Tag: philosophy

One of the greatest inherent difficulties in investigating reality is harmonizing the awareness of individual insignificance with the individual need to act. The former comes automatically, when one contrasts the size and complexity of the universe with the possibilities of the observer. However, if we accept being, if we accept the irrevocability of being, we must also accept a reason, a necessity. Hence the conclusion: one is almost nothing, what one does is almost nothing, but one is because it is a force to be and to do

Procrastination, in the face of the conscience of duty, is an infamy. It shames and saddens. And yet it is so commonplace… It seems that it can only be overcome through habit, which is constantly threatened by the opposite habit, which, if allowed, really shames and saddens. The conscience of duty, therefore, results in a permanent tension, which seems bearable, and even manageable without much effort, as long as the productive cycle continues and repetition seems simpler than interrupting it. Procrastinate once, twice, and the situation changes completely…

Lavelle makes an interesting distinction between the free man and the slave, identifying the former as the one who makes joy coincide with his most habitual activity, and the latter as the one who separates them. Thus, what distinguishes them is the satisfaction in what they do, which goes beyond the circumstances to which they are subjected. Of all the things that flow from this vision, this is perhaps the most important: sometimes it takes little to be free, and sometimes one is a slave without knowing it.

Another one by Lavelle:

Toute notre responsabilité porte donc sur l’usage des puissances qui nous appartiennent en propre. Nous pouvons les laisser perdre ou les faire fructifier. Ainsi notre vocation ne peut être maintenue que si nous restons perpétuellement à son niveau, si nous nous montrons toujours digne d’elle. Le rôle de notre volonté est plus modeste qu’on ne croit ; c’est seulement de servir notre génie, de détruire devant lui les obstacles qui l’arrêtent, de lui fournir sans cesse un nouvel aliment : ce n’est point de modifier son train naturel ni de lui imprimer une direction qu’elle a choisie.

The most obvious distinction for he who seriously discusses topics such as vocation, happiness, and fulfillment is to use words such as responsibility, effort, and duty. The “will”, therefore, can never be understood as an inclination toward the pleasant, the pleasurable, the Freudian infantile pleasure, but only as an effective commitment to overcoming obstacles, as a resistance that prevents the individual from moving away from his own center, and does so only by stimulating him to be what he is.