Reading Plutarch’s Moralia has inspired both cautious curiosity and deliberate dismissal; the one because I am amused to know the thinking of the ancients, the other because it is hopelessly patrician and disingenuous. The precepts regarding education, borrowing of money, restraining anger and contentedness of mind are inarguable.  I wasn’t however prepared for the essay regarding friends and enemies. In short, he embraced the singular theme that the two are united. His summary conclusion is this:

“For fire burns whoever touches it, but it also gives light and warmth, and is an instrument of art to all those who know how to use it.”

Excerpt From
Plutarch’s Morals
Plutarch

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Winter is upon us. There is no escaping the seasonal shift. The air is frosty, the trees are stark and crystalline. There are wispy snow drifts on the distant farmhouse rooftops. The vision now is predominantly inward, huddling among the bejewelled coloured rugs and the dark furniture, soothed by the richness of the crystal decanters of vermillion Porto and auburn Cognac. Christmas cards ornament the console with fanciful fireside images of gifts and sleeping cats and dogs.

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Throughout my life there have been appointments. In prep school there was morning chapel.  We literally went to church every day of the week and twice on Sundays (matins and vespers). Then there was football practice in the afternoon followed in the evening by a short break (I forget what it was called) between studies and “lights out!” The next morning the alarm in the hallways rang at 7:00 am and it was into the showers, then breakfast at the Great Hall followed by classes. When I reached undergraduate studies the critical times were for lectures. Subsequently at law school, the same. Then in private practice came client appointments (only one of which I mistakenly missed – and for which I dutifully crawled) plus deciding when to leave for a short vacation. Finally, at this closing stage of my life, most appointments revolve around doctors, dentists and hospitals – checkups, consultations and surgery.

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When one is young it at first seems improbable that one will reach old age; and when we do, seldom do we think of it as achievement. There are nonetheless advantages that come with age, among them retirement, in addition to unblemished leisure and finally the time just to think, to recall and to reflect. The Greek biographer and philosopher Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (Latin) aka Plutarch (c.46–c.120) had a more rousing version of the cause.

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Today it is snowing, changing to rain then wind. We’re getting what I expect is a trace of the storms currently affecting the North Atlantic coast of the United States. Tomorrow however is forecast to be a sunny day. And – because I haven’t installed winter tyres (relying instead upon my “all seasons”) I have therefore resolved, in preparation for our journey to the Pembroke Regional Hospital to meet with a surgeon regarding my recent melanoma cancer diagnosis,  to plug in the car for 100% charging.

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Events, exposures, springboards and opportunities unmistakably abound in life (as of course do obstructions, pitfalls, fences, corrals and signposts) . Life is a jumbled sea of bobbing, floating, alluring, incoherent, disengaging and passing moorings. At times the rope is virtually thrown to us from willing and eager hands stationed upon a steady and inviting pier. Sometimes the berth or lanyard is hidden from sight but resting just beneath the fog. The attraction can be no more than a whiff or skiff. Sometimes we either bravely or whimsically allow the incidents to evaporate or vanish from view. By comparison even in the context of outward disparity and misfortune, there are occasions when people claim to have attached themselves to meaningful adjustment. Yet while it is hoped that each of us has, when the moment presented itself, made the felicitous choice, there remains nonetheless an immutable and unforgiving recognition; namely, that – whatever the decision – we are ultimately aligned to it. It is (predominantly at least) a rigid conclusion: I am here.

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The sky today is a flat velvetty grey, a uniform blanket of mournfulness with scarcely a shard of white or blue difference. Having decided  (for the nonce I am certain) that Mozart, Chopin and Gershwin are predictable and therefore unattractively repetitive, I am for the moment uplifted and diverted instead by Vangelis, Alexis Ffrench and Ennio Morricone. The diverse entertainment has easily trumped listening to the news about shooting, endless political rebuttals and perilous economic prediction. There is an uncommonly large flock of Canada geese floating upon the river. Comically they maintain a vague resemblance of a V-shape even on the water. In spite of – or perhaps because of – their seemingly purposeless congregation, they appear to be on the verge of departure. Things everywhere echo preparation for retirement or evaporation: late crop harvesting in the Village of Blakeney, a stored travel trailer in the backyard of a rural residence along the Panmure Road, the late dawn and the early sunset.

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Being as I am a graduate student of philosophy, and likewise a lover of portrait and landscape art and photography, it is not odd that I should be drawn to the philosophy of aesthetics (the branch of philosophy that deals with the principles of beauty and artistic taste).

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In the past few days I’ve encountered people in the throes of organizing holiday decorations. Some were carrying bags of conspicuously glistening accessories from the trunk of their car; others sorting through neglected paraphernalia in their basement lockers; some even proudly carried a wreath of real fir and pine. Already there are those who have ornamented their apartment door with a holiday trapping.

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In winter the image of hauling wood in the forest is typically Canadian.  Associated with that frosty image is the cabin or longhouse for dining. Then in turn follows the scope of pancakes. Here I admit to having a limited view of possibilities. This limitation is the result of having devoted the entirety of my pancake knowledge to rural pancake restaurants or roadside restaurants wherein I have routinely ordered what was often the only choice on the menu (barring perhaps such refined elements as cinnamon spice or bananas). But let’s face it, the driving credentials are normally butter and maple syrup (real maple syrup naturally).

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