Inventively crafted malicious posturing means little or nothing until there is some fallout. Otherwise it is pointless bravura. Adopting a public position for a private vengeance will amount to windbag bluster unless accompanied by an explosion of some sort. For good or for bad the hostility which stirs up such black-hearted thoughts seldom goes into action; the sentiments just simmer unnoticeably.
Philosophy, a term probably coined by Pythagoras (c. 570 – c. 495 BC), derives from “philosophia“, literally “love of wisdom“. It is “the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind and language“. It sounds rather more grand than it is perhaps because classic philosophical questions include such gripping breakfast-table discussions as, “Is it possible to know anything and to prove it?” However, philosophy also poses more practical and concrete questions such as: “Is there a best way to live?“, “Is it better to be just or unjust (if you can get away with it)?“, “Do humans have free will?“, “Is political utopia a hopeful dream or hopeless fantasy?” Historically “philosophy” encompassed any body of knowledge, investigations related to art, science, politics or other pursuits. For example, “Is beauty objective or subjective?“
Last evening – a glorious Friday evening and a budding start to a hot summer weekend – we dined with a younger couple with whom we’ve been professionally and casually acquainted for twenty years or so. Our social engagement was initiated late afternoon by an impromptu telephone invitation. There were some hiccups to overcome (involving moderate re-scheduling) but the inclination to accept the invitation was there particularly as the couple is quick-witted. The congregation is something about which we had been talking for the past two years so there was momentum as well.
Many in the world are intrigued by the US Republican convention currently being staged. There is a temporary suspension of interest following the proclamation last night by House of Representative Speaker Paul D. Ryan that Mr. Donald J. Trump is the official nominee of the Party. Things won’t reignite until Thursday when Mr. Trump delivers his much awaited acceptance speech (followed naturally by a Benediction from Roger W. Gries, Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus).
It is not of course unthinkable that someone such as I who is precipitously close to 70 years of age should unceremoniously descend into the vernacular of a curmudgeon, a bad-tempered, surly person, a grouch in so many words.
Often I have lately remarked that my life seems uncommonly busy for one who is retired from the practice of law. It has however dawned on me that there is a complicating factor in addition to straddling the international boundary between Canada and America every six months or so. That factor is my mother. As she incrementally declines in every respect so too my duties escalate commensurately. It is fair to say that I handle her residential care, her finances and her professional health issues. Add to that the distance of approximately 100 kms between her and me (and the fact that I visit her almost every day howsoever briefly) it is small wonder that so much of my time is consumed in occupation of one sort or another. Not to mention that our personal grocery shopping has been delegated to me as a trade-off for evening food preparation though I still insist upon preparing my own breakfast as any gentleman would of course do. If we occasionally have lunch it is normally at the Golf Club in Appleton, the Ivy Lea Cub in Gananoque or Atomica in Kingston. The rigidity of our schedule speaks to our conformity to patterns generally, both here in the summer and on Hilton Head Island in the winter (though naturally the conventions differ noticeably given my abeyance from my mother).
Human beings are social animals and the tenor of our social life is one of the most important influences on our mental health. Without positive, durable relationships, both our minds and our bodies fall apart.
Our survival as a species similarly hinges on our capacity for social living. Most of human history was spent in small groups in which each was dependent on the others for survival, and evidence suggests this is the condition to which we are best adapted.
Psychology Today © 1991-2016 Sussex Publishers, LLC
It has come to this: the thrust of my social life springs from the agency of a bicycle ride.
What bliss! A refreshing shower after a morning bike ride! Followed by the judicious application of various hair compounds spanning the breadth of gloss and goo, paste and mud. Earlier we delayed our constitutional bike ride long enough to compose a sustaining breakfast of sliced green apple, a veggie omelet and a “round” of Nan bread. And lots and lots of coffee, the dark roast espresso model. This morning I commenced my physiotherapy exercises which, while surprisingly humble, nonetheless portend improvement of my condition. I am charged to repeat the exercises twice daily. I have also begun using small weights in an equally unpretentious routine.
Unfinished business. It sounds so clandestine. It’s almost something you’d expect to hear from a Mafioso. There is an unmistakeable element of revenge. But to my mind it’s just getting things behind me, out of the way, done. I abhor loose ends, trails of tangled threads. Like any other business when it comes to unfinished business there is a right way and a wrong way to go about it. One can’t abruptly end what one was doing. No, no, it requires application and thought, the standard way of concluding a matter. It has to be brought to fruition not merely shut down or abandoned.
Dresden pressed the doorbell and waited. He felt good about himself as he stood in the porch way before the wide door with the bevelled glass, trying to catch a glimpse of himself in the reflection. His dark blue suit was tailor-made of Samuelson wool from the Montreal garment district. The Oxford shoes were a bit tight but he knew the discomfort would vanish once he had had his first two whiskeys. There was assured to be a good supply of whiskey, even if only Dewars. Jeffrey – the steward – routinely betrayed his thankful lack of training by filling the crystal tumbler with booze before adding the ice.