The irony is that getting it right often requires taking missteps, and success in any endeavor usually comes after a series of failures. Hence, when one finally achieves what one set out to do, the path taken seems to be nothing but a path of error, and the person who now gets it right does not seem to identify with that other person who was simply trying to get it right. The teacher, therefore, often carries baggage that contradicts his teaching, and must smile at the realization that it is precisely because he went against it that he learned what he can now teach.
Category: Notes
Shutting Oneself Away at Home and…
Shutting oneself away at home and devouring stacks of books does have its uses, but a proper understanding of society and the times requires direct contact with the world. The neighbor, therefore, teaches something that books cannot. Thus, Cioran, traveling through France by bicycle, sleeping in hostels, and talking with young people, was ahead of ambassadors, observers, and everyone else when it came to the French people’s sentiments regarding World War II. By wandering the world, he gained a conviction that seemed like clairvoyance to some English officers. Often, clairvoyance is nothing more than a variation on experiences like these.
No Amount of Learning or Study Can…
No amount of learning or study can suppress the manifestations of temperament, even if they turn out to be clearly irrational. There is no problem with this; on the contrary: it would be undesirable to suppress them, since temperament is an important part of personality. The problem begins when the individual is mistaken and tries to convince others that he has managed, through study, to subdue his nerves, and as a result, what he says can only be grounded in the brightest reason. Well, there are better jokes! But one must reach intellectual maturity to properly appreciate personality and delight in it as Goethe did.
Epictetus’s Discourses are remarkable…
Epictetus’s Discourses are remarkable in that they give the impression that, after them, there was not much left to say about ethics. Times change, customs change, but what is relevant is, in some way, portrayed there. And even among the great philosophers of different schools of thought, we can draw a parallel—or rather, we can find the equivalent of what they say in the work of that extraordinary sage. Two thousand years have passed! And this great work remains intact, as valuable and as relevant as it has always been… And so it will remain.