In the time of your life, live – so that in that good time, there shall be no ugliness or death for yourself or for any life that your life touches.
Seek goodness everywhere and, when it is found, bring it out of its hiding-place and let it be free and unashamed.
Discover in all things that which shines and is beyond corruption.
Encourage virtue in every heart where it may have been driven into secrecy and sorrow by the shame and terror of the world.
Ignore the unimportant, for it is unworthy of the clear eye and the rational mind.
Be not the inferior of any man, nor aspire to superiority over men. Remember that every man is a variation on the same theme, but let no man’s guilt be yours, nor allow yourself claim to another man’s innocence.
Despise evil and wickedness, and fight it by the power of your own virtue – with every fiber of your being. For the men who turn to evil will prey upon your understanding, your generosity, and your love of life.
Have no shame in being gentle, but if the time comes in the time of your life to kill, kill. And have no regret.
In the time of your life, live – so that in that wondrous time, you shall not add to the sorrow and misery of the world, but experience the infinite delight of achieving the happiness possible only to you while in it.
-- William Saroyan (1939) / revised by Eros (2005)
Monday, January 15, 2007
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Every story has a beginning
...but does every story have an end? The continuing saga of the human race might seem to suggest that an ending is not only unnecessary, but nigh impossible. As I gaze back through time, into the annals of scientific discovery, upon the lives and work of the numerous intrepid individuals whose commitment to reason, truth and reality have paved the way for civilization as we know it and as it might be someday, I am not humbled by their achievements or their genius, I am inspired.
Men like Aristotle, who identified the fact that A is A, that identity is a metaphysical necessity, and that a thing does what it does because it is what it is, who then applied this principle to human consciousness and developed Logic, the method of proper human thought, which is the ability to identify facts and develop ideas which correspond to, and assist in maintaining a proper relationship with, reality (i.e. truth).
Men like Archimedes, who integrated the above mentioned principles into his own modus operandi, who believed that the world is not only intelligible, but that the highest possible to man is to understand nature and make use of it for the betterment of one's existence. Archimedes was a man of such strict and purposeful rationality, that he was able to independently develop analytic geometry and discover the formula (among others) for the area of a circle, inductively. He is the ultimate example of man as a being far beyond the reaches of jungle law and savage animality: when Rome laid siege to Syracuse, he used his mind and inventions to defend his city, and held off the far more numerous Roman army for 18 months, single-handedly. Proving that brute strength has no place in determining the future of the rational being.
Men like Galileo, who developed the first astronomical telescope, and refused to betray the evidence of his senses. Being able to observe so much evidence of the truth about our solar system only strengthened his intellectual conviction, his devotion to truth and reality, and his moral integrity - a profoundly selfish character, he refused to subordinate the judgment of his own mind, even under threat of death by the Inquisition of the Catholic Church.
Men like Isaac Newton, who proved that induction is not only a valid process of acquiring knowledge, but also a necessary one. He was not afraid of reality, of formulating universal, all-encompassing principles which would apply equally to all things and all men. He showed that there is nothing in existence above or below the laws of nature, whether an apple, a shipping clerk, the planet jupiter, or an immaterial concept created and clung to by men out of a desperate longing for that seemingly unattainable spirit - the highest - which they have either given up or could never find in themselves.
Archimedes knew that spirit. So did the other men on this list, and they all practiced it. There have been others throughout the centuries, too many name here, and yet so few that the shame and guilt one sees in the faces moving down the sidewalks of any city in this country is palpable, undeniable, and sad. Those who have betrayed the greatness possible to man, and only man, know it somewhere in their souls, and show it somewhere on their face.
So this is the beginning of a story, the end of a mythos, and the continuation of a saga.
Someone asked me once, "If you could be anyone in all of history, who would you be?"
"Me."
"You? Come on, you can be anyone."
"Me. No question. I have an advantage no other great man in history ever had."
"What's that?"
"I don't have to spend time doing the great things he already did. I can push the envelope farther than ever. I can reach heights possible only because those men came before, and here I am now."
Men like Aristotle, who identified the fact that A is A, that identity is a metaphysical necessity, and that a thing does what it does because it is what it is, who then applied this principle to human consciousness and developed Logic, the method of proper human thought, which is the ability to identify facts and develop ideas which correspond to, and assist in maintaining a proper relationship with, reality (i.e. truth).
Men like Archimedes, who integrated the above mentioned principles into his own modus operandi, who believed that the world is not only intelligible, but that the highest possible to man is to understand nature and make use of it for the betterment of one's existence. Archimedes was a man of such strict and purposeful rationality, that he was able to independently develop analytic geometry and discover the formula (among others) for the area of a circle, inductively. He is the ultimate example of man as a being far beyond the reaches of jungle law and savage animality: when Rome laid siege to Syracuse, he used his mind and inventions to defend his city, and held off the far more numerous Roman army for 18 months, single-handedly. Proving that brute strength has no place in determining the future of the rational being.
Men like Galileo, who developed the first astronomical telescope, and refused to betray the evidence of his senses. Being able to observe so much evidence of the truth about our solar system only strengthened his intellectual conviction, his devotion to truth and reality, and his moral integrity - a profoundly selfish character, he refused to subordinate the judgment of his own mind, even under threat of death by the Inquisition of the Catholic Church.
Men like Isaac Newton, who proved that induction is not only a valid process of acquiring knowledge, but also a necessary one. He was not afraid of reality, of formulating universal, all-encompassing principles which would apply equally to all things and all men. He showed that there is nothing in existence above or below the laws of nature, whether an apple, a shipping clerk, the planet jupiter, or an immaterial concept created and clung to by men out of a desperate longing for that seemingly unattainable spirit - the highest - which they have either given up or could never find in themselves.
Archimedes knew that spirit. So did the other men on this list, and they all practiced it. There have been others throughout the centuries, too many name here, and yet so few that the shame and guilt one sees in the faces moving down the sidewalks of any city in this country is palpable, undeniable, and sad. Those who have betrayed the greatness possible to man, and only man, know it somewhere in their souls, and show it somewhere on their face.
So this is the beginning of a story, the end of a mythos, and the continuation of a saga.
Someone asked me once, "If you could be anyone in all of history, who would you be?"
"Me."
"You? Come on, you can be anyone."
"Me. No question. I have an advantage no other great man in history ever had."
"What's that?"
"I don't have to spend time doing the great things he already did. I can push the envelope farther than ever. I can reach heights possible only because those men came before, and here I am now."
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