Jacob's Ladder 8

Adam Elsheimer, Jacob's Dream (c. 1598) 

Jacob Wrestling with the Angel 19

Odilon Redon, Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (c. 1905) 

A Handsome Couple

Netherlandish Proverbs 12

"The herring does not fry here." 

It's not going according to plan. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 84.3

But I must not be led astray into another subject than that which we are discussing. We also, I say, ought to copy these bees, and sift whatever we have gathered from a varied course of reading, for such things are better preserved if they are kept separate; then, by applying the supervising care with which our nature has endowed us—in other words, our natural gifts—we should so blend those several flavors into one delicious compound that, even though it betrays its origin, yet it nevertheless is clearly a different thing from that whence it came. 
 
This is what we see nature doing in our own bodies without any labor on our part; the food we have eaten, as long as it retains its original quality and floats in our stomachs as an undiluted mass, is a burden; but it passes into tissue and blood only when it has been changed from its original form. 
 
So it is with the food which nourishes our higher nature—we should see to it that whatever we have absorbed should not be allowed to remain unchanged, or it will be no part of us. We must digest it; otherwise it will merely enter the memory and not the reasoning power. 
 
Let us loyally welcome such foods and make them our own, so that something that is one may be formed out of many elements, just as one number is formed of several elements whenever, by our reckoning, lesser sums, each different from the others, are brought together. This is what our mind should do: it should hide away all the materials by which it has been aided, and bring to light only what it has made of them. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 84 
 
Break it down, and then build it back up. This process takes place whenever a bee makes its honey, or a stomach digests its food, or a mind arrives at understanding. The first step is to distinguish the parts. The second step is to incorporate them into the whole. In the contemporary lingo, it is the interplay between analysis and synthesis. 
 
Left to itself, the flower does not produce honey. Left to itself, my supper does not give me strength. Left to itself, a fact does not become knowledge. It is the power of the bee, and of my organs, and of my intellect that transforms the old into something new. 
 
This letter is already full of analogies to help us describe the activity of learning, but the wife would surely add that preparing a delicious recipe is far more than a pile of ingredients, and my father would remind me to carefully sort through the pieces before I attempt to assemble the appliance. The Aristotelian might say that a change requires an efficient cause to modify a material cause; as the old Scholastic phrase goes, “every agent forms matter for the sake of an end.” 
 
The dull mechanics of our industrial society can so easily overlook the creative force that animates Nature, the way that a vital understanding will bind together the disparate circumstances into a shared meaning and purpose. 
 
Do not believe the technicians when they tell you that a house is just a framework of lumber or stone, for a man knows why it is a place to live. Do not believe the bureaucrats when they tell you that prosperity is about arranging the ideal socio-economic conditions, for a man knows why happiness is within the judgements of each individual.
 
Whatever is touched by awareness is thereby also charged with estimation and intention, so that we can never treat learning as if it were only receptive. A state of affairs has been given—now how will I discern it, and what will I make of it? However mundane the elements, the composite is now distinctly mine, because I have provided for myself an account of the reasons why. 
 
“Don’t be so silly! Someone else has already added up all the separate numbers before!” 
 
Perhaps, but by doing so in my own mind I have explained the causes by my own power, which makes that critical difference between blindly repeating and independently comprehending. 

—Reflection written in 12/2013 

IMAGE: Gerrit Dou, Woman at Prayer Before Her Meal (c. 1650) 

Abandoned Places 66

Nature 68

IMAGE by Jeroen Van Nieuwenhove 

Maxims of Goethe 82

An honorable man with limited ideas often sees through the rascality of the most cunning jobber. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 84.2

We should follow, men say, the example of the bees, who flit about and cull the flowers that are suitable for producing honey, and then arrange and assort in their cells all that they have brought in; these bees, as our Vergil says,
 
“pack close the flowing honey, 
And swell their cells with nectar sweet.” 
 
It is not certain whether the juice which they obtain from the flowers forms at once into honey, or whether they change that which they have gathered into this delicious object by blending something therewith and by a certain property of their breath. 
 
For some authorities believe that bees do not possess the art of making honey, but only of gathering it; and they say that in India honey has been found on the leaves of certain reeds, produced by a dew peculiar to that climate, or by the juice of the reed itself, which has an unusual sweetness, and richness. And in our own grasses too, they say, the same quality exists, although less clear and less evident; and a creature born to fulfil such a function could hunt it out and collect it. 
 
Certain others maintain that the materials which the bees have culled from the most delicate of blooming and flowering plants is transformed into this peculiar substance by a process of preserving and careful storing away, aided by what might be called fermentation—whereby separate elements are united into one substance. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 84 
 
I have long been fascinated with bees, though I am also a bit frightened by them, thanks to some unfortunate encounters as a child. As a moody teenager, I hastily brushed aside an offer to work as an apprentice to an Austrian beekeeper; in hindsight, this would probably have been a calling ideally suited to my peculiar temperament. 
 
I am only an amateur when it comes to biology and chemistry, so, like Seneca, I can’t precisely explain the process of producing honey. But, also like Seneca, I do know that the bees are making it into something of their own, whether it be at the levels of collection or of fabrication. A schoolyard chum used to call it “bug barf”, and I suppose that’s as good a way as any to describe the nectar being treated with enzymes and bacteria in a special stomach. 
 
Nature expresses herself in patterns, and just as a body lives and grows by digesting its food, so a mind understands by abstracting and combining from its experience. While it begins with an act of receiving, it is completed by an act of transformation—do not treat living and learning as if they were simply about what is given, when they are all about a development from what is given. 
 
I can admire the tiny bee for the way it labors in an approximation of our social nature, and for its ability to build and to produce with such remarkable beauty and efficiency. Even though the insect does not possess judgment in the same way that we humans do, the power of reason stands behind its design, in the same way that Intelligence brings order and purpose to the entire Universe. 
 
It is tragic when a bee can do the work of Providence without the gift of consciousness, and a man abandons the work of Providence by neglecting the gift of consciousness. We are presented with all of the pieces, and yet we stubbornly refuse to assemble them into a whole, willing to settle for a state of idleness instead of rising to the exercise of creativity. 
 
Three decades as a teacher have unfortunately shown me how our “best practices” in education reduce the student to a sponge, expecting little more than rote memorization and blind conformity. In this case, it might be better to follow the example of the constructive bee than that of the mimicking parrot. 

—Reflection written in 12/2013 

IMAGE: Hans Thoma, The Friend of Bees (1853) 

Kindness

Problem Trolley

 

Delphic Maxims 91

Ὁμίλει πρᾴως 

Live together meekly 

IMAGE: John Everett Millais, Peace Concluded (1856) 

Stockdale on Stoicism 54

So it was on that most chaotic night of those years, August 4th, 1964, when Washington decided to officially go to war. 

Just before midnight, I had been the eyewitness with the best seat in the house to see an action that had been reported as an attack by North Vietnamese PT boats against the American destroyers, Maddox and Joy. 

It was, in fact, a false alarm caused by the destroyers’ phantom radar contacts and faulty sonar operation on a very dark, humid, and stormy night. This was realized during the event by the boss of the destroyers at the scene, and by me, the boss of the airplanes overhead. Corrective messages were sent instantly to Washington: "No PT boats."

A few hours later, I was awakened to organize, brief, and lead the first air strike against North Vietnam, a reprisal for what I knew to be a false alarm. It was true that I had helped repulse an actual attack three days before, and that I thought it likely that another real one would occur in the future. 

But what to do, knowing that hours before, Washington had received the false-alarm messages, and that it would be none other than I who would be launching a war under false pretenses? 

I remember sitting on the side of my shipboard bed, alone in those predawn minutes, conscious of the fact that history was taking a major turn, and that it was I, little Jimmy Stockdale, who happened to be in the Ferris wheel seat that was just coming over the top and starting its descent. 

I remember two thoughts. 

The first was a pledge: that this was a moment to tell my grandchildren about someday, a history lesson important to future generations. 

The second was a reflection: I thought about Rhinelander, his "The Problems of Good and Evil" course, Epictetus, and how prophetic it had been that we had all come together those few years before. Probably nobody had ever tested Rhinelander’s course as I was likely to test it in not only the hours, but the years ahead. I knew we were stepping into a quagmire. 

There was no question of getting the truth of that night out; that truth had been out for hours. I was sure that there was nothing I could do to stop the "reprisal" juggernaut pouring out of Washington. 

My course was clear: to play well the given part. The Author had cast me in a lead role of a Greek Tragedy. Who else to lead my pilots into the heavy flak of the city of Vinh and blow the North Vietnamese oil storage tanks off the map? 

Remember that you are an actor in a drama of such sort as the Author chooses—if short, then in a short one; if long, then in a long one. If it be his pleasure that you should enact a poor man, or a cripple, or a ruler, or a private citizen, see that you act it well. For this is your business—to act well the given part, but to choose it belongs to another. 

—from James B. Stockdale, Epictetus' Enchiridion: Conflict and Character 

Sayings of Ramakrishna 279

There is little chance of a ship running astray, so long as its compass points towards the true North. 

So if the mind of man—the compass needle of the ship of life—is turned always towards the Supreme Brahman, without oscillation, it will steer clear of every danger. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 84.1

Letter 84: On gathering ideas 
 
The journeys to which you refer—journeys that shake the laziness out of my system—I hold to be profitable both for my health and for my studies. You see why they benefit my health: since my passion for literature makes me lazy and careless about my body, I can take exercise by deputy; as for my studies, I shall show you why my journeys help them, for I have not stopped my reading in the slightest degree. 
 
And reading, I hold, is indispensable—primarily, to keep me from being satisfied with myself alone, and besides, after I have learned what others have found out by their studies, to enable me to pass judgment on their discoveries and reflect upon discoveries that remain to be made. 
 
Reading nourishes the mind and refreshes it when it is wearied with study; nevertheless, this refreshment is not obtained without study. We ought not to confine ourselves either to writing or to reading; the one, continuous writing, will cast a gloom over our strength, and exhaust it; the other will make our strength flabby and watery. 
 
It is better to have recourse to them alternately, and to blend one with the other, so that the fruits of one’s reading may be reduced to concrete form by the pen. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 84 
 
I have an intense love both for travel and for reading, though I fear it is not for the usual reasons; I try not to treat a journey or a book as a form of escape, but rather as a challenge to deeper engagement. 
 
Far too often, we go on trips because we believe our problems come from where we are, not from who we are. Far too often, we hide away in libraries because we seek a diversion from the world, when what we really need is a readjustment within ourselves. 
 
No, the Eifel Tower will not make me fall in love, and a gripping tale about mystic unicorns will not bring me enlightenment. As much as I embrace sentimentality, it should never be a replacement for sanity. 
 
I know that both traveling and reading have done their proper work when I feel like I have just been knocked about by some arduous yet dignified task, an odd combination of exhaustion and satisfaction. 
 
In my own quirky manner, burying my nose in a book is inevitably followed by a brisk walk, as if the body needs to catch up to the mind, and the further I journey from home, the more books I somehow manage to consume, as if the new surroundings have spurred my curiosity all the more. 
 
While I have heard some people say that they read for the sake of solitude, I have always found the opposite to be true: the text becomes the vehicle for a spirited conversation. From the outside, it may look like I am doing nothing at all, but on the inside, I am in constant motion. 
 
“We read to know we’re not alone.” That I cannot find a page where C.S. Lewis actually said this, but I can trace the quote back to Shadowlands, a brilliant film about Lewis, suggests that I sometimes read a bit too much. 
 
The dull man, concerned with timetables and balance sheets, views reading as a merely passive state, just as he takes leisure to be the act of switching off a machine, so that it might run more efficiently during the next shift. 
 
The thoughtful man, however, understands why reading is far more than the absorption of information, and rightly becomes a means for active interpretation. Our very judgments about the true, the good, and the beautiful are in play, through a constant interaction between minds exploring a shared existence. 
 
To read responsibly is therefore also to engage in critical study, which can often take the form of then writing about the things we have read. Not everyone needs to write professionally, but any discerning and creative soul will write, in the broad sense, as a brilliant amateur, continually chronicling life’s glorious patterns. 

—Reflection written in 12/2013 

Henry David Thoreau 13

One cannot too soon forget his errors and misdemeanors. To dwell long upon them is to add to the offense. Repentance and sorrow can only be displaced by something better, which is as free and original as if they had not been. 

—from Henry David Thoreau, Journals (9 January, 1842) 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 18

The Religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide. It acknowledges that it is not equal to the whole of truth, that it legislates, tyrannizes over a village of God's empires but is not the immutable universal law. Every influx of atheism, of skepticism is thus made useful as a mercury pill assaulting and removing a diseased religion and making way for truth. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals (4 March, 1831) 

Owls 14

Stoic Snippets 278

Consider that before long you will be nobody and nowhere, nor will any of the things exist which you now see, nor any of those who are now living. 

For all things are formed by nature to change and be turned and to perish, in order that other things in continuous succession may exist. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.21 

IMAGE: Piero del Pollaiuolo, Apollo and Daphne (c. 1480) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 83.12

Therefore, you should state why the wise man ought not to get drunk. Explain by facts, and not by mere words, the hideousness of the thing, and its haunting evils. 
 
Do that which is easiest of all—namely, demonstrate that what men call pleasures are punishments as soon as they have exceeded due bounds. 
 
For if you try to prove that the wise man can souse himself with much wine and yet keep his course straight, even though he be in his cups, you may go on to infer by syllogisms that he will not die if he swallows poison, that he will not sleep if he takes a sleeping potion, that he will not vomit and reject the matter which clogs his stomach when you give him hellebore. 
 
But, when a man’s feet totter and his tongue is unsteady, what reason have you for believing that he is half sober and half drunk? Farewell. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 83 
 
A rousing sermon or a lofty treatise does have its proper place, but a man can only learn to practice sobriety if he can see right before him why intoxication will always make him worse, and this, in turn, is only possible if he can see right before him why virtue is all that can make him better. No amount of censure or study can take the place of making that connection in daily living. 
 
And another man cannot do this for you—you will have to do it for yourself. While Nature is there to point the way, you must commit to taking the necessary steps. 
 
In my own case, I long appreciated the nuances of the theory, yet I was ignoring a critical component: when push comes to shove, do not treat every immediate gratification as if it were a good, because the value of the pleasure is relative to the merit of the action. 
 
When the feelings are divorced from an understanding, we are fumbling about blindly, and we are far more likely to miss wildly than to hit the mark. It is judgment that provides the measure of too much or too little. 
 
As much as I can conceive of this through a formal syllogism, the self-loathing that follows from falling into excess is the best sort of proof. Though it may sound like a cheap parlor trick, there are few more effective methods for resisting a compulsion than carefully visualizing, in gory detail, my situation and state of mind in the next twenty-four hours. Even the most beastly of hedonists is then likely to think twice. 
 
Intellectuals have a knack for rationalizing most anything, because they are inclined to dwell upon the words in isolation from the deeds, with the misguided aim of being notably clever instead of just becoming quietly decent. 
 
I am suspicious, therefore, of any sort of zealot, whether he denounces or embraces all of the pleasures. Prudence, as distinct from prudishness or permissiveness, know why the limit has been reached when we have surrendered a mastery over ourselves. 
 
The answer is neither in running away nor in making excuses. It is in being fully accountable. 

—Reflection written in 12/2013 

IMAGE: Albert Anker, The Drinker (1868)