“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” ~ Proverbs 29:18 In many versions of that passage it says with prophetic vision people cast off restraint, but I think vision works as well on its own and is more inclusive, and perish gives a clearer image of the end result. It doesn’t mean
Continue readingTag: seneca
A Puff of Absurdity: Menakem’s Somatic Therapy Approach to Anti-Racism Work
Resmaa Menakem’s My Grandmother’s Hands came highly recommended. The title refers to the effect that being enslaved had on his grandmother, and Menakem traces the violence of racism through the specific perspectives of people on either end of racial conflicts. Beyond just explaining how racism affects all of us in
Continue readingScripturient: Ancient Election Wisdom
I recently came across this piece by Marcus Tullius Cicero (one of my favourite classical authors) on the Sententiae Antiquae website (a good source of classical Latin and Greek translations), taken from Cicero’s oration Pro Murena (35-36). Lucius Licinius Murena was elected as his election as consul in 62 BCE
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Comparing Existentialism and Stoicism
This summer, I went on one camping trip with a book on Stoicism, then another camping trip with a book on Existentialism, and I was intrigued by the many similarities. Then I came across this video that has some overlap with what I had noticed. As they say in the video,
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Regret
I’ve taken many questionable risks in my life. I lean toward leading a life that’s lived fully over a safe and secure existence. Most I bounced back from easily from typical childhood falling from trees when I’ve climbed too high to dropping out of high school and somehow ending up
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Wasting Time
I had a brief Facebook conversation with Massimo Pigliucci about my decision to fritter away a morning watching the rain and petting my cat. He said, “It’s up to you to determine whether your morning was wasted or not. But from a Stoic perspective the good use of time comes
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Taking Comfort in Stoicism
When thing take a turn for the worst, no philosophy helps me like re-reading the writings of Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. I had a dream last night that I was at a bike show (about bicycles, not motorcycles), talking to a distance rider, when, after a long conversation, I
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Boredom
I’m not talking about the “nausea of ennui” discussed from Seneca (“many who judge life to be not bitter, but superfluous”) to Sartre, that total lack of interest in anything that makes it difficult for some to get out of bed in the morning, but of that feeling that overcomes
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: A Stoic Resurgence
In reading a few other blogs lately, Stoicism has come up a few times, and I’m seeing it in a few books I’ve been reading lately too. Maybe it’ll stick this time. In Robin Hanson’s blog discussing why middle aged people are most pessimistic, I suggested that maybe it’s a
Continue reading