Following on Alain de Botton's essay on Montaigne, I post here a version of de Botton's an examination on wisdom. I'd be interested to see your answers. Remember, I am interested in your ideas, nothing more. You get an 'A' just for taking the test, in my book at least. Begin:
1. What is a good parent?
2. How can one tell if one is in love or infatuated?
3. How much regard should one have for oneself, and why?
4. How much weight should one give to what other people think?
5. How should one deal with death?
6. How should one end a relationship?
7. How can one live happily with other people?
8. What does it mean to be wise?
9. What is the good life?
10. What does it mean to be a friend?
Extra Credit: What is the meaning of your existence?
1. One who loves unconditionally, and is devoted to showing love and encouragement to the child throughout one's lifetime.
ReplyDelete2. I don't think that there is much, if any, difference between the two.
3. The absolute utmost regard. This is *the* top priority. One who cannot nurture one's self is not able to fully participate in the joy of life. That can often lead to making others unhappy--you cannot contribute anything to the universe without regard for yourself.
4. We must remember we can't truly know what others think--only what they tell us. No regard should be given to what you think someone thinks. That said, what others express is important. It should be taken under consideration. It is always good for self reflection. This does not apply to people who have already proven themselves to be assholes.
More coming...
1. What is a good parent?
ReplyDeleteBiologically speaking, a good parent is that which ensures that its offspring survive to sexual maturity. That is, it might be argued, pretty much all a lot of parenting achieves (she exclaimed, high-handedly, and without the least experience of being a parent - only of being parented). Ideally, I think that a good parent should not only ensure its offspring's survival, but it's flourishing (in Ancient Greek terms), like a gardener both ensures that a plant is kept alive, its flowers to propogate more, but also that it is as beautiful, luscious, foliate a plant as possible.
2. How can one tell if one is in love or infatuated?
I think that infatuation is merely a (overwhelming) degree of love, indistinguishable from itself - noninfatuation seems to be a lack as well as a sensibleness.
3. How much regard should one have for oneself, and why?
I don't think regard can be measured in terms of "should" - regard seems to me to be automatic as magnets.
4. How much weight should one give to what other people think?
As much weight as one would give to any other text, apart from that those people to whom you have an emotional connection will have that weight made heavier (like a heart being tied onto a brain) by the pull of the ties that bind you to them.
In terms of what other people think of oneself and one's own opinions, ultimately one cannot be them, and they cannot be you, and any distance between their opinions of you and your opinions and their own (and vice versa) is a (potentially painful) reminder of your ultimate seperateness (and can lead to the severence of the ties that bind - as in the cutting off of the interpersonal singnal/s during/after an argument).
5. How should one deal with death?
One can't.
6. How should one end a relationship?
One can't. (Let me explain.) "For me, it isn't over." sings Adelle. A relationship is a game of two sides. One can no more "end" a relationship than one can, in cutting off and killing one side of a worm, kill the whole worm (excuse the metaphor: my love is like an injured worm). Certainly, the relationship is injured, but so long as one circle of the venn diagram (a less not-very-nice metaphor) is coloured by the imprint of the other circle, even though the other circle (the you-circle or the other-circle) has rolled away, the remaining circle can remain coloured by the imprint of the rolled-away circle. It might also roll away, that other circle, of course, less and less, or not, still imprinted. But one cannot, imperiously, end the relationship for the other circle. People are not remotely controllable (to that extent). Which is perhaps (one of the reasons?) why exes can seem so montrously cruel, trying to jam one into shapes, and scrub and paint one into colours, which one simply are not, as though one is a handful of play-doh.
7. How can one live happily with other people?
I don't know. I don't think one has as much control over the matter as the question seems to imply. I think perhaps it is a matter of enjoying the going-right when things go right and damage-limiting the going-wrong when things go wrong. *shrugs*
8. What does it mean to be wise?
To be as owl-like as possible. (see Athena)
9. What is the good life?
One would, in order to decide that, decide what "good" means. I am inclined to think that "good" is, subjectively, for me, "what I will". So the good life is the realisation of my "will to power" (or will to powerlessness, if, paradoxically, that is what I will).
10. What does it mean to be a friend?
Mutual liking and (to a mutually reasonable extent) mutual fidelity (in terms of not Brutusishly betraying one another, etc.).
EXTRA CREDIT: What is the meaning of your existence?
It is its own narrative. (Or metanarrative.)