Random Reflections On Being Here
The annoying thing about unrestrained government authority is that it does not magically become beneficial when it happens to fall into the hands of the faction you prefer. The insidious thing about unrestrained government authority is that it invariably appears to have become a beneficial thing when in the hands of the faction you prefer.
Everything political leaders do is questionable, because only a man with questionable motives would ever pursue political leadership. To doubt this is to deny everything that reason has ever learned about politics and governance — especially when the person doubting it is the one pursuing political leadership.
Every thoughtful and enthusiastic young man imagines how he would put everything right if only he were in a position of authority. Every mature and sincere man wonders whether he might at least prevent things from getting any worse were he in a position of influence. Every old man of character knows that dying at peace in his library is the only noble or even reasonable thing to do in the face of the irreversible decay of everything around him in the worlds of authority and influence.
Do not have a party. Do not join a faction. Do not believe in any dire necessities or last chances. Allow neither your intellect nor your spiritedness to cave in under the stress of vested interests. When buffeted by bureaucratic winds, let your character be the most flexible and firmly rooted tree. When imprisoned within walls of diseased legislation, let your mind be a secret closet within the prison. When torn from everything you love, let your soul be the all-encompassing cosmos, redeeming and restoring all.
I would like to tell you the truth. But I do not know it yet. Do you?
Ask me a question, and I will talk all day. Tell me your certainty, and I will wander off to the nearest river trail. Thus, I can read Plato and Aristotle till the cows come home. Kant? Hegel? Thirty minutes on a good day; beyond that, torture. (The last important German, interestingly, was Nietzsche, who offered a similar critique, albeit in his unnecessarily German manner.) I don’t watch television either, for more or less the same reason. Everything is too German these days, and not Greek enough. All precision, no freedom. All education, no learning. All diligence, no dallying. All sensitivity, no reason. All answers, no wonder. All obedience, no nobility.
