On Being In Control

Life must be ordered hierachically. That is to say, every life is in fact ordered in a hierarchical way, whether one intends it or not — whether in a rational order or an irrational one. Most people’s lives, it goes without saying, are almost completely irrational in their hierarchies. But to live well requires that one’s internal ordering have the most essential activities and spiritual goals at the top, with all other activities and goals, to the extent they have any place at all, being subordinate to those essential things. In other words, all the practical aspects of life, including the ones that seem beneficial, can only be justified as supports for the most important activities. If those practical aspects (wealth-getting, eating, amusing oneself, sleeping, and so on) become a rival or an obstacle to the pursuit of beauty and wisdom, then they are not helping you, but harming you. The standard of helping and harming must always be, “Is this ‘good’ enhancing or at least materially supporting my ability to develop the subtlety of my understanding, the relentlessness of my search for truth, and the purity of my openness to wonder?” Anything that is neither enhancing nor supporting the soul’s development — or which perhaps was doing so but has gradually become a distraction due to exaggerated emphasis or for some other reason — is a liability, because it is now hindering growth, while the soul’s growth, or rather one’s growth into the soul, is the natural standard of the proper human hierarchy.

To be obsessed with one’s physical existence — its wellbeing, its comfort, its longevity, its pleasure — is to be mired in temporality; but Time, to the extent that one allows it to become the measure and rhythm of one’s existence, is the siren calling us toward the abyss, the nothingness. Hence the old human desire — which was obvious and common prior to the triumph of modern scientific materialism — to subordinate Time to ourselves, to make it our plaything, to subdue and domesticate it for our own benefit. This desire explains what music was for, back when humans still sensed their natural purpose, and had enough pride to assert themselves in resistance to the beast.