Enjoying the view from Limbo
There are three types of people whom we commonly call friends, namely those who have proved useful to us in our practical lives, those who share pleasant activities with us, and those who mirror our virtues. Accordingly, the three types of relationships may be referred to, by way of analyzing the general notion into its constituent parts, as friendships of utility, friendships of...
Here in Korea, drinking is not merely a commonplace activity but a deeply embedded ritualistic element of social life. And I work at a university, where the social ritual aspects of the “drinking culture” are exacerbated by the universal college-age confusion of new-found debauchery with burgeoning freedom. Hence, I am often met with skeptical double-takes and wide-eyed “Why nots?” when I inform students...
A student who is about to move away from home to begin graduate studies in philosophy was ruminating about the value and significance of detaching oneself from relationships and sentimental entanglements which distort or limit independent thought. As a young man deeply interested in both Eastern and Western thought, he mentioned having recently heard a Buddhist monk explaining the spiritual benefits of cutting...
I live in a world they will never care to understand. They live in a world I wish I could not understand.
I have no memory of ever having felt lonely while alone — but many memories of feeling lonely in company.
I have always disliked myself most….
A man when alone — I mean truly alone, not merely waiting for others to arrive — occupies his own depths. He lives in ocean currents and the most profound silence. Two such deep-flowing individuals, in conversation, may hope to preserve some of that serious silence between them. For the source of all conversation — using that word in its essential, definitive sense...
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