M.C. Escher, Day and Night (1938)
The Death of Marcus Aurelius
Friday, October 23, 2020
Seneca, Moral Letters 1.2
Therefore, Lucilius, do as you write me that you are doing: hold every hour in your grasp. Lay hold of today's task, and you will not need to depend so much upon tomorrow's. While we are postponing, life speeds by.
Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time. We were entrusted by nature with the ownership of this single thing, so fleeting and slippery that anyone who will can oust us from possession.
What fools these mortals be! They allow the cheapest and most useless things, which can easily be replaced, to be charged in the reckoning, after they have acquired them; but they never regard themselves as in debt when they have received some of that precious commodity—time! And yet time is the one loan which even a grateful recipient cannot repay.
The Stoic attitude of living well through what is within our power expresses itself wonderfully when it comes to managing time. How should I make use of what I have, and how much of it is actually mine? Be fully human at every moment, because only that very moment is in any way assured.
What is past no longer exists for me. I may recall the impression of it in my memory, but in and of itself it is no more. It can no longer be lived, and so it will do me no good to dwell upon it.
What is future does not yet exist for me. I may consider it in my expectation, but in and of itself it is only a possibility. Here I face an immediate reality before me, and I hide away in the prospect of what might be.
Only what is now exists for me. It may not be what I prefer, and there is no guarantee on its duration, but it never fails to offer me an opportunity to act with dignity and character. There has never been a moment where I cannot choose to be just and compassionate.
I can’t help but feel rather ashamed at how great a value I give to trivialities, to false imaginings, to things that bring no benefit to my soul.
Here I might think that I can pay a price for my happiness, and yet my time, the one thing that is truly mine to make of as I choose, is a gift of Nature, completely incapable of being bought and sold.
Let me consider all the things I try desperately to save, and then compare them to all the things I treat so wastefully. I will find that I have my wires crossed. I fuss over accumulating money that I hope to spend later, a fine reputation for things completed long ago, and the promise of favors to cover for future contingencies.
Through it all, that one thing I should be holding on to for dear life, the most priceless commodity I possess, slips away for me. I am far too often forgetting to live in the now, with purity and simplicity.
Written in 5/2000
Thursday, October 22, 2020
Fractals 1
Now I can't express it with the precision of a mathematician, or with the eloquence of a poet, but I have long been fascinated by fractals, especially those to be found in the natural world.
How glorious, to find the same patterns repeating over and over, at different scales and with ever-increasing complexity, capable of being expressed to infinity.
I suspect it helps to explain my love of Escher, and his use of graded tessellations.
A physicist I know tells me that they are reflections of chaos, and yet I see a profoundly beautiful order within them. Perhaps we are talking past one another?
The Stoic in me finds them to also be instances of how all things, parts and wholes, from the smallest to the largest, are joined together as one, no one piece really separable from any other.
I once listened to an astronomer and a biologist excitedly discussing the possibility that the network of neurons in the human brain and the network of galaxies in the Universe are remarkably similar. They turned to me and shouted out, "Wouldn't it be amazing if that's actually true?"
I couldn't help but say that it wouldn't surprise me at all, and that I would personally speak of such patterns as the immanent presence of God. We may describe it differently, but we are seeing the same thing.
12/2015
The Art of Peace 61
Functioning harmoniously together, right and left give birth to all techniques.
The left hand takes hold of life and death; the right hand controls it.
The four limbs of the body are the four pillars of heaven, and manifest the eight directions, yin and yang, inner and outer.
Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy 5.13
“What cause of discord is it breaks the bonds of agreement here?
What heavenly power has set such strife between two truths?
Thus, though apart each brings no doubt,
yet can they not be linked together.
Comes there no discord between these truths?
Stand they forever sure by one another?
Yes, 'tis the mind, overwhelmed by the body's blindness,
which cannot see by the light of that dimmed brightness
the finest threads that bind the truth.
But wherefore burns the spirit with so strong desire
to learn the hidden signs of truth?
Knows it the very object of its careful search?
Then why seeks it to learn anew what it already knows?
If it knows it not, why searches it in blindness?
For who would desire aught unwitting?
Or who could seek after that which is unknown?
How should he find it,
or recognize its form when found,
if he knows it not?
And when the mind of man perceived the mind of God,
did it then know the whole and parts alike?
Now is the mind buried in the cloudy darkness of the body,
yet has not altogether forgotten its own self,
and keeps the whole though it has lost the parts.
Whosoever, therefore, seeks the truth, is not wholly in ignorance,
nor yet has knowledge wholly; for he knows not all,
yet is not ignorant of all.
He takes thought for the whole which he keeps in memory,
handling again what he saw on high,
so that he may add to that which he has kept,
that which he has forgotten.”
—from Book 5, Poem 3
Time and time again, I find myself confronting the danger of false dichotomies, where it is assumed that statements must be in contradiction to one another, when they are, in fact, quite compatible, if only they are rightly understood. We too readily limit our options, immediately seeing disagreement where there should be harmony.
This happens quite often, in my experience, when we do not clearly grasp the meaning of the terms we are using, or when our definitions become too narrow, failing to see the different senses in which we can speak of the truth of a proposition. I also wonder if we sometimes just prefer the thrill that comes from completely unnecessary conflict, the weakness of wishing to divide what is made to be one.
I am prone to missing the whole of something, because I am distracted by only one particular part, and my awareness is narrowed when I allow myself to be caught up in a specifically tantalizing impression. I scratch at the surface, picking away here and there, and I don’t bother to dig deeper, down to the roots. My baser instincts cloud my understanding, as if my eyes had grown atrophied from mucking about for too long in the dark.
Boethius here refers of Plato’s doctrine of Recollection, the idea that learning something new is actually remembering something we have forgotten. All the specifics of the argument, and all the different ways in which it can be interpreted, are a lengthy discussion for another time, but I suggest that the point here is to consider how coming to genuinely know the truth requires uncovering principles that are, in some sense, already present within our minds.
We seek out our own nature, within the order of a greater Nature guided by Providence, and we find that we are only rediscovering ourselves and our place in the world, becoming reacquainted with what we have neglected to nurture.
I may have overlooked who I am in the grand scheme of things, on account of all the petty baggage that weighs me down, and all the clutter I have accumulated in my head, but now it’s time to lift myself up and dust off the cobwebs.
When it comes to approaching the problem of Providence and free will, I do not need to place obstacles in my own path. Seen from a higher perspective, Creator and creature are never at odds.
What heavenly power has set such strife between two truths?
Thus, though apart each brings no doubt,
yet can they not be linked together.
Comes there no discord between these truths?
Stand they forever sure by one another?
Yes, 'tis the mind, overwhelmed by the body's blindness,
which cannot see by the light of that dimmed brightness
the finest threads that bind the truth.
But wherefore burns the spirit with so strong desire
to learn the hidden signs of truth?
Knows it the very object of its careful search?
Then why seeks it to learn anew what it already knows?
If it knows it not, why searches it in blindness?
For who would desire aught unwitting?
Or who could seek after that which is unknown?
How should he find it,
or recognize its form when found,
if he knows it not?
And when the mind of man perceived the mind of God,
did it then know the whole and parts alike?
Now is the mind buried in the cloudy darkness of the body,
yet has not altogether forgotten its own self,
and keeps the whole though it has lost the parts.
Whosoever, therefore, seeks the truth, is not wholly in ignorance,
nor yet has knowledge wholly; for he knows not all,
yet is not ignorant of all.
He takes thought for the whole which he keeps in memory,
handling again what he saw on high,
so that he may add to that which he has kept,
that which he has forgotten.”
—from Book 5, Poem 3
Time and time again, I find myself confronting the danger of false dichotomies, where it is assumed that statements must be in contradiction to one another, when they are, in fact, quite compatible, if only they are rightly understood. We too readily limit our options, immediately seeing disagreement where there should be harmony.
This happens quite often, in my experience, when we do not clearly grasp the meaning of the terms we are using, or when our definitions become too narrow, failing to see the different senses in which we can speak of the truth of a proposition. I also wonder if we sometimes just prefer the thrill that comes from completely unnecessary conflict, the weakness of wishing to divide what is made to be one.
I am prone to missing the whole of something, because I am distracted by only one particular part, and my awareness is narrowed when I allow myself to be caught up in a specifically tantalizing impression. I scratch at the surface, picking away here and there, and I don’t bother to dig deeper, down to the roots. My baser instincts cloud my understanding, as if my eyes had grown atrophied from mucking about for too long in the dark.
Boethius here refers of Plato’s doctrine of Recollection, the idea that learning something new is actually remembering something we have forgotten. All the specifics of the argument, and all the different ways in which it can be interpreted, are a lengthy discussion for another time, but I suggest that the point here is to consider how coming to genuinely know the truth requires uncovering principles that are, in some sense, already present within our minds.
We seek out our own nature, within the order of a greater Nature guided by Providence, and we find that we are only rediscovering ourselves and our place in the world, becoming reacquainted with what we have neglected to nurture.
I may have overlooked who I am in the grand scheme of things, on account of all the petty baggage that weighs me down, and all the clutter I have accumulated in my head, but now it’s time to lift myself up and dust off the cobwebs.
When it comes to approaching the problem of Providence and free will, I do not need to place obstacles in my own path. Seen from a higher perspective, Creator and creature are never at odds.
Written in 1/2016
Wednesday, October 21, 2020
Eternity
"Eternity"
William Blake (1757-1827)
He who bends to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise.
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sunrise.
IMAGE: William Blake, Albion Rose (1793)
Fragments of Parmenides 16
How, then, can what is be going to be in the future?
Or how could it come into being?
If it came into being, it is not; nor is it if it is going to be in the future.
Thus is becoming extinguished and passing away not to be heard of.
Seneca, Moral Letters 1.1
Letter 1: On saving time
Greetings from Seneca to his friend Lucilius.
Continue to act thus, my dear Lucilius—set yourself free for your own sake; gather and save your time, which till lately has been forced from you, or filched away, or has merely slipped from your hands.
Make yourself believe the truth of my words—that certain moments are torn from us, that some are gently removed, and that others glide beyond our reach. The most disgraceful kind of loss, however, is that due to carelessness.
Furthermore, if you will pay close heed to the problem, you will find that the largest portion of our life passes while we are doing ill, a goodly share while we are doing nothing, and the whole while we are doing that which is not to the purpose.
What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily? For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years lie behind us are in death's hands.
We have so many clever and pithy sayings about time, how it is like a river, how it heals all wounds, how it waits for no man, that I am always wary of trying to speak about it. For some reason I have a distinct childhood memory of my grandmother watching a soap opera that opened with a melodramatic phrase: “Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.” I desperately wish to avoid sounding like that.
I also find myself quite frustrated when people smugly remind me not to waste my time, not because time isn’t precious, but because of what they want me to be doing with it. “Time is money!” they say, and I can think of no greater waste of the moments I have left to me than acquiring more shiny trinkets.
We may understand that our time is limited, that it is gone before we know it, and that we shouldn’t squander what little is given to us, but such insights will be useless without a more fundamental sense of human purpose. How should I be spending my time? If I think that living well is found in fortune instead of merit, gratification instead of love, consumption instead of virtue, then I have indeed truly wasted my time.
I have no real say in how much time is ultimately given to me, and quite often circumstances will snatch away what little is available, a minute here, an hour there, and suddenly it seems like years and years have been lost. Fortune has a sneaky way of doing that, and the only real response can be patience and acceptance.
Yet what I can control is what I will do with the time that remains my own, and I’m afraid I can only cringe at how much of my life I have thrown away for the sake of vanities. I can’t blame other people, and I can’t curse fate, because all of that foolish busywork, that obsession with diversions, came straight from my own judgments.
The grappling for attention. The chasing after empty pleasures. The rush to hoard more and more gold. Racing about, always occupied with tasks that only circle back on themselves. Appearing impressive and posing for the camera. Bickering and squabbling with both my friends and my enemies, no longer capable of distinguishing between them. Filling the emptiness in my heart and mind with clutter.
If I am honest with myself, I will notice that, on any given day, almost all of my efforts were directed at completely pointless exercises. There was one thing, and one thing only, I should have made my priority: the exercise of my character. I am most fully human when I can be thoughtful and caring, so that should be the primary occupation of my day. As they say, “You had just one job!”
Greetings from Seneca to his friend Lucilius.
Continue to act thus, my dear Lucilius—set yourself free for your own sake; gather and save your time, which till lately has been forced from you, or filched away, or has merely slipped from your hands.
Make yourself believe the truth of my words—that certain moments are torn from us, that some are gently removed, and that others glide beyond our reach. The most disgraceful kind of loss, however, is that due to carelessness.
Furthermore, if you will pay close heed to the problem, you will find that the largest portion of our life passes while we are doing ill, a goodly share while we are doing nothing, and the whole while we are doing that which is not to the purpose.
What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily? For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years lie behind us are in death's hands.
We have so many clever and pithy sayings about time, how it is like a river, how it heals all wounds, how it waits for no man, that I am always wary of trying to speak about it. For some reason I have a distinct childhood memory of my grandmother watching a soap opera that opened with a melodramatic phrase: “Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.” I desperately wish to avoid sounding like that.
I also find myself quite frustrated when people smugly remind me not to waste my time, not because time isn’t precious, but because of what they want me to be doing with it. “Time is money!” they say, and I can think of no greater waste of the moments I have left to me than acquiring more shiny trinkets.
We may understand that our time is limited, that it is gone before we know it, and that we shouldn’t squander what little is given to us, but such insights will be useless without a more fundamental sense of human purpose. How should I be spending my time? If I think that living well is found in fortune instead of merit, gratification instead of love, consumption instead of virtue, then I have indeed truly wasted my time.
I have no real say in how much time is ultimately given to me, and quite often circumstances will snatch away what little is available, a minute here, an hour there, and suddenly it seems like years and years have been lost. Fortune has a sneaky way of doing that, and the only real response can be patience and acceptance.
Yet what I can control is what I will do with the time that remains my own, and I’m afraid I can only cringe at how much of my life I have thrown away for the sake of vanities. I can’t blame other people, and I can’t curse fate, because all of that foolish busywork, that obsession with diversions, came straight from my own judgments.
The grappling for attention. The chasing after empty pleasures. The rush to hoard more and more gold. Racing about, always occupied with tasks that only circle back on themselves. Appearing impressive and posing for the camera. Bickering and squabbling with both my friends and my enemies, no longer capable of distinguishing between them. Filling the emptiness in my heart and mind with clutter.
If I am honest with myself, I will notice that, on any given day, almost all of my efforts were directed at completely pointless exercises. There was one thing, and one thing only, I should have made my priority: the exercise of my character. I am most fully human when I can be thoughtful and caring, so that should be the primary occupation of my day. As they say, “You had just one job!”
A fundamental change in my soul will be necessary to appreciate the value of time, to find joy in any moment, to see others as an opportunity to practice love, not as a means to win me any profit. Dying somewhere down the line isn’t the problem; throwing away the gift I have right now is the problem.
Written in 5/2000
Tuesday, October 20, 2020
The Old Stoic
Emily Brontë (1818-1848)
Riches I hold in light esteem,
And Love I laugh to scorn;
And lust of fame was but a dream
That vanished with the morn:
And if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me
Is, “Leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty!”
Yes, as my swift days near their goal,
‘Tis all that I implore;
In life and death, a chainless soul,
With courage to endure.
Sayings of Heraclitus 35
Men that love wisdom must be acquainted with very many things indeed.
IMAGE: Hendrick Bloemaert, Heraclitus (c. 1650)
Musonius Rufus, Lectures 17.7
But if anyone thinks that wealth is the greatest consolation of old age, and that to acquire it is to live without sorrow, he is quite mistaken; wealth is able to procure for man the pleasures of eating, and drinking, and other sensual pleasures, but it can never afford cheerfulness of spirit nor freedom from sorrow in one who possesses it.
Witnesses to this truth are many rich men who are full of sadness and despair and think themselves wretched—evidence enough that wealth is not a good protection for old age.
In response to anything Musonius might have to say, the common attitude will look on with a blank stare; it was surely that way at his time, just as much as it is now.
Do I not have rather clear obligations for my old age, that I establish myself, that I accumulate wealth, that I provide the means for my future security and comfort? I have been told this for as long as I can remember, I have seen others doing it all around me, and it’s already enough of a chore to keep up with those demands. What else could really matter?
What else, indeed? When considering what actually matters, I need to stop keeping philosophy at arm’s length, as merely an amusing diversion from the task of living. Where there is no immediate reflection on my very human purpose, I will be acting blindly. What is it that I truly require, and can fame and fortune offer any of that for me?
I often find that I can give no reasonable account of myself at all. I focus in on gaining the worldly riches, and I then assume that contentment will somehow follow. I also easily forget that money in and of itself provides nothing at all, being useful only as a means for something else.
What is it good for? I can buy all sorts of conveniences and luxuries, and perhaps they will make my life more gratifying, but their presence will not make me any better as a person, and so they will not make me any happier as a person.
In fact, I could end up using them poorly just as readily as using them well, which should tell me that fortune doesn’t make the man, but that the man can make something of any fortune. It is what is within my soul, the content of my character, that will decide the difference.
When I have actually worked to be understanding and loving, with a real dedication instead of just going through the motions, I have never found myself burdened by any need. Yet when I have enslaved myself to a desire for possessions, always itchy and anxious, I will still find myself in a state of constant want.
It was true when I still had a spring in my step, and it will be just as true if I turn out to be old and gray.
Written in 4/2000
IMAGE: Hieronymus Bosch, Death and the Miser (c. 1490)
Monday, October 19, 2020
Mortality
"Mortality"
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik (1826-1887)
"And we shall be changed."
Ye dainty mosses, lichens grey,
Pressed each to each in tender fold,
And peacefully thus, day by day,
Returning to their mould;
Brown leaves, that with aerial grace
Slip from your branch like birds a-wing,
Each leaving in the appointed place
Its bud of future spring;—
If we, God's conscious creatures, knew
But half your faith in our decay,
We should not tremble as we do
When summoned clay to clay.
But with an equal patience sweet
We should put off this mortal gear,
In whatsoe'er new form is meet
Content to reappear.
Knowing each germ of life He gives
Must have in Him its source and rise,
Being that of His being lives
May change, but never dies.
Ye dead leaves, dropping soft and slow,
Ye mosses green and lichens fair,
Go to your graves, as I will go,
For God is also there.
Tidbits from Montaigne 17
Since I would rather make of him an able man than a learned man, I would also urge that care be taken to choose a guide with a well-made rather than a well-filled head.
—Michel de Montaigne, Essays 1.26
Musonius Rufus, Lectures 17.6
The best life, you will agree, is that of a good man, and yet the end even of such a man is death.
Therefore, as I said before, if one in old age should succeed in mastering this lesson, to wait for death without fear and courageously, he would have acquired no small part of how to live without complaint and in accordance with Nature. He would acquire this by associating with men who were philosophers not in name only but in truth, if he were willing to follow their teachings.
So it is that I tell you that the best viaticum for old age is the one I mentioned in the beginning, to live according to Nature, doing and thinking what one ought. For so an old man would himself be most cheerful and would win the praise of others, and being thus, he would live happily and in honor.
Why should I insist on having more of something that can already be complete in its excellence at any one given moment?
Why am I demanding to be in a constant state of ever greater becoming, when nothing can be ultimately transformed except by means of an ending?
Am I really telling myself that seeking more and more consumption will satisfy me, even as I know full well that true contentment would leave nothing else to be desired?
If I am already happy to live according to Nature, death can never take anything away from me, and so I will have no reason to fear it. Growing weaker in my body, or being parted from my friends, or slowly becoming forgotten only sound terrifying when I am still expecting something “better” to come along. Being dissatisfied with who I am now can only reflect on my own failure to have lived and appreciated what is now.
Truly wise people will be truly good people, and truly good people will be truly joyful people. The limitations of merely bookish learning or narrow professional achievements become rather apparent when I find myself no better as a man, and so also no happier as a man. Wisdom should yield abundant fruit, not leave only more grasping or resentment.
People will offer all sorts of specialized cures for all sorts of specific ailments, and most of them will require the payment of money or obedience to receive their supposed benefits. In my own lifetime, I have seen many lose their financial savings for the sake of medical treatments, and I have also seen many lose their freedom and dignity for the sake of ideological belonging.
Let us prefer what we will, but there is really only one cure for anything that brings us grief and pain in this life. Our human nature, in harmony with Providence and the whole of Nature, provides all that is necessary. Revere what is true and love what is good, so that nothing, not even old age or death, will stand as an obstacle.
Written in 4/2000
Sunday, October 18, 2020
Content and Rich
"Content and Rich"
Richard Southwell (1561-1595)
I dwell in Grace's court,
Enriched with Virtue's rights;
Faith guides my wit, Love leads my will,
Hope all my mind delights.
In lowly vales I mount
To pleasure's highest pitch;
My silly shroud true honour brings;
My poor estate is rich.
My conscience is my crown,
Contented thoughts my rest;
My heart is happy in itself;
My bliss is in my breast.
Enough, I reckon wealth;
That mean, the surest lot,
That lies too high for base contempt,
Too low for envy's shot.
My wishes are but few
All easy to fulfil;
I make the limits of my power
The bounds unto my will.
I fear no care for gold;
Well-doing is my wealth;
My mind to me an empire is,
While grace affordeth health.
I clip high-climbing thoughts,
The wings of swelling pride;
Their fall is worst that from the heigh
Of greatest honour slide.
Since sails of largest size
The storm doth soonest tear;
I bear so low and small a sail
As freeth me from fear.
I wrestle not with rage,
While fury's flame doth burn;
It is in vain to stop the stream
Until the tide doth turn.
But when the flame is out,
And ebbing wrath doth end,
I turn a late enraged foe
Into a quiet friend.
And, taught with often proof,
A temper'd calm I find
To be most solace to itself,
Best cure for angry mind.
Spare diet is my fare,
My clothes more fit than fine;
I know I feed and clothe a foe,
That pamper'd would repine.
I envy not their hap
Whom favour doth advance;
I take no pleasure in their pain
That have less happy chance.
To rise by others' fall
I deem a losing gain;
All states with others' ruin built,
To ruin run amain.
No change of fortune's calm
Can cast my comforts down;
When fortune smiles, I smile to think
How quickly she will frown.
And when, in froward mood,
She prov'd an angry foe;
Small gain I found to let her come, -
Less loss to let her go.
Enriched with Virtue's rights;
Faith guides my wit, Love leads my will,
Hope all my mind delights.
In lowly vales I mount
To pleasure's highest pitch;
My silly shroud true honour brings;
My poor estate is rich.
My conscience is my crown,
Contented thoughts my rest;
My heart is happy in itself;
My bliss is in my breast.
Enough, I reckon wealth;
That mean, the surest lot,
That lies too high for base contempt,
Too low for envy's shot.
My wishes are but few
All easy to fulfil;
I make the limits of my power
The bounds unto my will.
I fear no care for gold;
Well-doing is my wealth;
My mind to me an empire is,
While grace affordeth health.
I clip high-climbing thoughts,
The wings of swelling pride;
Their fall is worst that from the heigh
Of greatest honour slide.
Since sails of largest size
The storm doth soonest tear;
I bear so low and small a sail
As freeth me from fear.
I wrestle not with rage,
While fury's flame doth burn;
It is in vain to stop the stream
Until the tide doth turn.
But when the flame is out,
And ebbing wrath doth end,
I turn a late enraged foe
Into a quiet friend.
And, taught with often proof,
A temper'd calm I find
To be most solace to itself,
Best cure for angry mind.
Spare diet is my fare,
My clothes more fit than fine;
I know I feed and clothe a foe,
That pamper'd would repine.
I envy not their hap
Whom favour doth advance;
I take no pleasure in their pain
That have less happy chance.
To rise by others' fall
I deem a losing gain;
All states with others' ruin built,
To ruin run amain.
No change of fortune's calm
Can cast my comforts down;
When fortune smiles, I smile to think
How quickly she will frown.
And when, in froward mood,
She prov'd an angry foe;
Small gain I found to let her come, -
Less loss to let her go.
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