Monday Morning Hero
Its Monday morning. The day after the Super Bowl, and feeling blue. There is good-natured banter between staff here at Starbucks. Awareness of the chatter, and the David Bowie lyric in the background, “We can be Hero’s for just one day…” is pulling my spirit toward the bright side. Certainly my funk is the outcome of aging. Is there a point any more? After all how many Super Bowls has it been now? I can hardly abide one more edgy, hip commercial. Just tell me about your damn product. Don’t attempt to seduce me with CGI visuals. The half time show left my mind spinning. With the game half over I gave up and walked out of the room. Enough.
Change is the rule so these blues will dissipate into a better frame of mind.
Two worthy philosophical nuggets were forwarded by Gary and Nancy on Sunday morning.
“Above all, do not lie to yourself.
A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to
a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself
or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect.— Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Although her disobedience is tragic, Eve’s innocence is not all bad. Certainly, that innocence leads her to make a poor choice – the very worst – but the fact that she makes a choice at all, the fact that she engages the Devil in a debate which could go either way, the fact that she acts without God breathing down her neck – all speak for her free will or, what amounts to the same thing, her margin for error. It is from this margin for error that freedom springs, because you can’t be free to be right unless you can be free to be wrong.”
― Robert Rowland Smith, Breakfast with Socrates: An Extraordinary (Philosophical) Journey Through Your Ordinary Day
Philosophy can be like an arrow aimed and loosed by a skilled archer. I like both of these. Dostoevsky knew well that self deception is a descent into a dark pit of fabulation, dysfunction, self loathing. We see a terrifying example of this on a daily basis.
The second saying harkens to the creation story in Genesis. To be human is to exist on the edge, to live with risk, exposure to the real consequence of choice. Freedom is a terrible destiny. Why in the name of heaven, do we seem to double down when we are wrong?
