Arquivo de philosophy | Page 103 of 121

Thought Only Blossoms in Silence

Thinking, intellectual progress is associated with silence. That is to say: it is impossible to think under noise; thought requires silence to flourish. And when we notice the numerous benefits of silence, solitude, and stillness, we must conclude that to adapt to silence is to strengthen character, to mold one’s own personality. The highest thoughts always spring from where there are no voices, and the inner voice only appears when the world is silent. That is why the path of knowledge is very clear—difficult is to have the courage to follow it.

____________

Intellectual Formation Requirements

Intellectual formation fundamentally requires two tasks: to study the great authors and to study authors with radically conflicting world views. In the beginning, the obvious: it is a matter of respect for one’s own intelligence to toast with the great ones. The classics must be read, studied, absorbed, and integrated into the personality of the intellectual. Then, with the base set, it is possible to aim for evolution. The next step is to transform the mind into a violent battlefield. The intellectual necessarily needs the conflict, the clash of ideas: only in this way is it possible to progress. To read conflicting authors is to understand the complexity of life, the variations in the mechanisms of perception, to recognize and accept the ambiguous. Moreover, talk to different minds, if sincerely, not only widens knowledge but also imposes humility, but opens up merits where people say they do not exist, in short, it magnifies. This is why it is necessary to deal with opposites, to abandon prejudices, to free oneself from the chains of thought. The opposite path is to repeat what is convenient, deny contradictions, and never evolve. To let ideas burst freely is to let them, by force, drag the mind to the intelligence.

____________

Beat or Succumb to Death

It seems, at the end of all torments, to sum up life in the following question: beat or succumb to death? And the answer, which is nothing but the work itself, gives an additional torment (torments… are never exhausted!): overcoming death seems to depend on an uncontrollable external factor and subject to uncertainty, that is, subject to failure even if it is unjust. That is to say: the damned fortune, even at the end of all things, even after all trials and even after formidable answers, seems to have a decisive influence. And so the impulse to curse life seems to be irresistible.

____________

The Clash Between Vanity and Conscience

Some natures impress by the complete absence of the clash between vanity and conscience. Perhaps by the very weakness of conscience, which justifies seeing it ignored by the most popular currents of psychology. In some, it seems simply that it does not manifest. But it is incredible to think of someone who, not once in his life, prays for the pettiness of his own conduct, for the motivators of his own “will”. To do so and not proceed with condemnation would be understandable, but the fact is that, in most people, there is not the slightest trace of conflict.

____________