If
you hear anyone praised
these days for living “wisely” or “like a philosopher”
it basically just means
he is “clever
and
keeps out of the way.”

To the rabble,
wisdom seems like a kind of escape,
a device or trick for pulling yourself out of the game
when things get rough.

But the real philosopher
(and isn’t this how it seems to us, my friends?)
lives “unphilosophically,”
“unwisely,”
in a manner which
is above all not clever,
and feels
the weight and duty of a
hundred experiments and temptations
of life:
– he constantly puts him/herself at risk,

he/she plays the wicked game . . .

Beyond Good and Evil, by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by Judith Norman, aphorism 205

The post of yesterday was troubling.

Who is not disconcerted by the thought that there is no self. Only the rising and receding wash of my thoughts, a serialized personality! Following the suspicion that suddenly arises-it occurs that nothing else either, has an essential core, a substance that uniquely fixes it’s identity. Perception alone “realizes” (creates) the world within which I find myself. You mean this Starbucks room within which I spent the last hour reading, where I consumed almost two cups of coffee, and now tap away on this keyboard, as letters and words appear on a glowing screen – everything conjured by the mind which synthesizes the audio, the spectral effects, the aroma of beans into this coffee shop !?  Yes. Absolutely yes.

The assumption that “the real” is enduring, – is but a foreground, a useful and a temporary conclusion. The more responsible insight would be that EVERYTHING flows, nothing endures for long.

So, what gives? Are these ruminations nothing but a slight-of-hand tactic to slip away from the slings and arrows of life? Are we attempting to be clever?

Actually just the opposite. There is no point to “keeping out of the way.”

I remembered my friend Al Lykins this morning. When he was here Al reminded me of the Buddhist maxim that there is “no outside” to change. Aging, illness, and death are certainties. Change, transformation means the inevitability of separation from everyone and everything that I care about.

So what remains? Just my actions, – my style of being, a “taste” evident, conveyed by behavior marks the world, fashions a world, my actions are mine to claim.

A quiet inner voice says “that is enough.”

Is that you Al?