On Why Some Negative Gossip Can Be A Benefit

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Plutarch’s Life of Alcibiades is rich in anecdote.  One such anecdote (Alcidiades 9) relates how the great statesman, who lived from 450 to 404 B.C., used a minor transgression to his advantage.

He was said to have owned a large and attractive dog, which cost him a significant sum of money.  Alcibiades then proceeded to have the dog’s tail cut off.  His friends and acquaintances were angered and dismayed by this action; one trusted advisor told him that the general public were also grumbling about what he had done.

Alcibiades was not concerned.  “That is exactly what I wanted,” he told his advisor sternly.  “For if all of Athens is complaining about this, then it will stop them from saying anything worse about me.”

By this he meant that people often permit themselves to become fixated on relatively minor things, and miss the larger issues in their distraction.  Canny leaders and wise men are aware of this, and are always careful to lay out carefully-placed lightning rods, which channel and absorb the grumblings of the people.  Anger must be managed with the same care as good feelings.

Just as we attempt to have some measure of control over the good things that people may say about us, so we should not neglect to attempt to control some of the malicious things that are said about us.  It is also proven by experience that most people, conscious of their own foibles, feel more comfortable knowing that a person may have a minor misdeed in his history.

A small amount of vice humanizes, but a large amount destroys.  Those who are too free from vice attract not admiration, but contempt.

Read More:  Why Avoiding Time Wasters Is Important

Are Omens Real?

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The ancient historians would often mention portents, oracles, augurs, and omens.  The ancients like to interpret events by various such means:  observing the flight of birds (the Romans loved this ), or the entrails of sacrificed animals, or nearly any unusual phenomenon that happened to present itself.

It is not always clear how we should take such observations.  Should we laugh at them?  Gloss over them?  Study them?

Cicero wrote a minor treatise on the subject (On Divination).  Even writers noted for their cool-headed rationality like Plutarch, Livy, and Tacitus would occasionally interrupt their narratives with comments such as:

“In the fourth year of the consulship of [insert name here], it was noted that the sun remained red for seven days.”

“In the third year of the war of [insert name here], it is said that a two-headed calf was born in Palermo.”

On the face of things, it would seem that such comments are relics of an ignorant and barbarous past.  And of course, man’s progress of knowledge since those times have rendered such comments quaint with age.

But is there something more happening here?  It is not as simple a question as it may seem.  Divination, portents, and oracles are very ancient.  It seems clear that they would not have endured so long if they did not serve some useful purpose.  I would be not be surprised that, even today, the horoscope section of the newspaper is more popular than any other section.

I was walking today from Copacabana to Ipanema to meet with girl I had met earlier.  On the way, I saw something that caught my attention.  I saw the proprietor of a drogaria (drugstore) forcibly throw a filthy vagabond out of the store and onto the street.  He seized him by the back of the collar and the seat of the pants and actually threw him out into the street; as I was walking by, he nearly collided with me.  The proprietor’s face was afire with rage.

This type of thing happens nearly every day.  But this was the first time I had seen it.  Something about it left an impression on me.  My date later that day did not go well, despite my best efforts.  Life is like that sometimes.  You just move on.  At the time I saw the “ejection” incident, it felt like it was significant.  It felt like…a portent.

There is no better way to describe it.

Maybe the incident was an example of one of those happenings that the ancients so much liked to use to explain unfortunate events.  Or, maybe the incident had absolutely nothing to do with anything, and I’m just projecting my own misfortune onto an unrelated incident.

This is what I’ve come to believe about omens.

1.  They say more about the person observing the omen, or reporting on it.  In other words, an “omen” only has significance if a person already, somewhere deep in his subconscious, has some predisposition for believing something.  Omens appeal to our subconscious.  Omens are true in the sense that exorcisms “work”:  they operate through the power of suggestion.

They confirm things that we may have suspected for some time.  In my situation, I likely deep down knew that my date was not going to go well.  Or, I had some sense of foreboding about it.

 

Where all of this really gets complicated is when we ask if such a belief becomes a self-fulfilling “prophecy.”

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2.  Omens and portents are our way of reminding ourselves that Fate controls more than we like to believe.  Omens are our way of channeling the nervous energy that comes about when we finally recognize that Fortune holds many of the cards in the game of life.

3.  It might be argued that omens were a way of explaining phenomena that were inexplicable to ancient man.  This has much truth, but I don’t get this sense from looking at the actual texts.  Ancient man was not as ignorant as we moderns like to believe.  His range of vision was more limited than ours, but he was not a fool.  The primary purpose of omens, I believe, was to satisfy man’s psychological needs, not his informational needs.

These observations make sense to me.  Divination, omens, portents, and such things must serve some psychological purpose for us, or they would not have lasted as long as they have.  To the question of whether omens are “real” the answer must be:  yes, they are real to he who faithfully observes and reports the omen.  For he who does so reveals something to us of his own inner nature, and his mental workings.

When we seek to understand man, we must look at his habits and practices over many centuries.  Longevity does confer some authority, however much we may dislike the idea.

 

Read More:  The Need For Adventure

 

You Will Carry Burdens

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I was re-reading Plutarch’s Life of Pericles over the past few days.  One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that the best solace is always to keep company with the greatest of men; for in doing so we cannot help but become greater.

We should be careful with whom we spend out time.

When you wish to improve your basketball game, you don’t play two-on-two with a flat-footed dullard.  When you wish to improve your social skills, you don’t pick an uncalibrated dunce as a wingman.  So how can one expect to improve one’s character if a man constantly associates with fools and clowns?

The life of a great man, Plutarch tells us, is one of burdens.  The average spectator doesn’t see these burdens, believing the great man to be blessed by the Divine.  And his is, in a way.  But there is a Janus-face to this rosy picture.

The glories of the great man are counterbalanced by the price of such greatness.  What are some of these burdens?  The life of Pericles shows us that they are these:

1.  You will be surrounded by non-comprehending people.  In one anecdote, Plutarch describes how Pericles was boarding a ship during a time of political crisis.  Suddenly, a solar eclipse took place.  The phenomena caused great consternation among the passengers, and the ship’s navigator was greatly disturbed.

Pericles said to him:  “Why are you so upset?,” and held his cloak up before the navigator’s face, blocking the navigator’s vision of the sun.

“If you cannot see the sun now, and are not afraid, why would you be afraid when some other obstruction blocks it from view?”  This question he asked the navigator.

The point of this story was obviously to show that people are often afraid of what they do not understand.  Great men, almost by definition, seek out paths that are not trod by others.  They will be misunderstood, ridiculed, mocked, even vilified.  But if we wish to achieve anything in this world, there will come a time–often not of your own choosing–where you will have to swim against the prevailing currents.

The salmon will all be swimming one way, and you will have to swim another way.  And the salmon will not be pleased about this.  Not one bit.

2.  You will have to endure great tragedy.  Plutarch also tells us how the life of Pericles, although filled with the most transcendent glory, was scarred by personal tragedy.  During the wars against Sparta, a plague gripped Athens, killing off a great many people and throwing the city into disorder.

Pericles was blamed for much of this (unfairly, of course) by his political enemies.  He lost a number of personal relatives in the plague, including several of his own sons.  One anecdote has him being driven almost mad with grief over the loss of one of his favorite sons.

And yet he had to endure.  He could not take “time off” for morbid self-reflection.  He had to keep going.  There was no respite.

And this is one measure of greatness:  the ability to carry great burdens.  It is not often discussed.  It is not often meditated on.  But it is there.

Theodore Roosevelt lost both his wife and his mother in one day, and was nearly paralyzed by grief.  Yet it forced him to go West, and seek a new type of life for himself; and this act probably saved him from madness and a stupefying inactivity.  Cicero lost his favorite daughter, and this fact threw him into a serious bout of depression.  Yet this period of convalescence he used to write some of his best philosophical works.

General John J. Pershing, one of America’s most capable military figures of the early twentieth century, lost nearly his entire family in a catastrophic fire.

The neck of the Chinese peasant has a thick musculature, gained from years of pole-carrying and balancing of heavy weight.  He knows hardship, and he knows how, in the Chinese phrase, how “to eat bitterness.”

In our efforts at character development, and in our polishing of our souls, we should know from the beginning that we will carry heavy burdens.  It is inevitable.  It is unavoidable.  Don’t seek to avoid them:  instead, learn how to manage them.

But with practice, these burdens can be managed and balanced.  We can, in time, develop the thick pole-carrying neck of the patient, determined Chinese peasant.

Read More:  The Material Requirements Of Victory

 

How To Gain Your Boss’s Appreciation

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A lot has been written about how to be an entrepreneur.  A lot has been written about how to innovate.  Not as much has been written about how to be a good employee.

Being a good team-player is not glamorous.  Being a good team player is not what receives all the attention.  But it is just as critical–if not more so–than the innovator or trend-setter.

We don’t talk much about the virtue of obedience very much.  Which is our loss.  Because obedience is absolutely critical.  In everything.

Before you can innovate, before you can create, before you can speak as an authority, you must obey.  You must submit.

Yes, I mean you.  

One of the (many) problems in America today is that there are too many chiefs, and not enough Indians.  Too many cooks, but not enough servers.  Too many shit-talking bastards, and not enough work-horses.

You get my drift.  I tend to curse a lot when I speak colloquially.

In every type of situation in life, we will have some form of boss.  In every situation.  No man is an island, unto himself.  No man.  Not a single one.

Very, very few people are answerable to no one.  There is always someone else.  Someone who needs to be kept happy.

And this is something that most people will not tell you.

It is this:  you need to learn how to obey.  I don’t mean a slave.  I don’t mean that you should demean yourself.  I mean something more along the lines of loyalty, fidelity, and comradeship.  There is a quiet dignity in these virtues.  They are somewhat out of style now, in this age of bombast and self-promotion.

That’s what I mean.

All that innovation stuff comes later.  After you’ve built a foundation.  After you’ve demonstrated your worth.  Yes, you.  You’re not a unique snowflake until you’ve proved that you are.

So, let me talk about how you can gain your boss’s appreciation.  Do you really want to know?  I will tell you.

First, put yourself in the position of the average boss.  He is harried, harassed, and overworked.  He already has a lot of problems.  And he doesn’t need more of them.  He doesn’t need you to add to his problems.

Bosses want this:

1.  Do your fucking job.  Your boss doesn’t want to spoon-feed you.  He doesn’t want to wipe your nose or your ass.  He wants you to do your fucking job.  With no bullshit, no back-talk, and no attitude.

So do your fucking job.  Isn’t that simple?  If you have to study extra to learn your job, do it.  If you have to work harder than Mary Jane Rottencrotch to learn your job, then do it.

But do your fucking job.  No whining, no bullshit, and no problems.

2.  Don’t be an asshole.  An asshole is someone who thinks the rules of the world don’t apply to him.  An asshole thinks he can do whatever he wants.  Don’t be an asshole.

How do you know if you are an asshole?  Here’s a good test.  If more than three people think you’re an asshole, you are an asshole.  Figure out why, and correct yourself.

3.  Don’t fuck your boss up.  Your boss wants things to go smoothly.  He has a million things on his plate.  The last think he needs is more of your stupid drama.  So get your head out of your ass.  What do I mean by not “fucking your boss up”?

I mean don’t do things to embarrass your boss.

I mean don’t do things to make your boss look bad.

I mean don’t cause drama, create drama, or perpetuate drama.

That’s what I mean.  If more people could understand the beauty and the simplicity of these principles, there would be much less problems between bosses and employees.

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Your boss is (usually) not evil.  He’s (usually) not trying to go out of his way to make your life difficult.  But the reality of the rough-and-tumble of life is that he is stressed out.  He wants to have his stress reduced, not increased.

Bosses hate whiners, complainers, and assholes who cause drama.  He wants things to run smoothly.  If there is a problem, he wants you to have a proposal on how to solve it.  He doesn’t want to hear your stupid-ass bullshit.  

So there you have it.  There it is.  Let’s recap the three things you need to do to gain your boss’s appreciation (notice I didn’t say respect.  That a subject for another day):

1.  Do your fucking job

2.  Don’t be an asshole

3.  Don’t fuck your boss up.

If you can follow these rules, you’d be surprised at how much your boss will appreciate it.

Read More:  The Three Types Of Travel Writing

 

 

Fury Is Good

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A few days ago I had a chance to see Sylvester Stallone’s 2008 remake of his 1980s film Rambo.  It was two hours of mindless violence, and I loved every minute of it.

Few actors throw themselves into the action as fearlessly as does Stallone.  He’s in his 60s now, and he’s as pumped up as ever, doing nearly the same things he was doing in the 1980s.  Incredible.

You can say what you want about Sylvester Stallone.  But he is a very driven man, with a singular sense of purpose.  I respect that.  I admire his audacity.

Toujours, l’audace.

I know, I know.  You’re going to tell me that he uses all sorts of “performance enhancing” drugs, and what not.  Maybe.  I don’t really know.  And I don’t think it really matters, for my purposes here.  The point is the ethic, and the spirit.

And the fury.  I love the fury of speed, action, and movement.  It creates its own poetry.  It carries its own logic.  It forces upon us the necessity of decision.   And the necessity to be decisive.

Speed, action, and movement.  Get action.  Get movement.

Some men are born for conflict.  Some are born for struggle.  It’s in their blood.  This is the sentiment of the movie, expressed repeatedly in the voice-overs.

I wrote about one such man in my book Thirty Seven.  His name was Ernst Junger, and his book Storm of Steel is a flowering of cathartic violence.  And this is good.

Sometimes, violence is necessary.  Anyone who ever said that violence never solved anything doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

There are times when violent struggle cuts through, clarifies, and crystallizes the essence of an issue.

I was reminded of this recently when watching a video of a man getting beaten up on a subway in St. Louis.  He was accosted by a group of punks, and then assaulted.  He did not defend himself.  He curled up into the fetal position, and then proceeded to give interviews to the media about how “nobody helped me.”

Well, why didn’t you help yourself?  What did you do to defend yourself?

He was preyed on because he communicated weakness and defeat.  And the aggressors sensed this.

If you don’t take steps to defend yourself, no one else will.  The only person who cares about you, is you.

Conflict is all around us.  Conflict and struggle are the fulcrums of our earthly existence, and the existence of every other sentient form of life here with us.  We can either deal with it, or we can curl up into the fetal position.  Just like the sorry specimen on the subway.

When we adopt this as our ethic, we notice that our capacities for deterrence are enhanced.  We communicate, in silent form, the message that we are not to be trifled with.  Aggressors can sense this, on some animal level.  And you have to mean it.  You have to be prepared to fling yourself into action, when such threats materialize.  The moment of truth comes for all of us.

You will know if you have the soul of a fighter when that feeling of transcendent radiance comes over you, in the midst of violent conflict.  Everyone around you will be dithering and running here and there.  But you will be in your zone.  Your conflict zone.

It is a mystical feeling.  It is an inexplicable feeling.  But it is there.  And it is real.

A man finds his true essence at such moments.  It is a moment of clarity.  A moment of transcendent, mystical truth.

And it is glorious.

When someone assaults you, and when someone intends to do you harm, you don’t sit there and hold your head in your hands.  You don’t give interviews to the press.  You don’t expect others to do your fighting for you.

You attack with a fanatical fury until the threat is neutralized.

Fury, in all its transcendent forms, has a goodness that is distinctly its own.

 

Read More:  On Conflict

Pantheon Is Now Available

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(Click on the cover image above for purchase information).

My second book, Pantheon, is now available.  You can find out all the specific details on the book and its contents by clicking on the “books” tab in this website’s home page, and then selecting “Pantheon.”

It is offered in both paperback and in Kindle reader.   

What is the book about?  I am concerned with what makes men great, or greater.

To probe this question, we must rely on historical and biographical example, as well as the hard-won wisdom from life’s rough-and-tumble.

So, we are building on the foundation laid in Thirty-Seven to make the edifice of self-knowledge stretch higher and higher. As the spires reach skyward, so do we.

If we can keep company with the best of men, we cannot help but become better.  Nature has endowed us with a lively curiosity about the workings of personality and character; and we should make use of this inquisitive nature to better ourselves.

That man who is indifferent to the higher things in life will not be swayed by appeals to such principles.  But we do not direct our efforts to such a man.

The example of moral good, and glorious actions, cannot fail to inspire awe in the idealistic man.  It is to him that my book is directed.

If we can provide a consistent example of virtuous deeds and conduct, we can fill the idealistic heart with a dominating purpose.

This purpose is my purpose.

My intention is for you to embark on the conquest of your world.  I have forged the sword.  And now you must grasp the pommel.

And we cannot help but generate action, and a noble purpose, which is the first step in self-realization.

 

Help me, O Muse, and carry my words aloft,

On swift and airy currents, that they may solace

The expectant calls of seeking hearts.

Countdown To Pantheon

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My second book, Pantheon, is on schedule to be released this week.  It is the culmination of a great deal of effort on my part.

I have forged the sword.  It is now for you to grasp the pommel.

Pantheon is a longer (35% longer, to be precise), more complex, and more textured work than my first book.  We continue our exploration of history, biography, and philosophical problems, with a continuing emphasis on character and Fate.

Compared with Thirty-Seven, there is a much greater emphasis here on the perfectibility of man’s soul, the resolution of moral problems, and the union with the Divine.

Many of the essays in Pantheon are greatly extended and reworked pieces that have appeared at Return of Kings.  I consider these to be the definitive versions of these essays.  But there are also many new essays, including:

Prologue (A historical fiction narrative)

The Ghost Of Christopher Hitchens (A philosophical dialogue)

The Fortress Of The Mind

On Detractors

On Conflict

On Grief

Smashing The Paradigm

The Source-Book Of Plotinus (a treatise on Neoplatonism)

The Consolation Of The Natural World

Afterword

The essays are extensively documented.  As before, I have made a point of reading sources in their original languages, whether it be Latin, Arabic, or Portuguese.  The footnotes form an integral part of the text.

Platonism also makes a strong appearance here.  One chapter constitutes nearly a book-within-a-book, and proposes to instruct the reader, in a step-by-step way, in the basic tenets of Neoplatonist philosophy.  I consider this subject to be an important one for the creative and probing mind.

I can say with confidence that there cannot be found another book quite like this one in the contemporary literary scene.

A further announcement will follow when the book actually makes its appearance.

It is hoped that readers will now not begrudge this exhausted writer some rest.  I will shortly turn, bleary-eyed, to a much-deserved trip to a favorite foreign destination.  Life is short, and the advance of time must never dull our appreciation of the rewards of an active and fruitful regimen.

 

On Why Too Much Attention To Pets Is Unwholesome Vanity

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Plutarch relates a story at the beginning of his Life of Pericles.  He tells us that the emperor Augustus, on one of his frequent forays into Rome to mingle with the people, once caught sight of some foreigners making merry with some small monkeys and puppies.  They were carrying the animals here and there on their backs and shoulders for the amusement of the crowd, and were showering them with affection.

Augustus disapproved of such displays, believing them unfit pursuits for mature and well-adjusted men.

“We are told,” Plutarch says,

…that he [Augustus] then asked whether the women in those countries did not bear children, thus rebuking in truly imperial fashion those who squander upon animals that capacity for love and affection which in the natural order of things should be reserved for our fellow men.

In the same way, since nature has endowed us with a lively curiosity and love of knowledge, we ought equally to blame the people who abuse these gifts and divert them to objects which are unworthy of attention, while they neglect those which have the best claim to it.

We should wonder what Augustus would have made of the modern female celebrity, who carries about her pet as an ornament, always ready to use it as an attention-seeking accoutrement.  It may seem that such an activity is harmless.  But it is not.  Certainly, love of animals is a good thing, and can show a certain tenderness and humanity.  But when this love extends too far, and becomes an affectation, then it has ceased to be virtuous.  It then becomes a distraction from the proper cares of the mature man, and essentially a vice.

The frivolous person who cares more about his pet than his life’s responsibilities has indulged in the vice of vanity.  In Latin, we call this vice vanitas.

He who devotes undue affection on his pets cares not about his dog or cat, but about himself.  The pet is a buffer, a shield, and a weapon.  The pet is used as a means of avoiding sincere interaction with others.  It is a manipulative and vain person who devotes too much time to his pets.

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The modern woman’s fixation on her pets is a profoundly antisocial act, which deserves stern condemnation.  It is unwholesome vanity and frivolity, masquerading as benevolent affection.  It is dishonest emotive expenditure.

By lavishing attention on her pets, the modern woman (or man, who is often equally guilty) seeks to dodge his duties to his fellow man.  The pet becomes a substitute for life, requiring no reciprocal obligations.

Your pet is not an extension of you.  Your pet should not be used as a means of dodging your responsibilities to yourself and to others.  Their enjoyment should be confined within the boundaries of a momentary diversion.

As humanists, we place the study of man above all else:  we aim for the perfectibility of man, for the polishing of his soul, and for his accession to the world of Intellect.  Humanism values human concerns over those of frivolous sentimentality.  We respect our fellow creatures of the earth, but know that they are not our fellow travelers.  There is this perceptible barrier, this unbridgeable gulf, that separates us.

This gulf will always separate us.

The natural world is an abundant source of pleasures.  We respect the beauty and variety of the natural world, but are conscious of the fact that of all creatures on land and in sea, only Man has the capacity for reason.  Only Man has the ability to approach the divine principles, as those principles have been understood for many centuries.

Look to yourself, and abide your own perfectibility; it will not be found in unhealthy fixations on the baser creatures of the earth.

 

Read More:  The Material Requirements Of Victory

Anthony Swofford’s Memoir “Hotels, Hospitals, And Jails”

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I like to listen to audiobooks in my car.  A few years ago I made the decision that listening to the news was just too much like drinking hemlock, day in and day out.  I couldn’t handle the constant negativity, the snippets of bullshit that are designed to confirm the prejudices of the listener, and the sonorous voices of the politically-correct announcers.

NPR was the worst.  I just didn’t care what some feminist poet in Uganda had to teach me about life’s lessons.

Enough was enough.

Audiobooks are a good compromise.  I could get them from the library for nothing, and I could generally learn something from every book.  I usually stayed with history or biography, but every now and then I’d try something new, like a fiction book or a memoir.

It’s good to mix things up.  The mind, like a muscle, needs to be shocked out of its routine regularly.

I somehow stumbled on Anthony Swofford’s Hotels, Hospitals, and Jails: A Memoir.  I had not heard of Swofford before, but after reading the back of the CD box in the library I decided to listen to his book.  He wrote a memoir of his experiences in the first Gulf War in 1990-1991 called Jarhead, which was later made into a movie.  He had been a scout-sniper in a STA platoon (an acronym meaning surveillance and target acquisition).

I have neither read Jarhead, nor seen the movie.  But I felt like I had at least something in common with the author, both of us having had spent time in the same military service in the early 1990s.  When men have drunk from the same doctrinal founts, they can recognize a kindred quality in the choice of diction, phrases, and attitudes.

I can hear you, Tony.  I can hear you.

His experiences were not mine, but I recognize a fellow traveler.  And it is my obligation to share my food and drink with him, and lend him an ear.

Hotels, Hospitals, and Jails deals with the effects of grief and repressed rage.  It explores the same psychological ground as the Nicolas Winding Refn film Fear X.  Swofford relates, without sparing us any of the painful personal details, how he dealt with the death of his beloved older brother; how he dealt with the collapse of his first marriage; and how he dealt with the ruin of his father’s health, with whom he had a complex and stormy relationship.

These things, happening in the wake of the success of his first book, nearly consumed him.

Everything is resolved, and nothing is resolved.  And this is how it is, in real life.

Most of all, Swofford tells us how these personal crises nearly caused his own self-destruction.  We are treated to glimpses of a soul’s dark night:  the deliberate courting of death by reckless behavior, the indulgence in drugs and sex, and the self-loathing that comes from unresolved childhood traumas.

I was fully prepared to hate this book, after getting through the first quarter of it.  I’m not sure what it was.  Perhaps it was too much reality, and too much pain.

But then the clouds lifted, for some reason, and I put myself in the author’s hands, and let myself get carried along with the stream of his deadpan prose.  I surrendered to Swofford’s grief, and found satisfaction in this surrender.

This is a great book.  It is an honest, moving, and at times, frustrating expiation of repressed rage and its effects.

In ancient times, there was a rhetorical style of writing called a “consolation.”  The Latin word is consolatio.  When a loved one died, or something terrible happened, a writer might compose a “consolation” essay to the bereaved.  So Seneca wrote the consolation essays De Consolatione ad Marciam, De Consolatione ad Polybium, and De Consolatione ad Helviam.  Sometimes I think the writers of the consolations benefited more from them than did the recipients.

But Swofford’s book is not a consolation.  Not really.  Not unless he is writing it to himself, for himself.

No.

This book is more of a funeral dirge.  It is a song of lamentation.  Think of the Lay Of The Last Survivor from Beowulf.  It is a passionate cri de coeur from a man who is finally able to come to terms with his own traumas, and who has succeeded in beating them back away from the clearing of sanity that he has carved out of the forest of his own psyche.  That dark forest, choked with brambles.

And to let them go.

I release you, traumas.  I release you.  Because I have mastered you.  This is Swofford’s message to us.  It is a profound message, an insight gained through the most ghastly suffering.

And it is like being reborn.  And being born is never a pretty sight.  But there is no greater imperative:  to be reborn.  To be recreated, in our own image, not in someone else’s image.

There is no greater necessity.

There is a certain breaking down, a certain self-immolation, that has to occur, before the new shape can take form.  And begin anew.

Let us self-immolate, when we need to.  And let us be reborn.

Read More:  The Consolation Of The Natural World

 

The Consolation Of The Natural World

Quintus Curtius Literature , , ,

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Seneca’s Natural Questions (Quaestiones Naturales) is an oddity of philosophical literature.  It does not fit into any neatly defined category, and stands nearly alone in its blend of science and speculative philosophy.  Perhaps “science” is not quite the correct word.  Our philosopher makes no experiments, and attempts no generalized scientific conclusions.  He is more concerned with describing and classifying the bewildering variety of natural phenomena that was seen and experienced by man, than in using experimentation to promote the advancement of learning.  The Romans were not scientists.

He presents us with a survey of the natural phenomena in earth and sky.  By analogy he tries to demonstrate which theories of his day are wrong, and which are not.

But Seneca is clear on his purpose:  the reason to study Nature is for our moral improvement.  His primary concern is to moralize.  What a marvelous idea!  And what scientist of today, in our negligently non-judgmental era, would dare suggest such a purpose?

How does the study of Nature help my moral development?  The answer, Seneca tells us, is that the study of Nature’s workings confirms the fundamental tenets of Stoicism.  The world moves on; death can come at any time; it is better for us to face our lives with diligence and quiet courage.

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Perhaps, in so asking this question, we begin to approach the source of our modern problems in educating and training the youth.  “What is most important in human affairs?” he asks.  Not material gain or glory, but “Rather to have seen all the Cosmos in your mind and–for no victory is greater–to have conquered your vices.” [1]

In book one, he covers atmospheric phenomena:  rainbows, halos, parhelia, meteors, and comets.  Book two describes in detail lightning and thunder.  And here is where Seneca shows us why he is a philosopher.  Not content just to describe these things, he philosophizes about them.  So he interrupts his discussion of lightning to discuss the meaning of Fate, and how it is revealed by omens.  He reminds us that we should never fear extreme phenomena of weather, since death is unavoidable.  Death will come whether we want it or not:  so why fret about thunder or lightning?

Book three deals with the earth’s various types of waters and water cycles; book five, winds and tempests; book six, earthquakes; book seven, comets and associated meteorological phenomena.  It is a strange and wonderful book, in which every opportunity is taken to digress for our moral edification.  So Seneca interrupts a discussion of the earth’s wind patterns to rue that we immorally exploit the earth’s winds to construct murderous warships.

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I love this little book.  He rises to great eloquence in many passages, among them this passionate plea:

With this, my dear Lucilius, we wrap up our discussion of these causes [of earthquakes].  Now we turn to those things which pertain to the solace of the spirit.  It is better for us to be morally strong than to be learned.  One does not happen without the others.  Strength does not come to the spirit except by the study of good arts, and by the contemplation of Nature….Why should I fear a wild animal, or why should I tremble at the light of an arrow or spear?  Greater dangers are waiting for me:  lightning, earthquakes, and the entire apparatus of Nature…A man’s life is an insignificant thing, but contempt for mortal life is a great thing.  [2]

To the ancients, character and moral development was more important than being “factually correct” in everything.  If you must know one thing about ancient literature, know this.  We see this tendency in historiography of the period, as well as in works of geography and science.  It is us moderns who are preoccupied with technology, truth, and always “being right.”  We may be better off now, with out technology and our theories, but have we advanced morally?   I am not so sure.

We can learn something from these old books, if only we will listen.

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[1] Quid praecipuum in rebus humanis est?…sed animo omne vidisse et, qua maior nulla victoria est, vitia domuisse. (III.10).

[2] Haec, Lucili, virorum optime, quantum ad ipsas causas; illa nunc quae ad confirmationem animorum pertinent.  Quos magis refert nostra fortiores fieri quam doctiores.  Sed alterum sine altero non fit; non enim aliunde animo venit robur quam a bonis artibus, quam a contemplatione naturae…Quid est enim cur ego hominem aut feram, quid est cur sagittam aut lanceam tremam?  Maiora me pericula expectant; fulminibus et terris et magnis naturae apparatibus petimur…Pusilla res est hominis anima, sed ingens res contemptus animae.  (VI.4).

Read More:  The Need For Adventure