Morocco

There’s vacation in Morocco where time stands still as you look out towards Spain. Hear the rain, it falls so gently on the window, oh how the light reflects just right. There’s always magic in laughs in Morocco; no more with the same small quarters, so I’ll travel to taste the seven waters in the air.

A Letter

O, thine eyes doth tell a thousand stories between each blink – what stories do lie so close to flesh so easily torn? By these guiding lights I oath this moment with the Eons above me as  my witness: I shall make a world in my dreams special for you, my love, so deep within the fruits of infinity. I will share such a space with an angel such as you, O, how the Sun begs to emulate your skin so much that it may be forever daylight if thoust laughter do emit even once.

I pray upon the God of Love and Light that such pulsing in thy heart bring a cadence to all that lives as it does only when I imagine my hands on you; a rhythm as a million down feathers may fall into mine own natural pace. Such sweet harmonies with each breath given is a gift beyond existence itself.

Tender Fighting

I feel no shame in the openness of vulnerability I give to friends much better named as strangers. Though in such bravery there has been much disbelief someone would actually dare to give so much away, and in such I have learned my decision to do so can bring more chaos than to reserve myself in due time. Alas there is no time; there is no better time I have known to be honest and forthright in the given moments I find myself available to show compassion in friendship. In the lies and words hidden from me, about me, there is nothing more I can do but to understand the simplicity of a second and the web people choose to trap others and themselves in the name of their own name. There is fear in those who choose to hide their own selves from the world of their own creation, and I choose hide from no thing, especially those who doubt my intentions, as if any were pre-concluded to begin with. I feel no shame in the blessings I give to those who choose not to hide their curses upon me, for at least they are honest. In the trials faced alone, and to feel the open spaces around me where others once stood with, I have felt my own body weight pressing against the Earth, and I have felt it disappear in the midst of a summer midnight with deep cutting laughs of bewildering gratuity and tears once felt from isolation of misunderstanding now rolling from an unresting love that, even as a surprise to me, seems to stand relentless in the scorches of those who patiently wait to see me fall – for all that has brought me light and life also brings me a new angle to understand love; and as I call out my thanks to the process time had led to that moment, there no longer rested a weight in self reconsideration for a love so freely given, rather a stillness of the night and the resolution found in those including myself who have chosen to see past themselves into a world much easier to gossip about than to look me in the eyes and see where they rest in the sockets unseen until many years after my spirit no longer resides within this capsule. I feel no shame in the love I was given and my decision to never hide behind it, even when such vulnerability draws attention I did not ask for. Tender fights won by none and lost by many, but the ones who survive are the ones who leave with their hearts still in tact.

History, Present

Patterns of habits
Shaping the untold
Unfolded found in the
Line of time yet for
The shaper to hold

Amalgamation of Action

The responsibility of (hu)man, in accordance to the actions taken upon them, for the reasons of responsibility: How does the present moment become because of action, which arose from reason, or patterns of thought; let alone the insurgence of responsibility to act at all? From actions of thought to language, authors Walter Benjamin, Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger commemorate ideas of how care, or the center of all human beings, directs to thought, to which action follows, that then leads to Dasein, a translation meaning being, here (Heidegger, Basic Writings, pg. 229,) and how the product of these attributes not only hold the power to shape the masses beyond one’s own millennia, but also that it is formed solely by one’s own interpretation of responsibility. Thus, the influence for future ways of Dasein lies in the minds who question the responsibility held in the hands of man who live not to only see, but to do, now, and how these decisions not only decipher Earth’s next move, but most importantly the vast ways in which a single moment potentializes memory.

The act of action in the present and physical form brings forth a Being now unknown to documents or the dust in graves, just as their moments of Being are forever lost in the transition of time to the present. This, “multidimensionality of the realm peculiar to thinking” (Heidegger, Letter on Humanism, pg. 219) curates a moment devoted to the plane in time to which is formally defined as, ‘the present,’ via the thoughts cultivated due to the events in which one finds it in themselves to react to. Said actions can be classified as a dichotomy between Tradition, or conscious action, and Conformism, which for this essay will be demarcated as modes of thinking generalized to bring together the masses in which to respond to their Dasein. These two forms of action hold an outlet for opportunity, where tradition is open to modification, while simultaneously hiding the freedom one does not know they have been robbed of, a deliberate decision to repeat and the types of manners of thinking that has led one to make such decision. Simply stating that man is uncontrollably a byproduct of decisions’ past, and when one is unblindfolded by which they experience the world, they also decide how the blindfold was wrapped. In this, the guiding hands of Tradition show ways of success and Conformism giving the impression there is no other successful way than that which Tradition brings. With this pattern, the possibilities of Dasein are now held captive by these ideologies that then inhibit its opportunity of diverse, adaptive, and fruitful contributions to Humanity’s progression.

With language, or the exploitation of a reacted spirit, it is the thoughts emulated via language that Heidegger defines as the first and most important step to Philosophy. For words, these powerful sound waves bursting outwards from within a biological form with intention, puts being into Being via the thought to. Therefore, thoughts essentially are both the chicken and the egg to Being. The responsibility that comes with such thoughts is explained by Benjamin as a responsibility of one’s actions taken, which eventually becomes the world (since they have brought it there,) thus the responsibility de world is found within the responsibility of oneself, which, according to Heidegger, is one’s only responsibility. Though the responsibility to the world is not held solely in the hands of one, neither should the concern for it. The obligation to be true to oneself is of highest priority for this action will make others be true to them – in matters of learning about one’s own essence from their own, through observation of another learning about their’s. This is done not of leaping in, understood as carrying the burden of another, rather in leaping ahead of those who do not know how to help themselves; for in ‘helping’ others, one hinders the growth of those they aim to bear responsibility for. Principally, one should be responsible only for oneself, for if the water provided for one plant is given to two, both plants will die while the latter leads to orchards.

To be true to oneself, one must understand what it means to be true, or the a priori of their unfiltered (by the ways of the world’s time in which they have been placed within) essence. To Heidegger, essence is what an individual creates for themselves. A group of individuals combining their essence is what creates Circumstansual Phenomena, otherwise defined as the Dasein created by circumstances’ former Dasein. These phenomena shape the world, the world in which individuals then subject themselves to, which in turn effects how one can experience, think and act, thus playing a large role in what one’s essence can become and eventually the Dasein that helps curate following Dasein. At the core of this, thoughts create this illumination of Circumstansual Phenomena. Benjamin describes man as a product of action, to which is driven by thought, which is fueled by action. With this understood, this explains Sartre’s statement on how, “…man is a plan aware of itself;” thus man will be what they planned to be, not what they want to be. This is a powerful statement because it edifies the idea that how one reacts to actions of their surroundings via thought will then unfold their further actions which then shapes themselves and ultimately the world around them. Frankly, no matter the external forces man finds themselves involved and subjected to, what man thinks becomes them. This version of their essence in which one creates for oneself is then translated through the expression language.

Alas, language is a filter put over man, concealing both the thoughts leading up to the action to speak, move, write, and leaving the expression beautifully and originally limited to what one can formulate from their personal vocabulary (of words, behaviors, etc.) for language is the house and Being lives inside, so even though one can have an idea of what and whom resides in this house, only the outward structures give any portion to what is really inside this ‘house’ of Being. In what kinds of houses can Being abide? This is answered in how language is presented which gives more insight into the one who attempts to share themselves, for the deliverance of words starts by breaking down the significance of what it means to say a word at all: consciously and unconsciously taking in air, holding it in the lungs/diaphragm, making the cognizant decision to utilize held air by exhaling while also shaping the position of the mouth, tongue, lips and weight displacement of the remaining body. The elongation of how these sounds are pushed outwards with volume, length and rhythm also sheds light on these decisions made by one during Dasein, to which exemplifies how they decided to express their expression. These are made both knowingly and unknowingly, depending on the seriousness one holds, which is an attunement of language and action that helps express care. This power to use thoughts to make deliberate waves of sound is what signifies the importance of sentient beings. As time continues, the types of phrasing the same language manages to mold itself to the alterations subject of an ever-changing environment. This leads to the actions of an inquisitor: how we can use the same words as the past and have them mean the same thing, since what was at an earlier time is not the same world in which the word is used now? Should they mean the same as before for the sake of consistency and convenience? How can this hinder and service communication?

For Sartre, Care is shaped as many such as forlornness, anguish, and despair with which within these aspects of care can help one understand what it means for a human to feel, think, and react, yet a focus on the kind of care that comes from the resolute of mortality – the recognition of significance of the only certainty humans hold together: death – will be discussed as a kind of care mentioned by Heidegger. These means of facing mortality are bathed in the care of Ecstasy: Present in the moment – anticipating the future. This in-between ‘feeling’ of “reality” and “being,” usually understood as the moments in which there is a nothingness outside the body alone with the soul, and them together alone with the elements that are relevant in the seconds passing, has a root word of, “Stasis,” which means unchanging. Bringing these two definitions together, this center lining of “reality” and “being” seems to be an eternal bliss. Is it found within how the wind finds shelter in our lungs without us trying or is it the acknowledgment of this fact? Intermediately de two. Yet the radiance that occurs during ecstatic moments is not the point of creation of Being according to Heidegger, it is the Dasein that allows man to think, care, and build. Consolidating ideas of the unknown beyond a life that one has been filtered themselves to know is one way to help place one within this kind of experience during this ever-refreshing moment in time.

What is constructed within how humans react to other living, breathing creatures, including their fellow man, is another factor to what man deems as a responsibility set by themselves. “The human body is something essentially other than an animal organism. Nor is the error of biologism overcome by adjoining a soul to the human body, a mind to the soul, and the existentiell to the mind – only to let everything relapse into, “life-experience,” with a warning that thinking by its inflexible concepts disrupts the flow of life and that thought of Being distorts existence.” (Heidegger pg. 228). Here Heidegger exerts concern towards the execution of actions taken in the name of responsibility and how one’s subjective view only further pushes one down the path of subjectivity. Allowing the mind, body and soul to refute as the source of experience and not letting external forces to solely interpret reality is imperative to understanding what it means to exist within a human body. “Are we really on the right track towards the essence of man as long as we set him off as one living creature amongst others in contrast to plants, beasts and God?” (Heidegger pg. 227). This exact care that forces the power to think, act, ek-sist, somehow seems to be lost in to whom or what deserves this addressing of care and action, for the appreciation of these plants and beasts as living with us, and God being another word for Being, living through us, is widely dismissed (in more concentratedly the Western Hemisphere) and holds a lack of contemplation towards what it means for one sentient creature to look upon another form of a sentient. These placements of action drastically alter what is available to react to, thus alters one’s animus sive mens, translated as spirit of mind. It is an act of placing value. “To think against, “values” is not to maintain that everything interpreted as “a value” – “culture,” “art,” “science,” “human dignity,” “world,” and “God” – is valueless…by the assessment of something as a value what is valued is admitted only as an object for man’s estimation. But what a thing is in its Being is not exhausted by its being an object, particularly when objectivity takes the form of value.” (Heidegger Pg. 251). In what man asserts as value only in the eyes of man, and what man deems as objectivity, they trap themselves in Conformism, which in turn results in Tradition unfruitful to its capacities. This force of path destroys greatly the potential to what humans can exist in by refuting harmony with living creatures in the name of value – sounds of screeching, squelching, screaming of unnecessary torture and slaughter, leading to fleeting and silence in the name of convenience found in ignoring and supporting the suffering – outside of sound, what does harmony feel like in action?

Benjamin talks of value in terms of Messianic Power, otherwise understood as the present claimed by the past. In interpretation, this claiming discusses what can be explained in an image of an untouched canvas at (?000000??)00:00:00(0000001~) followed by a drop of water color onto it, leading to it drying there. Later, at 00:10, another drop falls onto the canvas, slightly overlapping the previous spot. This cycle continues until nothing on the canvas is left untouched, but rather becomes additions to the previous dropped and dried. When the present redeems the wrongdoings of the past to which this “image of redemption” (Benjamin, Walter, Illuminations pg. 254, II) is a, “check-in” in which the present gains value from actions’ past, it explains the present receiving the gifts of the ones who has left this their lives long before the receiver of their gift, alas in a canvas only aware of water color, the addition of ink becomes impossible to fathom due to layers of only water color beneath it. This redemption, like a spectator of this water color painting, can only lead to more thoughts about water color. The refurbishment of history in order to give value to the present is a viewpoint many could agree on as a progression to current society: a way to improve oneself by learning of the, ‘failures’ permitted in the only proofs, as many or scarce man has access to, that the event documented in history ever happened in order to save time of making the same, ‘mistake;’ but a problem with a view as such has a common inattention to both if that recorded event is objective enough to actually obtain the truth of that specific Dasein (within the considerations of the information not available to the one whom documents the event) but also dismissing the idea of making a once failed idea, or action, a successful one. To Benjamin, “only redeemed mankind receives the fullness of the past-which is to say, only for a redeemed mankind has its past become citable in all its moments,” to which he calls those cited moments as the day of judgment, or à citation a l’ordre du jour, translated as what is to be quoted on the agenda. To be the kind of redeemed Benjamin aspires towards, should every soul keep a personal life journal, or something similar for a more rounded documentation of different thoughts and thoughts de events de world? In having a Messianic Power at a weak level, one might ‘forgive’ the actions de past so quickly that, as mentioned before could be dismissed as successful if executed differently than before, but also the lack of taken considerations of why that drop dried, thus leading to the repetition of what was ‘forgiven.’ Without these aspects taken into acknowledgment, has one learned what they’ve learned to accept as a mistake?

Genetics pass on, splitting and blending attributes of their past; this leads to the finals questions: What is the difference in potential quality of man that has improved in the last 100 years? Are those we read from the worlds’ past so different than now truly from the same species of the current human? Different environment, different common knowledge between men, women and children, different ideals, different meals, different bodies, different language, different historical documentations to which are then passed on to further generations as examples of how many ways Being can Be. Via the branches of subjectivity, thought of one manages to breathe life into actions which will result in more thoughts because of action. Chicken, egg, chicken. If every blade of grass on the Earth could symbolize the ideas of man, would not the action of treatment of each blade result in much more value and attention for its preservation? Via language I write this essay to express the expressions of interpretations of the subjectivity of great minds who speak of subjectivity and its influence on action, to which effect and affect the future in which the present unravels the gift given by the past. The acknowlement of any value or care results in thought and the possibility to action, therefore, responsibility of action for oneself for the sake of themselves and all that will be molded by their decisions is held in the hands of those who read these words. What will you do, now?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Benjamin, Illuminations: Essays and Reflections, ed. Hannah Arendt (Schocken, 1968) ISBN-13: 978-0805202410

Heidegger, Basic Writings, Revised and Expanded Edition (New York: HarperCollins, 1993) ISBN: 978-0060637637

Sartre, Existentialism and Human Emotions (New York: Citadel Press, 1987)                    ISBN: 978-0806509020

Hubble’s Bubble: Self-Awareness and The Existential

Among the small percentage of what is known on the vast combination of chemicals surrounding us on this, overwhelmingly piffling in comparison, spinning rock we have claimed as Earth, NASA[1] has brought forth more information about the, “Hubble Bubble:” A nebula that is seven light-years across that is 7,100 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia. “The seething star forming this nebula is 45 times more massive than our sun. Gas on the star gets so hot that it escapes away into space as a “stellar wind” moving at over four million miles per hour. This outflow sweeps up the cold, interstellar gas in front of it, forming the outer edge of the bubble much like a snowplow piles up snow in front of it as it moves forward.” With information of cosmic entities being researched constantly, let a moment to upend the mental-sets[2] of the convenience of present-day phenomena be taken to consider how subjects such as Hubble’s Bubble brings us, “back to Earth” in the wonderment of our existence with questions such as: Why are existential crises so significant to the human psyche? Through topics such as sensation, perception, memory and faulty logic, discussions over the influence of the wonderment of our existence can bring to question if humans are taking the advantage of their higher consciousness to their full potential.

Sensation: Tangible proof of second-by-second awareness of existence. Without the senses like touch, hearing, vision and smell, would human nature be measured the same since it is from these characteristics that we respond to the atmosphere around us? Aspects like Psychophysics[3] help guide one’s understanding in how to respond to such a bilocation of external (all action caused upon oneself) and internal (awareness within oneself) forces by detecting molecules and signifying them to experiences and opinions. These opinions, based on both biology and one’s psychological state of mind, determine a detailed experience in a lifeform. Take vision for example – those squishy, spherical muscles holding the world within – is something humans put much trust in when what is seen is based on light and structure quality of the eye ball, such as eye functions like receptors, rods and cones, for these clomped together pieces of matter have given us validation of their existence by being while biology captured its universal picture. With existential crisis, one begins to question if what is being seen as real is not actually it’s, ‘true’ form of being; since each eye is different, the way it catches light, color and depth is going to differ from person to person causing an upsurge in familiarity with one’s own sight, making them lose sensitivity of attention towards the complexity of perceptions in just one function of the human body. Through these diverse perceptions given through examples of the eye alone, only a base of what is known can be solidified as a ‘truth,’ or something in which strong branches of thought can base their tangents of ideas and questions on. Since any evidence given towards an object or idea is based on facts gained through experiments that use tools for our senses to grasp, the facts discovered are based on human comprehensibility from the start, thus making what is known biologically biased in both social, interpersonal and ‘logically’ based terms. With this concept, responses to the world are also determined by these perceptions making strides in a specific perceived direction harder to divert from if these ‘truths’ are not questioned. This is where existential crisis takes hold of the senses, using the facts given through our sensations to neurologically calculate the existence around us and having the questioning disposition to marvel in what is and to wonder whether if this, “is” actually is, or if it is solely a representation given to and by our biology. Hubble’s Bubble, for example, is seen through the Hubble Telescope made by man, thus how we view this star is based solely on the dependence of the quality of material used to see it. Bio‘logical’ indeed.

One could argue that sensations are not constricted to the five senses, rather the influence of Psychophysics with the consciousness of self-awareness. The article, Balancing the ‘Inner’ and the ‘Outer’ self: Interceptive sensitivity modulates self–other boundaries, gives examples on how the, “brain’s processing of multisensory information underpins self-awareness (Lenggenhager, Tadi, Metzinger, & Blanke, 2007).” For example, “synchronous visuotactile stimulation[4] between the participant’s body and a foreign body results in an illusory sense of ownership of the foreign body (Petkova et al., 2011).” This familiarity to the participant’s face and a foreign face, “results in changes in the mental representation of one’s face identity (Tajadura-Jiménez, Grehl, & Tsakiris, 2012; Tsakiris, 2008).” These results validate the influence that exteroception[5] exerts on two elements of self-awareness: the, “feeling that this body is mine (i.e., body ownership) and the ability to recognize one’s self as distinct from other people.” A reverse representation of the self, “emphasizes the role of interoception[6] as a vital type of information processing necessary for self-awareness (Craig, 2009; Damasio, 2010). The insular cortex, one brain area among an extended self-related brain network, is activated during interoceptive tasks, multisensory-induced changes in body ownership and self-face recognition (Craig, 2009), suggesting that in this brain area, exteroceptive and interoceptive signals converge to globally represent the material self.” This study shows how the use of interoception and exteroception help shape how one views themselves in terms to the perception given by themselves influences their self-awareness. This self-awareness is key to understanding that the self is here, in this moment, using their eyes to read these universally understood structured symbols on a page to peer into another’s thoughts on the subject of self-awareness and the ever-growing Hubble’s Bubble thousands of light-years away from sight of the human eye.

Alas, one’s perception in the moment is merely one factor in coming to terms with the existential. History, as we know it to be, is also a determinant in self-awareness as it is a reference to how life is now; but history is subjective to the documenters throughout time so even their perceptions, differing even down to choice in diction, effects the future in how human nature is understood to be, thus causing a mirrored confrontation on who one is now. Take Hubble’s Bubble for instance: it wasn’t discovered until 1787 making any prior knowledge of this gaseous celestial body irrelevant to the human psyche, since no information was taken in to consider this entity floating around them the whole time. Because of this concept, memory of prior knowledge would all have to be reconsidered in order to further calculate these cosmic chemicals into self-awareness. With this memory of the fashioned illustration of our past reflecting onto the current self, the contrast in behavior, realms of thought, and general perception of that period’s cultural phenomena raises questions like: How does current-day consciousness differ from the past, since new and altered information is in circulation that was not available before? How does this change in consciousness effect the mental-sets already placed and do these form a filter on our biological senses? How different are the realms of existential crisis between unalike types of memory? These filtered conclusions of past and current time create something called Faulty Logic which places a circular logic on mental sets fixed and the new facts given, making uncorrelated conclusions weaker in contemplation on what it means to be alive now, in contrast with before one knew specific knowledge. With these boundaries of human understanding, one can find wonderment in the existential through articles such as NASA’s Hubble Sees a Star ‘Inflating’ a Giant Bubble in how aspects such as sensation, perception, memory and faulty logic take their position in the inspection of existential thought. Through these conceptions, one can better use their consciousness to further explore the mysterious abyss of their mind to better understand the universe, just like the Hubble Telescope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università degli Studi di Bologna, Viale Berti Pichat, 5 – 40127 Bologna, Italy. Tel.: +39-051-209-1347; fax: +39-051-243-086, Copyright © 2004 Elsevier Ltd.

 

Gleitman, Henry, Daniel Reisberg, and James J. Gross. Psychology. Eighth ed. New York: Norton, 2011. Print.

 

Hubble Sees a Star ‘Inflating’ a Giant Bubble, NASA.gov, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), 21 April 2016

 

Tajadura-Jiménez, Ana, Tsakiris, Manos. Balancing the ‘inner’ and the ‘outer’ self: Interoceptive sensitivity modulates self–other boundaries. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 00963445, 20140401, Vol. 143, Issue 2

[1] Hubble Sees a Star ‘Inflating’ a Giant Bubble, NASA.gov, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), 21 April 2016.

[2] Mental-set: “The perspective that a person takes and the assumption made in approaching a problem.” (Gleitman, Henry, Daniel Reisberg, and James J. Gross. Psychology. Eighth ed. New York: Norton, 2011. Print. Pg. G11.)

[3] Psychophysics “allows us to specify the correspondence between physical stimuli and psychological experiences.” (Gleitman, Henry, Daniel Reisberg, and James J. Gross. Psychology. Eighth ed. New York: Norton, 2011. Print. Pg. 142.)

[4] Visuotactile stimulation is as showing the existence, in humans, of intersensory integrative systems representing space through the multisensory coding of visual and tactile events. (Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università degli Studi di Bologna, Viale Berti Pichat).

[5] The perception of the body from the outside.

[6] The perception of the body from within.

Universal Consciousness and Freedom

Metaphysical context in this essay will be considered in terms of what our senses allow us to see, feel, and experience. This experience, which fills the seconds and the angles of each object to the perceptions of the individual mind, is a mere particle to the whole, or what Hegel would call the Geist, otherwise known as the universal spirit, for even what is experienced is not all that is within the world man has come to understand. “Epoch after epoch, camp, kingdom, empire, republic, democracy, are merely the application of his manifold spirit to the manifold world.” (Emerson, History pg. 113). This universal mind is the catalyst to all that is presented within the metaphysical context, or everything that we know to seem to be and have been throughout human history. Within the walls of what humans have decided what is available to be, freedom is then also limited to those theories put into practice. Though the true passage that history has exploded into this moment has been lost in the inexorable winds of time, documents of many a form have been left by our partners of the past to help the present better understand the worlds of the have-been. Such documents include Hegel’s work, The Philosophy of History, Emerson’s History, and Nietzsche’s On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life which pull a way into the awareness of historical comprehension of what it means for each human existence to be a part of this universal mind, and what it means to be free within the metaphysical context created by those before us, for us now.

Geist, or the conscious mind, is a wonderment understood through being aware of the nanoseconds and external objects that surrounds one’s natural pace in their present time; which animals in their primal state do since being in the moment for survival is their normal form of living. Alas, human’s capability to document the past and therefore reflect on these documents cultivates subjective understandings of the world in which they are exposed to. “There is a degree of sleeplessness, of rumination, of historical sensibility, that injures and ultimately destroys all living things, whether a human being, a people, or a culture.” (Nietzsche, On The Utility and Liability of History for Life, pg. 127) These understandings based on past decisions build filters to what man accepts as ways in how to handle existence, which then effects how man now chooses to react to the actions around them in the moment. This is a freedom man has willingly yet unknowingly taken away from themselves for they now have to push outwards past the documentations that have built the society in which they now base their lives on with aspects such as dogmatic views, beliefs and ideologies in order to understand the possibilities past what has already been done. “What is history, said Napoleon, but a fable agreed on?” (Emerson pg. 116) This escape from what is accepted as a grounding of understanding is what Hegel considers imperative to reaching the capacities of freedom within mankind.

To Emerson, the universal mind is accessible to all, and if one can obtain this by approaching history and subjecting themselves to the items and people, the limitations of the constructs of society man has distinguished their life on can be lifted and true freedom can be fulfilled. Alack, the documents that give one access to the past is filtered through the vast amount of interpretation of said works. These interpretations help shape how one views history, thus the ideas that blossom from the artifacts left by our past men are not as history truly was. This leaves the openness to interpretation to shape the world of now, which, in reality, this, ‘shaping’ is both the savoir and the bane to the present (hu)man. These interpretations help the present build on past knowledge, though this knowledge may not be as correct as one may desire in order to make it a grounding in which they build a solid form of life. Nevertheless, having the knowledge of the past will aid in new interpretations, thus new ideas; but throughout time, said interpretations have end up molding the present much more than necessary. This is because the majority of man in all spectrums of time have lost interest in the documents of their priors, thus ideas from interpretation of these documents cease to exist, therefore a lack in ideas which allows the convenience of accepting and submitting to past concepts set before them without the desire to question or change makes a world with a major lack of creation. “Facts encumber them (men), tyrannize over them, and make the men of routine…” (Emerson, History pg. 127) This cycle, many fear, has been the snowball into a grand scale of stagnancy and hindrance to what Geist could a potentially be.

Due to the amount of possibilities of life that lay available to man because of their own thread of consciousness within the universal spirit that guides their life from the beginning of their existence and even before (with idealisms set prior to their birth,) the amount of circumstances that happen and lay dominant outweigh what laws man has created is inclusive of; thus making the laws set by man a restriction to what is possible to have as a lifestyle to man. To one’s known concern, these laws create a ‘better’ ‘way of life’ for a community, alas the ratio of what is unknown will always be favored on an unbalanced scale of what man seems to know and what we neither can comprehend nor accept as a probability, thus these standards for living creates a blockage to what is unknown to be possible. These unknown concepts can be viewed as a separate dimension to which man could have tapped into if a single differentiation within the lifestyle constructs that one’s life followed had either been different or simply absent. “Those men who cannot answer by a superior wisdom these facts or questions of time, serve them.” (Emerson, History pg. 127) If one cannot come to terms that the possibilities over compensate the reason man has constructed from these walls of lack of challenge of the world set in front of them, this reason, which holds mass communities together, actually holds men as slaves for not being aware of the whole estate.

With history being the recording of these happenstances of how humans have utilized any obtainment or lack of knowledge allows the spectator of the future to recognize how the information that comes with grasping the concepts of how life can be so differently better in ways currently unknown due to the limitations man has put upon themselves through these laws, both legal and ideological, that they have allowed themselves to be bound to has drastically effected how the present seems to be, no matter the subjective view placed upon the objective, the spectator can use this personal subjective view, a single slice of the Geist, of the past to obtain a new understanding, which then catapults a new direction, if, that is, their ideas are put into action. With this understood, it is clear that the objectivity of human life within their subjectivity, also put by Emerson as, “secret experiences,” (Emerson, History pg. 114) could be as vastly diverse as there are thoughts within each past and present man, and then some from future reflections of said past and present tense. This endless fractal of possibilities is shown through documentation of events and ideas, whether it be done in text or any other form of creative art, and has become the skeleton to building the body of an ideal society which all starts from the marrow, human consciousness, which is another incarnate of man: living, responsive, independent (accept to laws) beings. In order to rightly learn these puzzle gifts of the past and to build Geist in the most quintessential form; Emerson states one must become all the differences in the world including present and past cultures and put these worlds in the same reality; this is one of these key forms history gives the observer because it shows how an idea shapes the future, which is all any man in the present can do. It is the aim of the investigator to gain an entire conception history of a people, country, and world, which Hegel calls universal history.

The phenomena of subjectivity is another filter that effects how history is interpreted, for the raw intent of the creator is lost within the perceptions of the observer. This perception, otherwise termed ceterum senseo, meaning, “But I am of the opinion,” (Nietzsche, On the Utility and Liability of History for Life pg. 124) gives light to the insight of the world viewed by one is simply an opinion that has been molded by their circumstances. Because of this, another disadvantage of the documentation of history is the amount of concealment within said documents; for now, only what is created in response to these documents remain. These creations are formed by every spirit, but it is the spirits of strong personalities, no matter what form of life they currently live in will cultivate interpretations even in the most focused of lifestyles. These personalities are the seeds to change, the ones who open up possibilities that once were deemed impossible or nonexistent by altering a state of mind that allows an openness for viewing the world around them in ways outside of the box of conformed common law of life. These are the people to which are the shapers of the future; which brings to question if the strong personalities are the ones putting theories into practice that eventually effect the world in which they both live in and the world that outlives them, shouldn’t these people be the ones who have both the most knowledge of what has happened in history, while still being conscious that the documents they read are not fully truth, while simultaneously detaching themselves from the ideologies of the past in order to create a future that pulls from ideas currently unexplored or unpracticed? What strong personalities have shaped our history, and which decisions should the present bring acknowledgment to in order to follow or put their own interpretations on?

The common man reaches his task with his own spirit, a spirit distinct from the elements and external forces he is trying to manipulate, and the motives of his actions and events which he describes determine the form of his narrative. These actions are shaped by the ways of the world before man became aware of his presence within the laws to which humanity has subjected itself. These laws, built from history and man’s interpretation of history has been the stripping of man’s own freedom in response to man trying to understand and broaden it, but, with the guiding hand of the past man’s effort to teach the present, it is possible to keep the objectivity of human history open to the opportunities that lie with the simplest forms of man: heart’s beating, lungs’ expansion, eyes blinking; for even though metaphysical context is solely dependent on what man creates for themselves, the consciousness of awareness of the spirit within us is not dependent on the metaphysical context in which one finds themselves in.

The Curious Connection of Human Nature

Within the cosmos lies a familiar sound of existence; where elements combined create the places in space and fill a creature’s fluid in a spine, nothing seems more symmetrical than two eyes looking back at another, feeling the air between their collective elemental designs and staring into one of Nature’s mystical stories unfolded in the unknowing of why neurons look like Red Square Nebulas, and river streams, tree roots, and lightning bolts look like our veins, why our arms, legs, and toes are just extensions off of extensions like plants or the ever-expanding universe, or why Human Nature, the peculiar phenomenon reaching out into the existential, has evolved into one looking back at another, smiling like a crescent moon, or how it has even evolved at all. From the core of Earth to what lies unbounded by the limits of our sky, Human Nature finds itself both independent and dependent of what these essential molecules decide to react with. This raises questions of the differences and similarities between Nature and Human Nature. With discussions by Aristotle, Seneca and Lucretius, correlations of the world we live in and the world we create will be challenged to understand how this sweet song of our existence, reaching out 11.7 billion miles[1], fits into the elemental embodiment Earth has shaped up to become thus far.

Aristotle begins Appendix 7 of The Nicomachean Ethics: Nature and Theology by defining ‘phusis’ as a translation to nature, “…growth with the emphasis sometimes on origin, sometimes on development, sometimes on the developed state” (Pg. 300) to where Aristotle speaks of Scala Naturae, the Theory of the Organization of Nature begins with the elements, “which make up simple bodies, i.e. inorganic matter we encounter in nature” which brings the consideration that through the elements, the origin of being has grown into the categories of the Grades of Soul – nutritive, sentient, intellective, and the forms of life ranging from upwards from plants to animals to man (pg. 300). Lucretius speaks of origin stating, “The seeds form which nature creates all things, bids them to increase and multiply; in turn how she revolves them to their elements after their course is run. These things we call Matter, the life-motes, or the seeds of things…Firstlings we well might say, since everything follows from these beginnings.[2]” Why is it that the life of Nature begins at its smallest, but Human Nature finds great solace in big ideas? Are our spirits as connected to nature as our biology? If not, in regards to the soul, where does ‘human’ begin and nature end? Under this conception, these ‘seeds’ of originality from the elements are where all must start in order to be and to grow, making a profound philosophical inquiry from the coined term, “small beginnings.” This independence against the normal course of Nature shows the significant differentiation of body and land in terms of Grades of Souls, for land is defined by a semi-permanent location where nutrients of the environment and the forms of life surrounding it is the decider of its quality, whereas the body is subject to nutritive, sentient, intellective, and the forms of life and has more control of what the environment sets before us. And yet we too will shrivel like plants without the proper combination of elements and atoms within our beings.

Phusis, or growth, in all general terms, refers to the advancement of an entity that only happens with a sequence of health, both internally such as individual biology, the psyche, and Aristotle’s Grades of Souls and external forces, such as natural and social environment that play their roles to inhabit quintessential progression starting from origin to their final developmental state. Using this growth, or process, Aristotle gives the prominence on this development by asserting, “nature includes everything that contains in itself,” also known as The Principles of Movement to which, “The Natural World, then, exhibits process.” (pg. 300). It is this process that gives constant movement to nature, to which then exerts itself back upon itself. With this understood, it is implied that nature is constantly moving, changing, and is biologically charmed to aid in universal growth – a symbiotic relationship moving through soil to a choice in tail’s coil, water in bodies and bodies of water from humans to whales, and the impalement of the seas of trees by the lava bleeding from these planetary plates – their fates guiding one another for the sake of each other leaving behind their lineage of effort to keep existence existing. These Principles of Movement are said to be not, “spontaneous movement,” but rather a “reaction to external forces” (Pg. 300). Such external forces are applied to human nature as a means of adaptation to cultural movements throughout time, to where the individual adjusts their understanding of their placement in this unidentified celestial song[3] in such terms as cooperation, ignorance, or disinterest in conformity. Characteristics such as these are some ways Human Nature uses its movement in order to satisfy its inner being, otherwise known as the soul, by adapting to the forces around them that cause unceasing change and evolution to the human psyche, thus bringing a parallel between how Human Nature becomes phusis through phusis.

The soul – the confusing and copious entity it is – is a major differentiator between nature and human because one’s soul is the only object throughout space and time that humans actually have control or will over; whereas nature happens as it does without the need of justification. Alas, the body is the only entity holding the spirit back from joining with Nature. Aristotle states, “In a practical science so much depends upon particular circumstances that only general rules can be given” (pg. 33). In nature, circumstance is a feverish phenomenon within natural patterns with no regards to Human’s internal desires, so rules of circumstances are hard to chart, as they happen when expectations rarely follow through and that is only to assume it were possible to fashion rules at all. For the soul, Aristotle talks of virtue as a disposition to which practice and exercise allow one’s virtues to flourish to their full capacity due to Differentia[4] where excellence can be a good excellence and a function performed well. Aristotle claims that through virtuous disposition can a soul be good and perform well by rejecting pleasure, while Seneca also adheres to this same opinion by stating, “as far as pleasure is concerned, it surges around us on all sides, flowing through the streets, weakening the spirit with its smooth talk, and doing one thing after another to arouse us…what mortal being with any trace of humanity left wants to be stimulated day and night, exerting the body but rejecting the spirit?” (Seneca, On The Happy Life, pg. 74). Pleasure is seen as something that could not bring our spirit genuine satisfaction for with our over-wielded bodies and our souls malnourished, there is no capacity for phusis to become within a soul and no body strong enough to handle anything less than a weak spirit, thus making the adaptation given to the circumstances of nature less helpful, causing an unbalance between nature and human nature which makes humans live in nature, not with. As nature now perceived solely as an external force, the body and psyche make their separation with their environment giving their internal forces more vitality to grow without the influence of nature, such as in society today where one can survive easier without the guidance of nature making a second-by-second determination on how we live in contemplation. Seneca also states, “I’m not truly free of the things I fear and hate, and on the other hand I’m not a slave to them either. It’s not as If I’m in the worst condition, but I’m extremely dissatisfied and sad: I’m not sick and I’m not healthy,” (Seneca, The Serenity of the Spirit, pg. 105) showing that when there is an unbalance within the soul and nature, it causes a restlessness within the inner being, going in circles of not truly happy but not fully sad. This irritation makes virtue hard to follow as emotion and dissatisfaction muddles what and how a situation should be reacted to, thus making the search of living in virtue like a maze harder to exit if one wrong turn is made, but if one is sound in their virtue when times are bleak, one can still find the highest good: to be undisturbed. Seneca says how this, “unwavering position the Greeks called eurthymia” which he calls serenity is knowing, “how the spirit may travel smooth and pleasant track, to be kind to itself, view its current circumstances happily, and not disrupt inward joy but maintain it with a peaceful attitude, never overjoyed or depressed,” (Seneca, Serenity of the Spirit, pg. 109) one can use their virtue to find a safety in themselves. It is this safety within one that makes them a wise man for, “the wise man is so confident in himself that he doesn’t hesitate to stand in Fortune’s path and never yield his place to her.” (Seneca, Serenity of the Spirit, pg. 124). Seneca explains how if one, “is in a bad situation and hemmed in by a hostile force, it’s still a disgrace to give ground. Take up the soldier’s duty given to you by Nature.” This clarifies how one can be lost within the maze with seemingly no hope but should not be distraught due to their ‘duty’ given to them by nature which allows them to fight like a wise man should. Human nature in virtue lets humanity stay strong even when nature defies them in their most confusing internal weather calamities.

In all sources of nature, life takes its lead and has its finish, humans, too, have this requirement of them, and through the injunction of the sporadic dispersion of atoms, “stops all rioting of woes against our state, we may be reassured that in our death we have no cause for fear, we cannot be wretched in nonexistence,” (Lucretius, Book III in The Ways Things Are, pg. 112). These acts of virtue are one way that Human Nature molds itself without having biology directly involved, thus showing their independent spirit against Nature.

The human voice – the sound of the soul pouring out from inside us – is defined by Lucretius as being bodily since, “the ear is struck by different sorts of atoms when a horn is muted, crooning low, or blares away full blast” so when one’s utterance, “sends voices forth from deep within our bodies, turns them loose directly through out open mouths,” (Lucretius, The Way Things Are, pg. 134) the power of bottled up energy of dialectic air channels through a suave or rhaspy tunnel (the esophagus) shows the power and sincerity of the phusis working through, giving examples of the process of growth within a man. To disagree with Lucretius, I insist that the voice is both a connection of biology and spirit, a conduit of pouring sound from the soul through the body to influence the nature that surrounds because like all things, phusis creates activity from the atoms to the vibration of their energy working through the waves in the air. These sound waves caused by all living things bring another form of movement, but what separates human voices from other natural sounds is deliberation. Nature is, just as we are, yet Human Nature uses opinions to shape what Nature can only display and it is these opinions that cause waves of thought through to waves of voice. Lucretius states, “one word, one crier’s call will often stir the ears of many men in a large audience; one voice become multiplied into many through the ears of many listeners; yet now and then phrases or words escape or murmurs die.” Having a vibrating frequency originating from within the center of our body that then passes through the air, bouncing on every object it crosses and rebounds through the walls of our ear canals that can change a being’s mind or way of thought is not only a powerful tool of Human Nature by being a part of an invisible and surrounding realm our biological lenses, but also gives phusis the ability to add another layer of constant change through both external and internal forces. Lucretius expresses how this influence of the voice reaching outward and effecting everything the waves can reach is like, “the way a spark can kindle many fires,” (Lucretius, The Way Things Are, pg. 136) which explains the power of this entity. “If you remember the winds way, how frail its substance, how invisible, and yet how its might has power to propel a battleship; a single steerman’s hand, turning the wheel, can shift and swing the rush on a new course.” (Lucretius, The Way Things Are, Pg. 145). With the progress of intention and specific symbols creating meaning, language and voice are key forms of higher consciousness. Just as our voices blow from within us, bouncing and vibrating against our lungs, throat, tongue, teeth and lips, so does the wind within the air, bouncing and vibrating against the trees, grass, mountains and the surface of water. The sound waves move out from whispers to shout just as the winds in their weather vary in the quantity of air they carry; how scary to consider a voice so smooth could be so bitter like the brisk winter air. Trees whip their branches during storms just as one in a fast car gets a face-full of hair; fair warnings of the sky given by our eyes so different in their receptors and cones inside. Our eyes, like mirrors, leading into a reversal image reflecting inside our pupils so dark and tunnel-esque guiding a sight into a mind. Blinding light brought by the sun and stars filled with chemicals like poisonous conceptions of money; what is truly ours? Tornadoes of confusion and the delusion of colors in the sky from rainbows to clouds, a gradient change from dawn to night, what sights do we see when we look from contemplation of the wonderful fears of nature taking us to an unknown destination that one will always go, life goes as smoothly as water flows – what weather do you hold inside you?

Just as our voices are subject to the will of our souls (given, of course, it is biologically permitted), we have the rest of this organic form our spirits find themselves capsuled within that is also subject to the will of the being with objects that include one’s senses including intuition[5]. Lucretius states, “this makes sense if we recall how closely flesh and mind are linked, and so this impact on the spirit propels the body forward,” (pg. 144) thus intuition becomes a mediator for the soul to interact directly with the external world. When one genuinely uses their intuition in daily life, the sincerity of their spirit can pour through without the hindrances of the body’s condition. This allows the body to remain conscious without the dependence of the senses, as one does while in meditation. These connections are a direct cord of human nature and nature.

In conclusion, Nature and Human Nature find themselves connecting with each other in their biology yet also independence from each other, when the soul is involved, only when biology is present. Through virtue can one find their soul unbounded by the limitations and become the quintessential form of oneself. From the elements floating in the cosmic realm to the way a thorn pricks a finger, the air gracing the underlining of a bird’s wing, Nature and Human Nature are bounded by the atoms and matter that complete them both, beautifully fabricated by the strands of ice free-floating among the stars to the miles of coral at the ocean floor, the doors of the natural and the existential fill each other’s cup evenly from both ends as humans exhale and vegetation breathes in.

[1] In 1998, Voyager 1 became the farthest machine humans have ever sent from Earth. As of September 2013, the spacecraft is 122 astronomical units (11.3 billion miles or 18.2 billion kilometers) from the sun.

[2] Lucretius, The Way Things Are: The De Rerum Natura of Titus Lucretius Carus, Translated by Rolfe Humphries, pg. 21.

[3] I refer to this existential mystery as a song because like phusis, it starts at the beginning and transitions to its final form the same way time effects a melody.

[4] Differentia: Any excellence enables its possessor to function well; therefore this is true of human excellence, i.e. virtue. (Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, pg. 39).

[5] Intuition is widely known as a, “sixth sense,” or the sense of the soul.

Madness and Reason in Views of Knowledge and Influence

In an existence such as our own: linear, three-dimensional, specifically biological and introspectively designed by such complex anomalies like DNA and consciousness, where senses and emotions overwhelm our nerves, elements of combined atoms creating the expanding universe and our own beings; it is hard to say what, “madness” is in terms if one were to look upon this existential phenomena as human beings who have a conditioned acceptance of being born into something we neither asked for, nor possibly remember choosing[1]. So for something in relations to madness in retrospect to the eyes of humanity were to be examined, we must decide what kind of madness is to be focused on. Let us contemplate Madness, or Manike, in terms of inspirational behavior of the individual for this essay which seems to alter the views of the public simply by it being accepted… no matter how much Reason seems to be lacking due to the attention given to those whom The Muses connect with. With Reason, or Logos being based on the categories of knowledge by Aristotle, our knowledge of the world is determined by giving forth a faith on the information given to us through physiological and mathematical proof[2]and solipsism[3] is seen as something refused to be confronted as a possibility.

Madness, or Manike, in the eyes of the Pre-Socratics, determines our knowledge of the world through how irrational feeling can be understood as something that exists in either good or evil formations, or in Plato’s explanation of having the soul as two horses: one evil, dark, twisted, and the other good, light, and stately while having the soul guiding both horses in the direction that the soul allows; which would be accurate if what is, “good” and “evil” could be distinguished. A way for a good thing is having its essence turn to Philia and Agape, or what many now call this powerfully peaceful anomaly Love and have the creativity to use Manike as a source of good well-being to[4] everything. Evil is found in a selfish bettering of one when it could be all. As a, “Gift of The Gods,” (Plato, Symposium) madness has become a forgiving form of letting one’s imagination and mind’s eye take control into the conditioned world of reality that has currently been constructed for a place and time, consenting for new forms of thoughts that seem irrelevant with anything remotely normal, allowing for a spread of new ideas and inspiration to cultivate from a spark of, “madness.” This influence on the world keeps it in a state of liberation from any attachment to a time that has passed into the possibilities of what can be imaginable for the future, yet is also a restriction into a specific form of acknowledgment of how the world pertains to the people of the time. This is where good and evil come into play: it is based on whether or not The Muses have given inspiration to one who will have the tenacity to grow or hinder the deciphering and understanding of Life’s questions upon humans. Accountability of the inspired will direct the importance of the responsibility of the ones to whom Manike is deeply given (whether that be in terms of epiphany or minor yet periodical spurts of creative stimulus) because they have been given access to the windows of what has yet to exist and with such a significant and persuasive power over the masses[5] whom eureka rarely visits – thus any sort of newness created is acceptable and widely praised by them – Manike is more powerful than given credit for and therefore must carefully scrutinize the creator’s intentions: What good does this bring? How will this inspire others for a healthier future, a healthier now? Is this a catalyst to new forms of thought? Through these considerations can one live in madness and determine whether their unique form of Manike should be shared and expanded on, because what is expanded on is how the masses will live in madness.

The world is given Reason by two types of knowledge: From Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, the knowledge of the Divine is sourced from intuition, or a sensitivity of both physical and spiritual instinct, Sophia, or the intellectual endeavors of the divine, and science, or the “proof” to the answers of the world’s physicality; knowledge of the Ordinary is art, or Techne, and prudence, or the foresight of caution. Through these two categories of knowledge, Aristotle explains how Reason finds its way into every day phenomena, whether it be by primal or intellectual desires, to both help us survive rationally and to survive with personal observation of the self and the environments that make Earth. Reason, or Logos has been calculated as a form of rationality that is most dependable by philosophers such as Plato, Socrates and Aristotle, but I beg to differ. The world we have in this period of time has never been this way in all of human existence; just as all eras have been before now and how the future will be. Reason is based on these types of knowledge, but even knowledge is subjected to the relentless changing of time. For example, claiming to have gained Reason, is a statement made by those who believe they have reached an understanding on what truth is, or what is real, yet they scurry around in their current culture phenomena believing the current scientific discoveries and taking Reason as a way of a timeless certainty, which is not only dangerous, but against their own definition of Reason, for intuition refuses to agree with what anyone besides oneself may try to force on another, art is an opinion, prudence does not derive from trust, Sophia is not a love of the lack of questioning, and science changes every planck. Deciding what Reason is and how we use this over-arching metaphor to decipher knowledge is a pointless affair for what is known today is only an idea of what we have been told by those we have been told are qualified to explain this dimension. Novelty of Reason is not found from the facts found directly in our physical understanding, but rather the use of the complexity of what lies behind our eyes, which Reason will never be able to explain. With this said, Reason has built a reputation of bringing us knowledge of the world, but the knowledge brought explains how grasping the convolutions of the universe cannot be explained by our mortal understanding, such as Lucretius’ statement of how, “…The earth and sun and sky, sea, stars and moon are made of stuff divine, and live forever. Next thing you know, you’ll think it right and proper that what the Giants suffered for their crimes, for their monstrosities, applies as well to all men whose powers of reason shatter the barriers of the universe, who would darken the sunlight with their arrogance, marking with mortal talk immortal things.” (Lucretius, The Way Things Are, p.162)

Madness, or Manike determines our knowledge of the world with the role of making sense of the unexplainable, much like The Muses are used to explain the oddness of inspiration and with the ideals of the black and white horse that conduct the soul in the direction of where their control and choices lead them. By understanding the power Madness holds over the part of humanity Reason cannot decipher and accountability shows a positive way Madness should be used in the world while true Reason, or Logos plays the determining role in how knowledge of the world is understood by not depending on what is colloquially known as reason because Reason alone is irrational due to its lack of ability to encompass the totality of human existence in the absence of Manike. Madness and Reason together creates a world where inspiration and responsibility of using The Muses to allow the white horse to guide one’s soul encompasses one of the creative and logical ways to live in the world where “knowledge” is madness and logic is created.

[1] Plato discusses anamnesis, or a recollecting of knowledge that one must do through their own being, like giving birth to knowledge with a philosopher as the midwife

[2] This proof is also wavering in solidity of certain trueness because we have found the proof via instruments humans have created; thusly has a filter of the information discovered by our senses and numerical patterns.

[3] Solipsism definition: The view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist

[4] I use the term, “to” instead of, “for” because though having intention to bring forth good well-being and instinctively doing it without thought are two very different ways of going about this statement.

[5] Masses is a term used by philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, and Nietzsche to describe a, “herd mentality” of a mass group of people mindlessly following the other without any true thought put into why they are following one another.

Seneca: On the Happy Life and On the Shortness of Life

Writing to his brother Gallio, Seneca makes a point of distinguishing exactly what the goal is that they are searching for and how they will reach it in order to know en route, or their journey in exploration to living a happy life, for, “the more enthusiastically a man pursues this goal, the farther he falls from the path if he stumbles because his own speed takes him farther away if he deviates from the path;” thus showing importance in being aware of the goal in mind so that a tangent in search does not cultivate an unwanted path, otherwise understood in this passage as an unhappy life.

“As long as each person prefers to believe others rather than reach their own conclusion, no proper conclusions can be reached about life; just opinions.” (1.4)

This leads into his explanation of popular opinion and how, “nothing is more important than avoiding the tendency to follow the herd that has gone in front of us,”(1.3) so doing only what the past has shown us is unwise and is done solely out of convention of not having to search for new ideas and ways of life because the answers have been supplied already that fit in with a specific period of time that is not our own; alas making the answers to questions easier and ways of viewing our own circumstances without having to provoke one’s own thought in order to see now perceived as a linear time that has never happened before and using past understandings, or a mental set[1], as our grounding in knowledge of what is possible to believe and apprehend will only lead to stagnancy. This easiness of convention is spread throughout the common herd, making the separation from the majority approval as difficult a task as any historical document[2] could scorn as a bad idea.

The debate on Pleasure Vs. Virtue begins with the pursuit of “some good thing, not good in appearance, but solid and steady and more beautiful on the inside,”(3.1) and how being able to acknowledge, “what makes life better,” also known as pleasure, without succumbing to its seductive nature as wisdom while the desire of pleasure should be eliminated because, “…after we’ve cast off pleasures and sorrows, an enormous joy creeps in their place, one that is unshakable and constant,” (3.4) which states that pleasure does not bring forth joy, rather gives a sporadic moment of happiness and hinders joy coming into being. Seneca also explains how sorrow and pleasure stew from the same pot and that virtue is ultimately the key to living a happy life because, “the highest good[3] is a spirit that disregards its circumstances and is happy with virtue.” According to Seneca, pleasure and sorrow are not just kindred emotional phenomena, but together, those “very unpredictable and wild masters” are a slavery to man that “take turns controlling a person” (4.4) and once one learns to conquer these two forces, they break through to the freedom of happiness. He described their connection like, “sailors grounded on the shoals near Syrtes[4], they are left high and dry at one point and over their heads in another,” (14.1-2) and how this is like the quick-lived pleasures that never bring wholesome satisfaction, thus leaving one in a constant state of the extremities of saturated bliss to emptiness causing unbalance to which balance, or harmony, is the highest good one can reach.

“The cosmos, and by this I mean God the ruler of the universe, encompasses everything and extends outward into what is outside itself, but also returns inward back into itself from all sides. Our mind does the same thing. When the mind, following the senses, has reached through them to what is outside, it has the power over the senses as well as over itself. And when this happens, a person attains unified power and mastery and reason becomes reliable, undivided, and unwavering in opinions and perceptions of argument. When reason becomes coherent and agrees with itself in every way, and – in a matter of speaking – is in harmony, it has touched the highest good.” (8.4)

From here matters of finding self-awareness comes into understanding as the first steps to living a happy life, using one’s mind to look inward to transcend outward and finding this balance and harmony within oneself will lead to the mastery of their soul with full control leaving inner conflicts like lack of resolve and inactivity as a matted memory in the eyes of our consciousness through interspersing the pleasures of wise men: relaxed, controlled, almost leisurely, kept private and hardly worth noticing,” the same way, “they (philosophers) intersperse play and joking with serious business.” (12.2) How does one reach through itself to the outside: meditation? Isn’t play pleasure in itself? Seneca explains that indulging in pleasure makes one a, “weak spirit drowning in delights without regard for its own dignity” (10.2) which has become an object of praise due to the lack of separation between virtue and pleasure which then leaves one full of the wickedness it brings and the idea that their vices make them one of virtue when introspection is really what should be indulged in. To live a happy life requires very little: reach your own conclusions by going your own way, unaffected by the pernicious forms of pleasure by living a life of virtue, and being grateful to the world.

“…How could things have worked out for the better? Nature has given me alone to all people and all people to me alone.” (20.3)

On The Shortness of Life, Seneca begins by stating the concerns of what it means to have a short life to which it is not in the matters of having too little time, but rather that we waste the time that is given to us because, “…quenchable greed holds a person back, eagerness to work hard at work that’s unnecessary holds back another.” (2.1) Between these two of many battles lies a talisman of a long life, where taking time for oneself in order to look at oneself, to hear oneself is a way in making a life as long as possible. In other words, introspection from the outer linings of devoting one’s time and effort to another for the sake of wealth is meaningless life-time banter because, “They [people] feel obliged to guard their wealth, but when they come to spending time they are most extravagant with the one thing its noble to be stingy with.”(3.1) This evokes thoughts of personal time management: are we doing the things we want to do or what we fear we have to do in order to receive the supposed profits of life[5] (assured by the convenience of mental sets, that these are the keys to happiness and an existence worth-while)? How much of our past do we actually remember and how much of it do we remember being sincerely happy? Why is it that some people find it much easier to devote their time to what matters to their inner child instead of becoming a slave to oneself because of oneself?[6]

Seneca discusses what it takes to live a happy life and how to make that happy life a long one, giving us insight into coming to conclusions with one’s own mortality and its unpredictable time-frame or giving in to the convenience of the masses’ decision on the values to which one devotes their time to. This leads to some concluding questions: What is the average life expectancy for “someone like you” (age, health etc.)? How many years have you already lived? Were you happy, following the masses’ ideologies without examining yourself, doing actions for the sake of, “I’ll get to that later,” or do you even remember? When the time comes and you are, in fact, dying[7], will you fear you’re not ready, will you think of the regrets, or will you go into the unknown with ease, blissfully knowing you lived your life with all the joy available?

[1] Mental Set: a framework for thinking about a problem. It can be shaped by habit or by desire. Mental sets can make it easy to solve a class of problem, but attachment to the wrong mental set can inhibit problem-solving and creativity.

[2] Historical Documents give an other-worldly insight into the reality of the time that has passed, but only so much is actually documented, or rather documented accurately. Through new-age understanding of personal perception of reality, word-of-mouth, translations, and The Misinformation Effect (when a person’s recall of episodic memories becomes less accurate because of post-event information) runs rapid throughout documentations making most reads as reliable as historical-based fiction.

[3] “The highest good is an indomitable force of the spirit, experienced in life, calm in action, deeply compassionate and concerned for those it interacts with.” (4.2)

[4] Syrtes is a location known for its irregular tides and quick sands causing shipwrecks.

[5] “If my wealth slips away, it will take nothing with it except itself, but if yours goes away you will be stunned and it will feel like you’ve lost yourself…I own my riches, but yours own you.” (22.5)

[6] “So, let’s try to find out what is in reality the best, not what is most conventional, and what set us up to hold onto a lasting prosperity and happiness, not what is valued by the crowd (which is very bad at explaining the truth. When I say “the crowd” I mean socialites as much as slaves.” (2.2)

Slavery is also mentioned when we have pleasures and pains taking turns controlling us (On The Happy Life: 4.4)

[7] DISCLAIMER: You’re not exempt! 😉