Ignorance cannot lead to evil, misconceptions lead to evil. It’s not what people do know, it’s what they pretend that they do.
~ Jean Jacques Rousseau
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Misconceptions →
Criticism →
Ours is the age of criticism. Religion and law try to escape from criticism, religion by saying that it is divine and law by showing that it is powerful. But some suspicions arise from this escape, because we can respect only those things which stand up in free and public trial.
~ Immanuel Kant
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Ruh-roh… that’s me →
The ways in which we are all susceptible to drowning ourselves into drama, and what it takes to float free, is what Iris Murdoch (July 15, 1919–February 8, 1999) explores in her subtle, splendid 1978 novel The Sea, the Sea — the story of a talented but complacent playwright approaching the overlook of life, who is ultimately overcome by his tragic flaw: Despite his obsessive self-reflection (or perhaps precisely because of it), his egotism ultimately eclipses his creative spirit — that brightest and most generous part of us, the part rightly called our gift, the part that extends the outstretched hand of sympathy and wonder we call art and invites, in Iris Murdoch’s lovely phrase, “an occasion for unselfing.”
~ Maria Popova from Iris Murdoch on the Myth of Closure and the Beautiful, Maddening Blind Spots of Our Self-Knowledge
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I’m not a playwright—but the rest of that character seems too like me. “Drowning ourselves in drama…” “…obsessive self-reflection…” “…egotism ultimately eclipses his creative spirit…” Methinks The Sea The Sea would be a good cautionary tale for me to consume forthwith.
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January 08, 2023 — #14 →
Reading time: About 6 minutes, 1200 words
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This issue is https://7forsunday.com/14
Choose today →
In recent years I’ve been choosing a touch phrase. The phrases are reminders, intended to cue up a larger train of thought.
For 2023 the phrase is “Choose today”. It is inspired by two different quotes, both having withstood the test of time:
Stick to what’s in front of you—idea, action, utterance. This is what you deserve. You could be good today. But instead you choose tomorrow.
~ Marcus Aurelius
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…and one of my daily reflection prompts from Epictetus:
So is it possible to be altogether faultless? No, that is impractical; but it is possible to strive continuously not to commit faults. For we shall have cause to be satisfied if, by never relaxing our attention, we shall escape at least a few faults. But as it is, when you say, “I will begin to pay attention tomorrow,” you should know that what you are really saying is this: “I will be shameless, inopportune, abject today; it will be in the power of others to cause me distress; I will get angry, I will be envious today.” See how many evils you are permitting yourself. But if it is well for you to pay attention tomorrow, how much better would it be today? If it is to your advantage tomorrow, it is much more so today, so that you may be able to do the same again tomorrow, and not put it off once more, to the day after tomorrow.
~ Epictetus, 4.12.19-21
Indeed. If it is to my advantage tomorrow, it is much more so today.
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Darkness must fall →
For it’s always that way with the sacred value of life. We forget it as long as it belongs to us, and give it as little attention during the unconcerned hours of our life as we do the stars in the light of day. Darkness must fall before we are aware of the majesty of the stars above our heads.
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A space ship →
Congratulations on the new library, because it isn’t just a library. It is a space ship that will take you to the farthest reaches of the Universe, a time machine that will take you to the far past and the far future, a teacher that knows more than any human being, a friend that will amuse you and console you—and most of all, a gateway, to a better and happier and more useful life.
~ Isaac Asimov, from Isaac Asimov On How Libraries Can Change Your Life
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This tiny little post, which is written around Asimov’s short note quoted above, launched me in off in multiple directions. A library. Asimov. A type–written note. Even Asimov still made typing mistakes—how fast must he have been able to type after all those years of writing? What type writer did he use? Every now and then I feel like getting a type writer—but I spin off into looking at typefaces, and what the heck would I actually do with a type writer? OMG no I’m not going to start type writing the slips in the slipbox. (Because that’d be insane, and because hand writing the slips is part of the point since it reinforces learning. I don’t think typing would do that.) And I keep thinking I never got around to building the library/reading space that as a kid I’d always dreamed of. So many ideas. So little time.
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Restraint →
Because that’s all that could restrain us (if anything could)—the only thing that could make us want to stay here: The chance to live with those who share our vision. But now? Look how tiring it is—this cacophony we live in. Enough to make you say to death, “Come quickly. Before I start to forget myself, like them.”
~ Marcus Aurelius, 9.3
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Gone →
This practice is one form of what Shinzen Young would call “Noting Gone.” (He uses gone as a noun here, a certain kind of sensation, rather than an adjective.) What you’re noting is the moment where a thing goes from being here in your awareness to being gone from it, and the feeling of that moment. It doesn’t matter what the thing is –- a fish, an LED light, a musical note, a shape formed by drooping power lines. It also doesn’t matter how it vanishes — by slipping beneath the surface, by turning off, by going silent, by exiting your field of vision. In all cases the this gone quality has the same feel. It is the unmistakable, mildly surreal sensation of a thing having vanished.
~ David Cain, from The Vanishing Point
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This piece is a real splinter in my mind. I feel certain I’ve seen the “noting gone” concept before… but I can’t definitely find it. Perhaps I’m recalling that I read this very article, 6 months ago, AND marked it for reading later. So now I’m actually reading it a second time . . . It is definitely an unmistakable, mildly surreal sensation of a thing having vanished.
Also, in my quest to dig out the splinter, I searched for “gone” and got an interesting in itself set of posts.
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