I shall therefore send to you the actual books; and in order that you may not waste time in searching here and there for profitable topics, I shall mark certain passages, so that you can turn at once to those which I approve and admire.
Of course, however, the living voice and the intimacy of a common life will help you more than the written word. You must go to the scene of action, first, because men put more faith in their eyes than in their ears, and second, because the way is long if one follows precepts, but short and helpful, if one follows patterns.
Cleanthes could not have been the express image of Zeno, if he had merely heard his lectures; he shared in his life, saw into his hidden purposes, and watched him to see whether he lived according to his own rules.
Plato, Aristotle, and the whole throng of sages who were destined to go each his different way, derived more benefit from the character than from the words of Socrates.
It was not the classroom of Epicurus, but living together under the same roof, that made great men of Metrodorus, Hermarchus, and Polyaenus.
Therefore I summon you, not merely that you may derive benefit, but that you may confer benefit; for we can assist each other greatly.
I have always been a bookworm, for as long as I can remember, and so I am immediately sympathetic to others who find solace in the written word. I enjoy some simple, though sadly not always inexpensive, hobbies that bring me joy, but good books will reach much further into my soul, inspiring a whole new sense of meaning.
If I had to, I could manage without my quirky music, or my trademark fedora hats, or my smoking pipes; I imagine, however, that I would struggle existentially without access to my books.
Speaking only for myself, with my own set of weaknesses, that is not necessarily a good thing. People will love to read for all sorts of different reasons, and I must be careful that mine is not reduced to an act of escape.
I hope I am on the right track when I say that I read simply in order to better understand, not just as a means to some worldly gain, as was the case with most of my peers. At the same time, I am wary that I may read in order to run away from situations that trouble me.
After all, I would suggest that any art, as a creative expression, should point me right back to the world, to glorify it, to magnify it, to reveal ever more the beauty and harmony that are deep down in things. None of my thinking and my feeling will be of any use to me at all, if they do not help me to act with greater appreciation and purpose.
The writing is for the living, just as the thinking is for the doing. A word has great power, and a deed has far greater power still. The image and the concept must breathe, not be stifled and locked away. Let me, by all means, learn about a principle from a book, but let me then also see it at work.
Define justice with insight and clarity, and now put it into gritty practice. Praise the nobility of heroism, and now take the blows and the cuts that must come with it, especially when no one is there to see you, or to write a song about it. Write passionate lines about love, and now bear the mighty burden of giving yourself to another, to the point of losing yourself to the other.
Cleanthes, or Plato, or Epictetus did not become great philosophers because they followed the words of Zeno, or Socrates, or Musonius Rufus. Rather, they became great men because they followed the examples of their mentors, and the mentors in turn found inspiration in sharing a friendship with the students.
A library, however pleasant, will itself never make anything of me, though it is still possible that I can make use of the library as a way to make something of myself. What the hands are doing needs to exemplify what the words are saying.
Written in 3/2012
IMAGE: Carl Spitzweg, The Bookworm (c. 1850)
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