics, exceed it with the Cynics. Since nature allows us to enter into fellowship with every age, why should we not turn from this paltry and fleeting span of time and surrender ourselves with all our soul to the past, which is boundless, which is eternal, which we share with our betters? (De Brevitate Vitae, XIV, 1-2. Trans. J. W. Basore, Loeb Classical Library, vol. 254, pp. 333-335, emphasis added.)
Comment: Leisure (otium) is a concept almost universally misunderstood nowadays. It has nothing to do with hitting little white balls into holes at Leisure World, and everything to do with the disciplined use of free time in pursuit of the worthiest objects for nonutilitarian ends. Leisure in this classical sense is the basis of culture (Josef Pieper). To be able to enjoy it with a good conscience is a mark of nobility of soul. (Nietzsche).
The dreaded event will either occur or it will not. If it occurs, then the worrier suffers twice, once from the event, and once from the worry. If it does not occur, then the person suffers from neither. Therefore, worry is irrational.
The lottery player, unable to think clearly about money, both overvalues and undervalues it.
He overvalues it inasmuch as he thinks that a big win would be a wonderful thing even though it would probably not be, and won't occur in any case for the vast majority of players. There are plenty of examples, some reported here, of people who have been destroyed by a sudden huge windfall. For instance,
My elite readers no doubt know this word, but I learned it just today. It means lack of suitability or congruity: INELEGANCE. 'Concinnity' is also a word. From the Latin concinnitas, from concinnus, skillfully put together, it means: harmony and often elegance of design especially of literary style in adaptation of parts to a whole or to each other. (Webster's New Collegiate, 1977, p. 234.)
Never allow a word to escape your comprehension. If you encounter a word you don't know, write it down and look it up. Keep a list of words and definitions in a notebook you regularly consult. It might be an online notebook like this one. Having written this post, 'inconcinnity' is a word I am not likely to forget. For there is nothing I write on this weblog that I do not reread, with pleasure, many times.
One reader asks:
How does an independent scholar get bread and butter on the table?
Another inquires:
How could one make a living in philosophy and the humanities besides being a professor?
Continue reading “Philosophy and Livelihood: Build a Slave!”
