http://preferredmode.com/tag/bike-style/page/39/ The average civilized person considers much that is human alien to him – precisely the opposite of Terence’s definition of being human. Once I was walking down a street in Manhattan with two (very smart) friends, and I started philosophizing about the pleasure of killing and eating one’s foes as a mode of revenge. I […]
Category Archives: Right Thinking
Jung on Self-Knowledge.
31-Aug-10Jung and Freud.
30-Aug-10Orekhovo-Zuyevo I have always had a poor New Yorker’s skepticism of “therapy” – shrinks and psychoanalysis. That sort of thing, goes the prejudice, is for Manhattanites; and it never cures them anyway. In fact, it is likely to make people more self-centered and self-justifying than ever. An acquaintance with Freud’s writings, and the atrocious way that […]
An Academic Gold Standard.
06-May-10From time to time in literature, direct references are made to money. It might be a sesterce or a half-a-crown, a dinar or a livre. Having a sense of the value of these foreign amounts has always been difficult. For this reason, old Greek and Latin textbooks would translate the amounts into modern dollar equivalents. […]
And gets a response. My general take on it: it’s about as useful and important as learning music. If you’re the kind of person who thinks we should just get rid of music, I think you’ll want to dump Latin too, and for the same reasons. One of the commenters asked, “I wonder how many […]
Temptation (Ctd.)
09-Feb-10On my mind as I consider avoidance. A second attempt, to clarify the thought: The essence of every temptation is that it contains within itself the evasion of a fact.
Dreams and Beasts.
01-Feb-10“Dreams and Beasts are two keys by which we are to find out the secrets of our own nature. All mystics use them. They are like comparative anatomy. They test objects; or we may say, that must be a good theory of the universe, that theory will bring a commanding claim to confidence, which explains […]
Humor and Proportion.
15-Jan-10I was speaking to a friend recently, in the presence of his wise wife, and the topic of conversation turned to the successes or failures of our high school education. We went to the same Jesuit school, and complaining about Jesuits is a traditional theme for learned conversation. My friend lambasted the education he received. […]
As you grow older you learn that a key dimension of all religious narrative is that these are stories which you will, by virtue of being human, almost certainly reenact in your own life. Andrew Sullivan, who has been leading one of the most impressively public Christian lives, describes in few and eloquent words his […]
Scientists Say Nature Makes You Better
04-Oct-09For the Feast of St. Francis. It’s nice to get scientific corroboration of what the mystics already know. http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2009/10/nature_and_compassion.php
The Deeper Meaning of Parenting.
07-May-10One of the questions that has most been with me the past two years is this: If I had a son or daughter, would I have anything to really teach them? Would I have gathered from my years on earth some kind of life-wisdom to pass on to them? Or would all my knowledge be […]