Since I have never found any positive place in the world, except in my simple prolix role as progenitor & dad (les enfants sont facile a faire, plus difficile de proteger, enseigner, sopporter), I still wonder, at age 56 & facing faiblesse & the downward spiral to death, where I might have made a difference (that is, a positive one) and how I might have gained the ability to do so.
What does the world need that a petty, timid, conflicted creature like myself could supply? Instead of waiting for the answer - the wrong approach, to wait for an answer - I have to waive the question and proceed. Part of the answer must be my family.
But another part could be the Stoic College. Even my pathetic hash of a brain and my too-soft little slip of a soul might help in the transmission of the Stoic wisdom (as opposed to obsessive duality and polar extremism) to people. And that would be a positive thing on this divided, bloody-minded, madness-driven Earth.
Hmmm. Question answered?
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A Ghostly World in Collision with Yours
- Old Mr. Still Struggling with Ceaseless Chaos
- City: Let's call it "Fingiswold"...., California Franciscensis, United States
I only wish I could, like Beowulf, say:
"Hwæt! þu worn fela, | wine min Unferð,
beore druncen | ymb Brecan spræce,
sægdest from his siðe. | Soð ic talige,
þæt ic merestrengo | maran ahte,
earfeþo on yþum, | ðonne ænig oþer man."
"Ah, you've said quite a bit, my dear Unferth,
drunken with your beer, about Breca,
and laid out his triumph! But I say sooth,
that I owned much more sea-strength,
suffering the waves, than any other man!"
Yet I cannot!
Perhaps, like Epictetus, I may say, of the world and its evils,
"What is that to me? Is it within my control or a matter outside of it? If it is not within my control - and the only thing that is within my control IS my Will - then I shall not fret over it at all, but accept it and apply myself to it as best I may."
For the truth is - these evils are normal, they are natural, they are not (in the end) evil at all, just - consequent; and matters of indifference.
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