"Very well," say you, "what good shall I get from all this fine reasoning?"
None, if you wish me to answer your question. Nevertheless, just as an engraver rests his eyes when they have long been under a strain and are weary, and calls them from their work, and "feasts" them, as the saying is; so we at times should slacken our minds and refresh them with some sort of entertainment.
But let even your entertainment be work; and even from these various forms of entertainment you will select, if you have been watchful, something that may prove wholesome. That is my habit, Lucilius: I try to extract and render useful some element from every field of thought, no matter how far removed it may be from philosophy.
Now what could be less likely to reform character than the subjects which we have been discussing? And how can I be made a better man by the "ideas" of Plato? What can I draw from them that will put a check on my appetites?
Perhaps the very thought, that all these things which minister to our senses, which arouse and excite us, are by Plato denied a place among the things that really exist. Such things are therefore imaginary, and though they for the moment present a certain external appearance, yet they are in no case permanent or substantial; nonetheless, we crave them as if they were always to exist, or as if we were always to possess them.
None, if you wish me to answer your question. Nevertheless, just as an engraver rests his eyes when they have long been under a strain and are weary, and calls them from their work, and "feasts" them, as the saying is; so we at times should slacken our minds and refresh them with some sort of entertainment.
But let even your entertainment be work; and even from these various forms of entertainment you will select, if you have been watchful, something that may prove wholesome. That is my habit, Lucilius: I try to extract and render useful some element from every field of thought, no matter how far removed it may be from philosophy.
Now what could be less likely to reform character than the subjects which we have been discussing? And how can I be made a better man by the "ideas" of Plato? What can I draw from them that will put a check on my appetites?
Perhaps the very thought, that all these things which minister to our senses, which arouse and excite us, are by Plato denied a place among the things that really exist. Such things are therefore imaginary, and though they for the moment present a certain external appearance, yet they are in no case permanent or substantial; nonetheless, we crave them as if they were always to exist, or as if we were always to possess them.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 58
I no longer get angry when people tell me that philosophy is useless, probably because I am all too familiar with the frustrations. How is this going to make the grind easier? What can it get me? After all the talking, where is the reward? It’s akin to the way respectable adults still claim that learning geometry or algebra in school has never actually come in handy.
In and of itself, studying Plato’s “ideas” just provides me with another theory, and I am completely aware that it will not pay the bills or finally put the baby to sleep. On one level, it is perhaps a diversion, and yet I need to think about how these “big concepts” can also have very concrete effects upon my daily living, oftentimes in ways I do not expect. How I choose to think rubs off, ever so gently, upon my habits of character.
Once I start making claims about what is or isn’t useful, I am already engaged in the work of philosophy, as much as I might wish to deny it. The trick will be in grasping the relationship between the higher and the lower levels of awareness, however winding the path may be.
Even the diversions serve a purpose, for they allow me to transform such reflections into a different sort of useful work. In the order of Nature, nothing goes to waste, and everything is fruitful. Once it has sunk into my soul, it gradually plays itself out in all sorts of helpful ways.
If the real is clearer to me in the context of thought over sensation, it might be time to swap my priorities. Will this have any effect on my moral compass, which ought to guide me in my practical choices? Indeed, it will. What I sense before me will no longer tempt me as much as what I understand to be noble and righteous. The lesser will be subsumed into the greater.
The matter around me swirls, and so my senses are confused, constantly being struck by a barrage of changing impressions. Through all of that, it is a stability of mind that provides the anchor.
Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.
I no longer get angry when people tell me that philosophy is useless, probably because I am all too familiar with the frustrations. How is this going to make the grind easier? What can it get me? After all the talking, where is the reward? It’s akin to the way respectable adults still claim that learning geometry or algebra in school has never actually come in handy.
In and of itself, studying Plato’s “ideas” just provides me with another theory, and I am completely aware that it will not pay the bills or finally put the baby to sleep. On one level, it is perhaps a diversion, and yet I need to think about how these “big concepts” can also have very concrete effects upon my daily living, oftentimes in ways I do not expect. How I choose to think rubs off, ever so gently, upon my habits of character.
Once I start making claims about what is or isn’t useful, I am already engaged in the work of philosophy, as much as I might wish to deny it. The trick will be in grasping the relationship between the higher and the lower levels of awareness, however winding the path may be.
Even the diversions serve a purpose, for they allow me to transform such reflections into a different sort of useful work. In the order of Nature, nothing goes to waste, and everything is fruitful. Once it has sunk into my soul, it gradually plays itself out in all sorts of helpful ways.
If the real is clearer to me in the context of thought over sensation, it might be time to swap my priorities. Will this have any effect on my moral compass, which ought to guide me in my practical choices? Indeed, it will. What I sense before me will no longer tempt me as much as what I understand to be noble and righteous. The lesser will be subsumed into the greater.
The matter around me swirls, and so my senses are confused, constantly being struck by a barrage of changing impressions. Through all of that, it is a stability of mind that provides the anchor.
Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.
—Reflection written in 5/2013
IMAGE: Paolo Veronese, Plato (c. 1560)
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