This morning's run started a little before sunrise and lasted from 5:45 to 7:45. The running of the feet allows free play to the discursivity of the mind. ('Discursive' from L. currere, to run.) This discursivity could be called mental blogging. The trick is to remember the 'posts' upon one's return. Here is one on happiness.
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Life can be good. Middle-sized happiness is within reach and some of us reach it. It doesn't require much: a modicum of health and wealth; work one finds meaningful however it may strike others; the independence of mind not to care what others think; the depth of mind to appreciate that there is an inner citadel into which one can retreat at will for rest and recuperation when the rude impacts of the world become too obtrusive; a relatively stable economic and political order that allows the tasting of the fruits of such virtues as hard work and frugality; a political order secure enough to allow for a generous exercise of liberty and a rich development of individuality; a rationally-based hope that the present, though fleeting, will find completion either here or elsewhere; a suitable spouse whose differences are complementations rather than contradictions; a good- natured friend who can hold up his end of a chess game. . .
All of these things and a few others, but above all: the wisdom to be satisfied with what one has. In particular, no hankering after more material stuff; no lusting after a bigger house, a newer car, a bigger pile of the lean green.
So much for middle-sized happiness. It falls short of true happiness for various reasons one of which is that one cannot be truly happy in the knowledge that many if not most will never have even the possibility of attaining middle-sized happiness.
But middle-sized happiness has an irrefragable advantage: it is certain for those who have attained it for as long as they abide in it. And when it is over, there are the memories and that necessitas per accidens I was talking about the other day. True happiness, however, the happy life St Augustine speaks of, is uncertain and for all we know chimerical.
Perhaps it is like this: one day you die and become nothing for ever. Anyone who claims to know with certainty that death is annihilation is most assuredly a fool. But it still might be the case that the death of the individual is the utter destruction of the individual.
Well, suppose that is the case: you die, you are utterly dead, and that's it. Your fall-back position is this meso-eudaimonia I have been scribbling about. You have it in your possession; it is here free and clear and certain while it lasts. Part of it is the rational hope that there is some sort of completion unto true happiness whether here below or yonder. A hope exists whether or not its intentum is realized. So, immanently speaking, you have the benefit whether or not the goal is ever attained.
But take away the hope, and then what do you have? If you believe that it is all a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, then you ought to find life more difficult to construe as meaningful.
It is a curious predicament we are in. If you believe in this Completion of the fleeting present whether in a temporal eschaton or in eternity, and the Completion doesn't exist, then in a sense you are being played for a fool. If, on the other hand, you believe both that life is a tale told by an idiot, etc., and that it is nonethless meaningful, then you are also being played for a fool (or playing yourself for a fool).
Or in the immortal words of Brenda Lee, "Am I fool number one, or am I fool number two?"
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re: the "curious predicament" I don't get it. Is this some twisted version of Pascal's Wager? Shall we rename it after the underwear-torquing prank and call it "Vallicella's Wedgie"? In the immortal words of Bruce Lee: "Where are my pills??" Kevin
Posted by: Kevin Kim | Monday, 09 May 2005 at 07:24
Now be nice, Kevin. Don't forget I command some powerful software. People find life meaningful as long as there is hope in something or other: the Revolution, entry into nibbana in this life or another, a world in which everyone lives in peace and harmony, etc. But if these are all illusions, then one is living in illusion -- which is shall we say suboptimal. On the other hand, if one believes something that entails that life is meaningless at bottom, but goes on finding it meaningful, then one is shall we say living in a fog. Explain Pascal's Wager to yourself clearly and you will see the difference with what I am suggesting -- although I admit I haven't developed my thought very clearly.
Posted by: Bill Vallicella | Monday, 09 May 2005 at 11:39