Felix est quem ....

Participating in our present age's revival of Stoicism, I have often had occasion to ask myself: How in the world can I, arguably an abject slave of pleasure and indolence, a rattle-headed, timid, and puerile old do-nothing, how can I of all people call myself a Stoic? For many is the time that my own native scrupulousness has argued that I was a hypocrite to do so while I remained so full of petty defects and so short on decisive willpower; and many is the time that I've been tempted to just jump ship and go native, to simply devote myself to whatever overpowering pleasure I can find.

Well, I haven't jumped ship. In fact, you might say that I'm still aboard, swabbing the deck. I haven't given up because I remember (a) that Nature is anything but simple, anything but black and white - that almost nothing is perfect or absolute; (b) that half a man is better than none, and an educated half-a-man may well be better still; and (c) that God has given me a certain problem to work on (i.e., myself), unknown to others, and that therein I have my work cut out for me.

And there's another rationalization that I think has substantial weight to it: (d) that "Felix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum" (which I read as: "Happy is he whom other people's dangers make cautious"). In other words, why not improve oneself?  Moreover, even if I am not living a Cynic's life, homeless on the street, even if am neither Saintly nor Sagely, even if I cannot BE perfect, I can at least participate in the transmission of this most useful philosophy and way of life. Helping others to learn and understand how to live, in the course of living my own transient, microscopic little life, this benefits them, myself, and the world at large.

We are all aliens and strangers, and each comprises a little hidden world of his or her own. If we recuse absolutism and fanaticism and set about living decent lives, in toleration if not in real harmony, then the good of one can rub off on the good of another.  In fact, the more that people are decent -- or better yet, virtuous -- the more lives and souls can be spared violence or the guilt of violence. Apply your Stoicism, apply your virtues, and try to live well. It's what we're meant to do.

The Musical Clue

A clue.

Lenin was seen weeping upon listening to one of Beethoven's quartets - and yet he was as ruthless and detached a despot as any we've seen.

A clue - to what? That no man is free of emotion, of opinions seeded into him at birth and baked in the chaos of life and learning. We can modify what we think, but we cannot escape being inherently emotional - in both the senses, of (a) spontaneous reactions (First Movements) and (b) Opinions and Passions.

Just now myself, falling asleep at work, helpless to stem that all-conquering middle-aged somnolescence that comes upon me when sitting, I pulled out my smartphone and plugged in my earphones and dialed up Lang-Lang playing Beethoven's Emperor Concerto (Piano Concerto No. 5). With volume set to a realistic but ear-damaging level, the Beet' roused me - transported me - to the heroic realms that I shall never find upon the Earth. (And I'm supposedly an adherent of Stoicism. Hah!) And so I successfully completed my work.

To see a semi-spastic creature such as myself reacting to the bold Beethovenian tutti must be a sight. But I have to reflect: The discrete blows of the piano's felt hammer on its tone-cables ring true, here in my physical self, in my very motor-neurology of jerky-motion-bolting-missed-try-again-bolting-closer-jerkily-hit-it-now-phewwww. Beethoven is here percussive in a grander-than-life sense; his orchestra does not strum out tones, but belts out thunder, ego, gaiety, lightning, contemplation, orgasm, marching and frolic and dance. Nor Bach, nor Mozart, nor Chopin, nor Brahms can do this, in this sort, in all these modes and movements, nor with such an intensity - none but the Beet'.

Listen to it yourself.

The Fudged Edges of Office Work Information

Petty rant: about Normal People, office management, and the craziness that mid-managers arrive at:

Long ago I learned that while it was a heinous sin at work to be inaccurate on your timesheet, it was even worse to be accurate. "Oh, my God!" the accounting poeple used to say - "I don't care if you were in at 8:01 or at 7:56! Just put 8 am, for God's sake! We can't handle your fractions!" So a timesheet it turned out was NOT a record of time spent at work, but rather a fiction of a sort useful as paper justification for a payroll system.

And, well, I just had another such moment - some 38 years or so later - but about a "Travel Schedule Notice" system. It's the automated way my company keeps track of whether employees and domini are in their prime offices or not. But - once again - I have been operating under a misapprehension, thinking that the Notices were relevant to our whereabouts and out-of-office status. Nope, that's not it, apparently. I just confounded my poor supervisor, leaving him flummoxed and at a loss, because I posted - in simple honesty - that I'd PROBABLY be out tomorrow at Jury Duty.
He told me that that was wrong; I was out of line. He couldn't believe that I would actually say I was going to be out if I thought - merely expected - to be out. Keeping people informed did not extend to actually telling about something.

Once again, here was a system with some ulterior purpose that I had thwarted. And I'm not exactly sure what it was. Apparently, if there's ANY conditionality to the absence-to-be (in this case, the condition was if, after checking the night before as to whether my Group will in fact be called to the Hall of Justice, they will have said yea or nay, something I have no control over but will certainly keep me away from work in the case of a "yea") then we have to treat it as a non-possibility until the actual day of Jury Duty, when we'll treat it either as nothing (I go to work, I'm not needed for Duty) or as a sudden case of an illness (I planned to come to work - even though I knew I might well not - but I can't come to work, I'm out with a case of Jury Duty). Despite that fact that I've been forewarned AND WAS REQUIRED to forewarn my company that I had a Jury Duty date coming up.

I will commit this caveat to my work-notes on Jury Duty (notes already needed because of the whole confusing and explicitly conditional business of Jury Duty):

JURY DUTY REMAINS A NON-EVENT DESPITE FOREKNOWLEDGE UNTIL YOU ARE DEFINITELY CALLED - AT THAT POINT YOU MUST INFORM YOUR SUPERIOR THAT YOU HAVE A BAD CASE OF THE "JURY DUTY" AND CAN'T COME TO WORK ON TIME THE NEXT DAY.

Sheesh. Apparently, the Notices we send using this system do not amount to notices of information, but amount to official declarations of intent that have the weight of fact, despite being merely predictions or plans. Phew.

Not a big deal, but it's more of that "You had better do this!!!" followed, once you've done your bit, by unexpected bursts of "Don't do that!!!" Such as: "Work hard all the time, don't steal time from your employer!" followed by "My God, don't overwork yourself!" Or: "Take your vacation, it's yours, it's healthy - be sure to take it!" followed by "I don't know - you've been using a lot of vacation time lately; this is not going to look good on your record..."

In other words, any publishing of info on one's future work whereabouts is subject to a 95-percent-sure rule: If you're not 95% sure that X is happening, then ignore the indications that it is going to happen and treat the outcome as an unexpected case of food poisoning - sudden, pertinent, immutable, decisive. Conditional futures have no place in informing co-workers - at least, not in the formal systems.

Okay. We'll try that. And I expect that all organizations tend to be crazy, once organized - ideological party, church hierarchy, group of friends, modern business - it'll always be whacked and out of order.... And not a big deal, in any event.