Category: Sage Advice

Crises There Will Always Be

I cite the example of Nicolai Hartmann in a Substack entry from March, 2022.

So buck up and fight on. Philosophy is a great consolation. We lesser lights ought to look up to the luminaries, and their example. Boethius wrote in prison, Nicolai Hartmann in Berlin in 1945 in the midst of the Allied assault.

We won't give up and we won't give in. We will battle the bastards that are out to destroy our Republic.  But the wise among us know that this world is a vanishing quantity and that to expend all one's energies in the defense of the fleeting finitudes of the here and now is folly. There are things worth living for that transcend the passing scene. So apportion your time accordingly.  

Situational Awareness

Another MavPhil public service message:  Don't walk around with your head up your app!

You're a dumbass with a smartphone if you don't understand that it is perhaps the greatest enemy of situational awareness. 

And if you pack heat, bear this in mind: if you have to go to guns, there's probably been a failure of  situational awareness. (Steve Tarani)  Head on a swivel! (Sebastian Gorka)

Memorize and implement Colonel Jeff Cooper's situational awareness color codes!

Don't be a pollyanna.  (And don't confuse her with polyanna, an Anna with multiple personality disorder.)

The Beauty of the Solitary Life

Thomas Merton, The Journals, vol. 6, 24 June 1966, p. 344: "The beauty of the solitary life . . . is that you can throw away all the masks and forget them until you return among people."

For, as one of my aphorisms has it, "The step into the social is by dissimulation."

Before I quit my cell, I put on my face, don my mask, go gray, and try not to appear too intense.

De-Dox Your Glove Box!

And what might I mean by that?

I mean remove documents from your glove compartment or other easily accessible areas in your vehicle wherein it would be unwise to carry them given the spike in crime of all sorts caused by such Democrat policies as defunding the police and eliminating cash bail. I count four levels of foolishness in decreasing levels of inadvisability:

1) Carrying your driver's license in the glove box.

2) Carrying the title to the vehicle in the glove box.

3) Carrying the vehicle registration in the glove box.

4) Carrying insurance cards in the glove box.

Since smash and grab is quick and easy and on the rise, the wise do not leave personal information easy of access in their vehicles. (You might want to look into installing a serious console or under-seat lock box.) One scenario goes like this: the thug learns your address and swipes your garage door opener. Now they have easy access to your garage and its contents,  and if you are foolish enough to leave the door to your domicile unlocked, access to your house and its contents including wife and children.

Reader Asks: What Should I Read?

Nathaniel T. writes,

In the new year, I'm committing to some more regular reading habits. 
 
What serious books would you recommend to someone outside academia who has about half an hour uninterrupted in the morning to read, three times a week? How about a list that would last that person a year? 
 
Here are some additional parameters that might aid in your selection:
 
I went to St. John's College in Annapolis, so I've read many of the "greats" in whole or in part, at least once. I have kept up some serious reading since my graduation in 2012, just irregularly. 
I already pray and read the New Testament and spiritual reading daily. 
 
Thanks for your insight and writing!
 
The best advice I could give anyone  with your background who is committed to the life of the mind is to buy and study a copy of A. G. Sertillanges, O. P., The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods. He explains how to proceed.  It is a classic. He draws upon Aquinas and upon Alphonse Gratry, of whom C. S. Peirce had a very high opinion. So I also recommend Gratry's Logic if you can find a copy. Reference here.
 
I hesitate to offer a list of books on particular topics given the constraints on your time.  But here are a couple that are  short, very clear, and unusually thought-provoking: Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation (make sure to get the Sea Harp Press edition which contains an introduction by C. S. Lewis); Romano Guardini, Jesus Christus (anything by Guardini is worth reading).
 
If perchance you are interested mystical theology, and have already read the great Spanish mystics, Juan de la Cruz and Teresa de Avila, and have the stamina for a long slog, then I recommend Augustin Poulain, The Graces of Interior Prayer: A Treatise on Mystical Theology. Reference and notes here.
 
For more suggestions see my Bibliophilia category.
 
Combox open if anyone has any recommendations.
 
By the way, has St. John's College, Annapolis gone 'woke'?  

2024 and Trump sub specie aeternitatis

First-rate political analysis by DiploMad 2.0. (HT: Bill Keezer)

But there is little to be hopeful or happy about this New Year. 2023 is likely to be worse than the last three.  You are well-advised to seek your happiness within.  Not that one should withdraw from the fray entirely. Fight on, but not at the expense of your tranquillitas animi.  For the sake of sanity, dial back your intake of media dreck, 'legacy' and 'social.'  This world is a passing scene and a vanishing quantity. And you with it.  Take the current slide into the abyss as a warm invitation to seek out the really real (ὄντως ὄν) before it's too late.

Another Reason to Limit Socializing

Avoid unnecessary socializing lest you inadvertently reveal what it would be imprudent to reveal. As we sink into a Sino-style surveillance state, it is probably best for most of you, especially the young, to lay low and go gray. I've made mine so I run less of a risk in speaking my mind. The little civil courage I display I cannot in good conscience demand of others who are not as well-positioned and have much more to lose. 

 

Maxims and Meta-Maxims

1) Live now: resist the tendency to bring the past into the present.

2) Beware of viewing yourself through the belittling eyes of others.

3) Avoid negative and weakening thoughts.

4) Avoid comparisons with others.

5) Keep socializing to the minimum necessary to maintain one's sanity and humanity.

6) Do not associate with those beneath you except as duty and necessity require.

7) Guard the mind, the tongue, the heart.

8) Abide in the here, the now, the self.

9) Aspire.

10 Strive and persevere.

11) Begin the day with a review of these and other maxims.

12) Maxims ought to be part of one's 'everyday carry.' Don't leave home without them.

13) Age quod agis!

14) Indulgence weakens; resistance strengthens.

15) Coin new maxims.

16) Carpe diem et noctem! 

Downplay Both

If you downplay your wins, downplay your losses. The pain of defeat is worse than the pleasure of victory is good. But you have the power  to regard them as equal. In some measure the pain of loss can be lessened. The Stoic therapy is no cure, but it is a palliative. If our predicament is a splitting headache, said therapy is a couple of aspirin. Take it and them for what they are worth.