There is a well-known place in Lycia—called by the inhabitants “Hephaestion”—where the ground is full of holes in many places and is surrounded by a harmless fire, which does no injury to the plants that grow there. Hence the place is fertile and luxuriant with growth, because the flames do not scorch but merely shine with a force that is mild and feeble.
But let us postpone this discussion, and look into the matter when you have given me a description just how far distant the snow lies from the crater—I mean the snow which does not melt even in summer, so safe is it from the adjacent fire.
But there is no ground for your charging this work to my account; for you were about to gratify your own craze for fine writing, without a commission from anyone at all. Nay, what am I to offer you not merely to describe Aetna in your poem, and not to touch lightly upon a topic which is a matter of ritual for all poets?
Ovid could not be prevented from using this theme simply because Vergil had already fully covered it; nor could either of these writers frighten off Cornelius Severus. Besides, the topic has served them all with happy results, and those who have gone before seem to me not to have forestalled all that could be said, but merely to have opened the way.
But let us postpone this discussion, and look into the matter when you have given me a description just how far distant the snow lies from the crater—I mean the snow which does not melt even in summer, so safe is it from the adjacent fire.
But there is no ground for your charging this work to my account; for you were about to gratify your own craze for fine writing, without a commission from anyone at all. Nay, what am I to offer you not merely to describe Aetna in your poem, and not to touch lightly upon a topic which is a matter of ritual for all poets?
Ovid could not be prevented from using this theme simply because Vergil had already fully covered it; nor could either of these writers frighten off Cornelius Severus. Besides, the topic has served them all with happy results, and those who have gone before seem to me not to have forestalled all that could be said, but merely to have opened the way.
It makes a great deal of difference whether you approach a subject that has been exhausted, or one where the ground has merely been broken; in the latter case, the topic grows day by day, and what is already discovered does not hinder new discoveries.
Besides, he who writes last has the best of the bargain; he finds already at hand words which, when marshalled in a different way, show a new face. And he is not pilfering them, as if they belonged to someone else, when he uses them, for they are common property.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 79
Nature is full of instances where forces that would appear to be in violent opposition will resolve themselves into a delicate balance. I have yet to see plants thriving in the midst of fire, or snow resting next to lava, though I was delighted to see wildflowers growing from barrels of industrial waste, and a family of birds nested inside a neglected jet engine.
As it is with the inanimate, so it is with the animate, and as it is with the beast, so it is with the man. My tomcat has now become fast friends with the neighbor’s pit bull, and I need to stop thinking that my own efforts are somehow in conflict with the achievements of others. False dichotomies are among the greatest barriers we face in securing our peace of mind.
Like Lucilius, let my action be its own reward, with no worry over whether it is perceived as being original or derivative; different descriptions should rightly complement one another, not exclude one another. It did not concern Ovid that Vergil had already written about Aetna, and I should not be frightened of presenting a fresh account of a road formerly traveled.
Innovation is in service to the truth, instead of the truth being at the whims of innovation. If it has served to enlighten before, then it is certainly worth repeating, and if the matter is not yet decided, I may yet add a new perspective, however slight and unassuming. In practice, I have yet to come across a question that has been answered thoroughly, so every contribution ought to be welcome.
And if it happens to be true, it belongs to everyone, not just to the fellow who was fortunate enough to stumble across it earliest. Once a man claims a sole possession of knowledge, and he wishes to deny its benefits to his fellows, I fear he is no longer dealing in science, but rather in lust.
I imagine that people assume I opted out of academic publishing because I wasn’t smart enough, and that may well be the case, yet my motive came from a point of conscience, a refusal to treat my friends as if they were enemies, my own thinking as an act of war against my colleague’s thinking.
No one has to be first, and the latecomer has just as much to offer. There is more than enough of the truth to go around, whether we contribute at the beginning or at the end, in shining lights or in dusty footnotes. Resentment and jealousy are the marks of a puny man.
Nature is full of instances where forces that would appear to be in violent opposition will resolve themselves into a delicate balance. I have yet to see plants thriving in the midst of fire, or snow resting next to lava, though I was delighted to see wildflowers growing from barrels of industrial waste, and a family of birds nested inside a neglected jet engine.
As it is with the inanimate, so it is with the animate, and as it is with the beast, so it is with the man. My tomcat has now become fast friends with the neighbor’s pit bull, and I need to stop thinking that my own efforts are somehow in conflict with the achievements of others. False dichotomies are among the greatest barriers we face in securing our peace of mind.
Like Lucilius, let my action be its own reward, with no worry over whether it is perceived as being original or derivative; different descriptions should rightly complement one another, not exclude one another. It did not concern Ovid that Vergil had already written about Aetna, and I should not be frightened of presenting a fresh account of a road formerly traveled.
Innovation is in service to the truth, instead of the truth being at the whims of innovation. If it has served to enlighten before, then it is certainly worth repeating, and if the matter is not yet decided, I may yet add a new perspective, however slight and unassuming. In practice, I have yet to come across a question that has been answered thoroughly, so every contribution ought to be welcome.
And if it happens to be true, it belongs to everyone, not just to the fellow who was fortunate enough to stumble across it earliest. Once a man claims a sole possession of knowledge, and he wishes to deny its benefits to his fellows, I fear he is no longer dealing in science, but rather in lust.
I imagine that people assume I opted out of academic publishing because I wasn’t smart enough, and that may well be the case, yet my motive came from a point of conscience, a refusal to treat my friends as if they were enemies, my own thinking as an act of war against my colleague’s thinking.
No one has to be first, and the latecomer has just as much to offer. There is more than enough of the truth to go around, whether we contribute at the beginning or at the end, in shining lights or in dusty footnotes. Resentment and jealousy are the marks of a puny man.
—Reflection written in 11/2013
No comments:
Post a Comment