Dario, my fellow confounded human, this is a very thoughtful and thought-provoking essay. In addition to you being my Logseq Sensei, should I also start to think of you as my Life Coach?
Hamlet's and Camus' question,"To be or not to be", was implicitly and humorously answered by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky when he had a character in his novel "The Letter Killers Club" say, "better to somehow or other be than not be magnificently."
There are a many things to take away from your post, but I'm going to push back a bit and say that the most important thing is your advice: "be careful what you choose to believe." Absolutely! Resist indoctrination and group-think. Be willing to change your mind and beliefs based on new and reliable evidence and information, because, as James Harvey Robinson warned us decades ago, "Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do."
"Life is Hard", a recent book by philosopher Kieran Setiya, addresses many of the issues you raise here. I think you might find it to be an interesting, enjoyable, and life-affirming read.
Thanks Rick 🙏🏼 I definitely wouldn't think of myself a life coach! This line of thinking was only unraveled very recently :) And I agree that yours is a more important takeaway, as it is probably more fundamental to realising where the first arrow ends and the additional ones start.
I love the quote from the novel; definitely adding that to my reference bank. Thank you for the recommendation of Kieran Setiya. I listened to his series on the Waking Up app and I really enjoyed it, so it's on the backlog.
Hopefully more "lounjun" than "suffer'n" your side :)
What's more satisfying than making connections between ideas, especially when they resonate with us both intellectually and aesthetically? (I say "both", because it's possible to embed an absolutely repugnant idea in a beautifully constructed sentence.) This is likely what motivates many editors of collections of aphorisms to arrange their selections under subject headings—a practice I don't like at all, because I want to make my own connections, and they're often multiple. But speaking of aphorisms, I'm gonna throw another book recommendation at you: "Vectors and Ten-Second Essays" by poet James Richardson. If I had to save a handful of my books from a fire, this would be one of them. A great majority of JR's 500 entries resonate with me. Here's just one of many of my favorites (probably cuz I'm an old curmudgeon):
"495. What happened to the years? How did I get this way? By being this way."
Dario, my fellow confounded human, this is a very thoughtful and thought-provoking essay. In addition to you being my Logseq Sensei, should I also start to think of you as my Life Coach?
Hamlet's and Camus' question,"To be or not to be", was implicitly and humorously answered by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky when he had a character in his novel "The Letter Killers Club" say, "better to somehow or other be than not be magnificently."
There are a many things to take away from your post, but I'm going to push back a bit and say that the most important thing is your advice: "be careful what you choose to believe." Absolutely! Resist indoctrination and group-think. Be willing to change your mind and beliefs based on new and reliable evidence and information, because, as James Harvey Robinson warned us decades ago, "Most of our so-called reasoning consists in finding arguments for going on believing as we already do."
"Life is Hard", a recent book by philosopher Kieran Setiya, addresses many of the issues you raise here. I think you might find it to be an interesting, enjoyable, and life-affirming read.
Lounjun 'roun' en suffer'n,
Rick
Thanks Rick 🙏🏼 I definitely wouldn't think of myself a life coach! This line of thinking was only unraveled very recently :) And I agree that yours is a more important takeaway, as it is probably more fundamental to realising where the first arrow ends and the additional ones start.
I love the quote from the novel; definitely adding that to my reference bank. Thank you for the recommendation of Kieran Setiya. I listened to his series on the Waking Up app and I really enjoyed it, so it's on the backlog.
Hopefully more "lounjun" than "suffer'n" your side :)
Ah yes, so many books, so little time . . . Thank you, Dario, for your good wishes. 😊
Also, my mind was blown that Hamlet's "to be or not to be" is the same as Camus' question. Hadn't made that connection before!
What's more satisfying than making connections between ideas, especially when they resonate with us both intellectually and aesthetically? (I say "both", because it's possible to embed an absolutely repugnant idea in a beautifully constructed sentence.) This is likely what motivates many editors of collections of aphorisms to arrange their selections under subject headings—a practice I don't like at all, because I want to make my own connections, and they're often multiple. But speaking of aphorisms, I'm gonna throw another book recommendation at you: "Vectors and Ten-Second Essays" by poet James Richardson. If I had to save a handful of my books from a fire, this would be one of them. A great majority of JR's 500 entries resonate with me. Here's just one of many of my favorites (probably cuz I'm an old curmudgeon):
"495. What happened to the years? How did I get this way? By being this way."