We discussed humor. There was speculation about the role of wry humor, the benefits of the proximity of laughter to our well being. I enjoy the presence of humorous individuals. I think that most do. My formative years were spent among people who in retrospect were humorless. They were moralists, that overweening focus upon…
The uncomfortable, suffocating heat and humidity have moved on. Today is bright with sunlight, and agreeably mild. “So it goes” with the weather and with life. It pays to pay attention to what is on the menu, to the “soup of the day” or to the Duck à l’Orange if it happens as the…
This graphic was featured in a Sunday edition of the New York Times. “Luck” – If you are lucky… Of course the entire point is the unknown of the future, your future and mine. Would you delight to have a long life, winning against the odds, what we mean by luck? I would. My…
Hedonism, pessimism, utilitarianism, eudamonianism: these are all ways of thinking that measure the value of things according to pleasure and pain, which is to say according to incidental states and trivialities. They are all foreground ways of thinking and naivetes, and nobody who is conscious of both formative powers and an artist’s conscience will…
We men of “historical sense,” we do have our virtues – this cannot be denied. We are unassuming, selfless, modest, brave, full of self-overcoming, full of dedication, very grateful, very patient, very accommodating: – but for all that we are, perhaps, not very “tasteful.” Finally, let us admit to ourselves: what we men of…
This parable was received in a weekly email from Rob Brezsny, Freewill Astrology Newsletter. The newsletter edition from Brezsny, a fine writer, is an analysis of desire, the morality of craving. I will say no more. Just enjoy the story! THE MYSTERY OF THIRST Imagine this scene. I’m really thirsty—so dehydrated that I’m feeling…
“And love?”–What! Even an action for love’s sake shall be “unegoistic”? But you fools–! “And the praise of the self- sacrificer?” –But whoever has really offered sacrifice knows that he wanted and obtained something for it –perhaps something from himself for something from himself; that he relinquished here in order to have more there,…
The practice of judging and condemning morally, is the favorite revenge of the intellectually shallow on those who are less so, it is also a kind of indemnity for their being badly endowed by nature, and finally, it is an opportunity for acquiring spirit and BECOMING subtle –malice spiritualizes. They are glad in their…
Morality as attitude -is opposed to our taste nowadays. This is ALSO an advance, as it was an advance in our fathers that religion as an attitude finally became opposed to their taste, including the enmity and Voltairean bitterness against religion (and all that formerly belonged to freethinker- pantomime). It is the music in…
You need to have been born for any higher world; to say it more clearly, you need to have been bred for it: only your descent, your ancestry can give you a right to philosophy – taking that word in its highest sense. Even here, “bloodline” is decisive. The preparatory labor of many generations…
