1.07.2012

Epictetian Preachin'

Here we go, here's a little uplift, to match our weather today:



Oooooh, if only "everyday" felt this good!
Going to go eat goose with friends tonight (my idea),
doing research on Stoic philosophy in combination with Foucault's use of their ethical care of the self,
sat in a park where they were mulching Xmas trees, which smelled better than you could possibly imagine.

Well, I won't bore you with all the rest of my "day, people"-- for it is not your duty to mark down and be concerned with my joys and ills, nor mine to fret and tut-tut over yours. As Epictetus tells us:

But the judge condemns you on the charge of impiety. And did not the judges similarly condemn Socrates? Surely it is no concern of yours...
Your father has a certain function, and if he does not perform it, he has destroyed the father in him, the man who loves his offspring, the man of gentleness within him. Do not seek to make him lose anything else on this account...
Again, it is your function to defend yourself firmly, respectfully, without passion. Otherwise, you have destroyed within you the son, the respectful man, the man of honour. What then? Is the judge secure? No; but he too runs just as great a risk. Why, then, are you afraid of what decision he is going to render? What have you to do with another man's evil? (Discourses, Book III, xviii)


So, if I be condemned, I will not let that affect the respect which I hold for myself, nor will it affect my judgment on what a nice fucking day it is.

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