This day, a Tuesday is unsettled with respect to the weather. Also, in truth the unsettled condition is the normal state of things for homo sapiens, for everyone of us, no matter our class, our poverty or our affluence. Education and health or youth or professional success does not eliminate the fact that not one of us finds what we are looking for with respect to life. We keep looking.

I think the best life achievable is one where we are given permission, and reciprocally grant permission for a sharing of completed missions as well as that of the losses we suffer. Everything, the positives and the regrets, can be felt, touched, especially as we are reminded by listening to another’s account.

Today I sat in company with two friends, each in succession at Starbucks.

Stories were told. One about a current event that happened in a Chicago courtroom. We exchanged thoughts about the condition of the country. Our immediate area is a bubble of prosperity by comparison to most other places in America. What are those who “feel left behind” willing to do?

Another friend arrived. We mused about the work experience that retirement allows us to reflect upon. Neither of us planned in detail to enter the professions to which we dedicated years of our lives.  Our stories seemed to be accounts of events branching one to another, and somehow each of us found a niche. Mike served as a therapist for many years.  I on the other hand as if by serendipity founded a company which provided a living as well as a full spectrum of intellectual stimulation for many years.

Our lives are manifestly unpredictable. At the very best, we have the privilege of telling the tale of our open-ended odyssey.

What about a blog entry for today? I must do some writing.

Part Four of Beyond Good and Evil is subtitled Epigrams and Interludes.  Here are a few of the maxims that struck me as personally cutting:

69
You have been a poor observer of life if you have not also seen the hand
that, ever so gently – kills.

Teachers and counselors that insist upon guardrails, in order to nurture emotional health, or mastery of an area of knowledge are remembered with gratitude. Not unlike a wise gardener who prunes away disadvantageous branches… “Life” demands the kind hand that kills.

72
It is not the strength but the duration of high feelings that makes high
men.

It is one thing to feel rapture at times. Do we not all enjoy entertainment?  It is quite another to allow the scene, the sound, or the sensation soak in. Thus one considers the many meanings inscribed in what we just experienced. The duration of experience makes us mature.

78
Anyone who despises himself will still respect himself as a despiser.

Former President, and now Republican candidate Donald Trump immediately came to mind. It would be a mistake to discount this man.

79
A soul that knows it is loved but does not itself love exposes its sediment: –
its bottom-most aspect rises to the top.

It is difficult to learn how to love others. And if due to misfortune, one has flawed and imperfect role models in the past, – a lesson learned late, is most difficult. Still the exquisite art of loving is vital if the gunk at the bottom is to remain on the bottom.

80
An issue that has been resolved stops mattering to us. – What did that
god who counseled “Know yourself!” really mean? Was it perhaps: “Stop
letting anything matter to you! Become objective!” – And Socrates? – And
the “scientific man”? –

This is a welcome reminder of the famous saying at the entrance to the temple to Apollo at Delphi: ΓΝΩΘΙ ΣΑΥΤΟΝ (know thyself). Nietzsche has a wry observation that such advice is impossible to achieve. Anything that we know to a final detail no longer interests us, it no longer matters. Is this the kind of advice that a Socrates would follow? What about the ideal of scientific objectivity that has become in vogue? Consider if you will a knowledge that stifles our curiosity, strangles our sense of what-we-do-not-know…

The quotations are taken from Judith Butlers translation.