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Tuesday, October 6, 2020

Seneca, On Peace of Mind 17.7


The mind cannot use lofty language, above that of the common herd, unless it be excited. When it has spurned aside the commonplace environments of custom, and rises sublime, instinct with sacred fire, then alone can it chant a song too grand for mortal lips: as long as it continues to dwell within itself it cannot rise to any pitch of splendor: it must break away from the beaten track, and lash itself to frenzy, till it gnaws the curb and rushes away bearing up its rider to heights whither it would fear to climb when alone.

I suppose Plato was on to something, when he recognized the need for a sort of intoxication to bring forth insight, and Aristotle wasn’t far from the mark, when he said that a great mind flirts with a kind of madness.

I need not assume that intense passions must be in conflict with reason; when the fires of the heart are in harmony with wisdom, they can surely inspire us to ascend to the loftiest of heights. It isn’t that I shouldn’t be feeling, but rather that my feeling shouldn’t be without the sight of awareness.

It is perhaps that very need to rise above the humdrum conformity of everyday life, which is itself an expression of narrow thoughtlessness, that will make the poet appear as if he is drunk, or the philosopher come across as a lunatic.

Words of beauty will sound like the chattering of animals to someone who won’t really listen, and words of truth will sound like the mumbling of a fool to someone who won’t really think. Always there is this dull sense that if it is unfamiliar or uncommon, it must be the result of insanity, perhaps even something deeply dangerous. Stray just a bit from the acceptable norms, and they will look at you with profound worry.

If I say to someone that the voice of a Muse is speaking to me, what are the chances that they will eventually lock me away? What if I said I was struggling to hear God?

I think of the enlightened man who has escaped from the confines of Plato’s Cave, who has ripped himself not only from the shadows but also from the very objects that cast those shadows, upward and onward to a world above ground, illuminated by the sun itself. He would only wish to return back into the darkness to liberate his friends, even though they will look at him as a man possessed.

Yet if I am ever to make any sense of myself, I can only do so when I see myself within the context of the whole, and for this I will need to be swept away, to be lifted up.

I have rarely had the blessing of being consumed by such a rapture, though I will never forget a day when I was chatting with a grubby street musician back in Boston. I’m not sure what came over me, but for a brief moment he seemed like the only person in the whole city who was sane, and all the yuppies rushing around him, desperately trying to avoid meeting his eyes, were the ones who were deranged.

Sometimes the veil is torn apart, and that means either I have finally lost my marbles, or I have possibly been gifted the glimmer of a higher point of view. Maybe it’s a bit of both.

Written in 1/2012

IMAGE: Gustave Moreau, Hesiod and the Muse (1891)


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