Joe, your appeal to Virgil and Aeneas' lament is not overreach. Nature is sentient, even though intellectual fashion has been to deny that. When we open our hearts mindfully, we can sense the tears of the earth's suffering at the hands of human industry. Even when we resist acknowledging nature's capacity to hear, sense, and relate to us, we can embrace the poietic reach of this reading.
For me, the tripartite division of the charioteer and the good and evil horses of Plato's Phaedrus come to mind. With all our might, we all wrestle with deep forces within us, as Plato's Charioteer wrestles with his hard-driving horses to go in opposite directions. As charioteers, we struggle to move forward with a semblance of balance and harmony among the bellicose forces within. It is better to be mindful of our divided selves and the cacophonous complexities within when we fail or succeed at reaching and sustaining semblances of balance and harmony. The will to mask, cover up, and oversimplify does more harm than good.
You write, "It is this universal and existential fact that makes not only compassion but forgiveness necessary." This, for me, is a great moral truth. We don't know; we may have no idea what others are going through to make their lives work for themselves, family, loved ones, friends, workmates, and more. We don't know how they came up short today and try again tomorrow. The harsh condemnations and othering that crowds our social media today oversimplify irreducible complexities of life and divide us into warring camps raging at the gods, each other, and ourselves. The harmful pleasure of rage drives harm and violence in our society. It's easy enough to see.
Compassion and forgiveness are a salve for wounds we all suffer in the human condition. Not one of us is an exception. Paying more attention to our inner complexities and shortcomings offers us the space and opportunity to be kinder and more understanding of those with whom we disagree or have yet to find commonality.
Thanks for opening my heart to the sounds of nature laminating our human condition. At your prompting, I will open my heart further to the laminations of fellow human beings and nature herself. Healing connections may blossom unexpectedly.
This is a beautiful essay in itself. The response of nature to our subjective sensitivities remind me of an observation of William James in his "Varieties of Religious Experience." In an effort to give validity to the reality of mystical experiences, he observed that our experiences are objective at least as far as our subjective experience is concerned in that we comprise a real, but small, swath of nature.
The "harmful pleasure of rage" is very well said. It is a powerful and telling phrase.
Ontologically an empirical fact, or a poetic expression, our tired old earth, the home to millions of diverse and beautiful livings, does indeed weep. Such a realization should lead humanity to care more.
Thanks, Joe. Will James made an enormous impression on his contemporaries. Fashionable philosophers our day give him little notice.
Whitehead thought James was one of the greatest minds he ever met - and that would include Cambridge and Oxford where many a fine mind could be found. Something to contemplate.
Yes. James was a multifaceted genius - philosopher, psychologist, artist, original thinker par excellence. All he accomplished he did while fighting life-long depression and a slew of other ailments. His creative philosophy was a struggle to summon "the will to believe," to find meaning in life against the harshness into which we are thrown.
Thoughtful and profound article.
Many thanks, Jean. Glad you liked the piece. Best wishes.
Joe, your appeal to Virgil and Aeneas' lament is not overreach. Nature is sentient, even though intellectual fashion has been to deny that. When we open our hearts mindfully, we can sense the tears of the earth's suffering at the hands of human industry. Even when we resist acknowledging nature's capacity to hear, sense, and relate to us, we can embrace the poietic reach of this reading.
For me, the tripartite division of the charioteer and the good and evil horses of Plato's Phaedrus come to mind. With all our might, we all wrestle with deep forces within us, as Plato's Charioteer wrestles with his hard-driving horses to go in opposite directions. As charioteers, we struggle to move forward with a semblance of balance and harmony among the bellicose forces within. It is better to be mindful of our divided selves and the cacophonous complexities within when we fail or succeed at reaching and sustaining semblances of balance and harmony. The will to mask, cover up, and oversimplify does more harm than good.
You write, "It is this universal and existential fact that makes not only compassion but forgiveness necessary." This, for me, is a great moral truth. We don't know; we may have no idea what others are going through to make their lives work for themselves, family, loved ones, friends, workmates, and more. We don't know how they came up short today and try again tomorrow. The harsh condemnations and othering that crowds our social media today oversimplify irreducible complexities of life and divide us into warring camps raging at the gods, each other, and ourselves. The harmful pleasure of rage drives harm and violence in our society. It's easy enough to see.
Compassion and forgiveness are a salve for wounds we all suffer in the human condition. Not one of us is an exception. Paying more attention to our inner complexities and shortcomings offers us the space and opportunity to be kinder and more understanding of those with whom we disagree or have yet to find commonality.
Thanks for opening my heart to the sounds of nature laminating our human condition. At your prompting, I will open my heart further to the laminations of fellow human beings and nature herself. Healing connections may blossom unexpectedly.
This is a beautiful essay in itself. The response of nature to our subjective sensitivities remind me of an observation of William James in his "Varieties of Religious Experience." In an effort to give validity to the reality of mystical experiences, he observed that our experiences are objective at least as far as our subjective experience is concerned in that we comprise a real, but small, swath of nature.
The "harmful pleasure of rage" is very well said. It is a powerful and telling phrase.
Ontologically an empirical fact, or a poetic expression, our tired old earth, the home to millions of diverse and beautiful livings, does indeed weep. Such a realization should lead humanity to care more.
Thanks, Joe. Will James made an enormous impression on his contemporaries. Fashionable philosophers our day give him little notice.
Whitehead thought James was one of the greatest minds he ever met - and that would include Cambridge and Oxford where many a fine mind could be found. Something to contemplate.
Yes. James was a multifaceted genius - philosopher, psychologist, artist, original thinker par excellence. All he accomplished he did while fighting life-long depression and a slew of other ailments. His creative philosophy was a struggle to summon "the will to believe," to find meaning in life against the harshness into which we are thrown.