Arquivo de philosophy | Page 99 of 121

I Would Be Infinitely Happier If I Were a Tree

I would be infinitely happier if I were a tree. I correct: a stone—today trees are embraced…—Stones do not listen, they are not bothered, they are not asked, they do not pay taxes and, that is exactly the word, they live in peace. If not as components of the landscape, they are invisible. And who can tell the limits of their inner universe? The incapacity to listen—I presume; because if they listen, they never react…—is something really enviable and superior. The weak human mind, so vulnerable to terrible disturbances coming from noise, which submit it and silence it in extreme ease, has only to envy the placidity of the life of this noble rocky being…

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The Word “Study”

The word “study,” in common sense, refers to acquiring training for the performance of a professional function. The “study,” if taken as the search for the answer to questions of a personal, existential nature or as the mere investigation of existence, is no longer “study,” but a hobby. That is to say: if not destined to a practical purpose, the effort is less noble, dispensable. That, of course, is what the pragmatism of these days thinks, the pragmatism that dimensions its own old sagacity agonizing on a hospital bed.

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Dignity

Dignity: insubmission to destiny; complete refusal to play a social role; reaction contrary to instincts; freedom, even in privation and pain; ability to choose and take responsibility for one’s own acts; resilience to fortune; effort, even if useless; respect by one’s own conscience.

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Personality is demarcated by choices

Personality is demarcated by choices. And, of course, the lack of personality is the inability to choose. I admit it is cozy to have the medium as an architect of reality: this is no less than exempting oneself from any responsibility. However, it is assuming submission, evidencing a myopic and very limited understanding of existence. Raskolnikov is not the corollary of an unjust and oppressive medium, but the portrait of a conscious action and its consequences. It is good to remember Viktor Frankl: the human being is the reaction to circumstances; the final act vetoes any response, but the rest of the piece will always give way to action.

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