Empedocles & the Modern Human

Alright, so this is going to go a little bit differently this time. Usually I write these little entries with more of a expository quality to them, but the combination of ideas created in my mind is so fresh that its' want to be written was strong enough to stave off the sands of sleep. I found this comparison to be a useful tool in time of turmoil, such as the one we currently seem to be living nationally, if not globally.

First, facts. But this time instead of facts we are working with ideas. Read further only with a slight suspension of ordinary person biases, and the concrete logistics of the modern world.

There once lived a man in Acragas, a city on the southern coast of the island of Sicily. He was a bright man, and enjoyed both science and politics. This, as it usually did in those days, led to a rival political faction exiling him, starting his life as a wandering sage. He is said to have performed miracles. His mysticism hiding whether by science or magic. I'll let you decided which. He eventually met his end, by choice, inside a volcano. Or so it is said. Nevertheless, in his wanderings he mused and thought. He taught that air was a separate substance by holding a bucket upside down in water, and even extrapolated this to explain respiration.

This man believed in the four elements; earth, air, fire, and water, and that each of these things was everlasting and could be combines in different mixtures to produce the phenomenal world, that which humans observe. This mixtures, 'governed by chance and necessity' (B.Russell; History of Western Philosophy : p.55), were constantly combined and separated by the forces of love and strife. In this cycle, love combined while strife separated.

While I hope a sharpened mind, without bias would find this to be [phenomenologically] outrageous. It is sometimes important in times of great chaos and fear-mongering to allow some belief in what is outrageous.

As cliche and soft as it sounds we must find this love in ourselves to combine, to lose sight of the separating strife and honor this love by finding the similarity. By uniting our common aspirations and spreading this anti-poison to reverse the effects of bigotry and small-minded selfishness.

Seeing the news and observing the act that we put on the worlds stage, I know that we must do it soon if we are going to fulfill the oath of our forefathers and foremothers. To honor our fallen, those who gave everything to fight against subversion and for liberty. We must do this if we are to make a world that our children can, or will want to, live in. A place where all humans are created equal.

So, show love. Even in the most insignificant ways, you can cultivate a combination. Hold doors. Say please and thank you. Use your blinkers. Listen more than talk. Help a neighbor. Look for the similarity, and allow your love to bring the world forward out of chaos and just maybe others will follow.

So It Goes

"So it goes." - Kurt Vonnegut Slaughterhouse Five

It has been a full year since my last post. It has flown the flight of a hawk's feathers over a warm air current. 

"What has happened?" One might ask. 

Life happened, and it has been glorious. 

I have had a change of jobs, and while it has seemed it is for the better, it has become a bit stagnant. The mire that all humans trudge through, a world that never quite meets expectation. A life where what you want, is not what you think you want. I am a Key Badge (renewed for another two years), a manager and yet still mostly a budtender. Managing a shop on my own is truly what I love. However, it does not come with the responsibilities I love, such as; understanding and manipulating stock orders, making prices, setting sales, general marketing. It does still include those I thought I was above; cleaning toliets, cleaning up after other people (physically and regarding stock). But, I am never above anything, a brother of the Middle Way. So it goes.

My relationship has blossomed into a beautifully fragrant flower. A lingering scent of progress and affection in the truest variety that fills me with the warmth of a thousand summers. Eep and I have moved in with each other. I was unsure I would ever be able to muster the courage to do more in honor of this love, but I have grown into the role quickly while still allotting time to refresh and reinvigorate myself. Our schedules are a bit awkward though. She, a night nurse, gets home at in the morning at eight thirty. I leave for work at nine. This is a truly short period of time. If you have ever been in love, you know the feeling. I am drawn away from the campfire in the dead of night for watch. I am left wishing with all my heart that there was more. Even given that, it is the best twenty minutes of my day. So it goes.

My life is still full of philosophy. My life-blood, producing something within me that is thought provoking and creative. The use of several different points of view, to paint the vivacity of living. A Wittgenstein-esque logic forming a picture of the world. A picture that is sadly always just moments outdated, and getting older. Still we move on, using these pictures as tools for a future, as reflections of our selves past. I spoke with my father, as I frequently do, regarding the Stoicism of Ancient Greece and Rome. A propensity towards the theory that we share. The Stoic's Truth, a pinball in the great machine of life. Bouncing off experience and event, solace only to be found in one's own mind. Calm and aloof one can see the deterministic world for what it is, unflinchingly out of our control. The skill is explained in many ways; The "Heart of Stone", Yoda, the Buddha's Four Truths, Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, Zen Masters Koans, Jesus of Nazareth's Parables. The theme spans cultures, societies, and time. If you are in control of your mind, the world is beautiful and terrible, and that has never changed, but you can conjure a level head to see past it. It is something I think we lose in modernity. The fast pace reflections of interactions arriving instantly through handheld screens. Prestige syphoned down into a readable number surrounded in red. You will see more images today than your elders saw in a lifetime, and you will only crave for more. So it goes.