Ava put white roses her dad gave her for Valentine's Day on one of the window sills. I just happened to glance over at them a few moments ago with the naked window behind them allowing the light to stream in all around the flowers. It made me stand still. I just watched the flowers that had already begun to loose the most vibrant part of their life and slightly drooped for a few moments. What a marvelous thing. Each petal, each color from the green base to the offwhite bloom is starkly beautiful. That makes me happy.
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Being able to observe growth and color makes me happy. What does it take for humans to be happy?
I'm reading The Republic for my "Classical Quest for Justice" course and Socrates goes into a speech about how he believes societies form. You need this, I need this, I make this, you can make that. Let's get together and make our lives easier by providing for each other. One of the most striking portions I've read so far follows:
Man risen above the primitive state, yet not so elevated that much technological advancement has taken place. What is wrong with this? Well, as Glaucon, who is speaking with Socrates will point out, it's life without embellishment. No abundance, or advanced medicines, or artists, and so on. Obviously any human whose grown in the last few centuries would think this is an abomination to human excellence, but is it? I don't know.
In my "Evolution" course last semester we we're examining different species and my professor was explaining that despite some of their inabilities to rapidly intellectually advance, they still function as perfect models of what they are. But we're capable of higher thinking, so it makes sense that we would seek to advance our growth-enabled brains as much as possible. What does that mean? Have we progressed as the human species in a way that is most compatible with human excellence?
It seems that there is something very beautiful about the state of life Socrates describes in this entry. Could human excellence be something very different from what is contemporarily envisioned? If such simplicity can be the birthplace of happiness for humans, are we missing something while nature scoffs at our "human progress?" I don't know. But it's something to sit and think about. It might change your life.
Being able to observe growth and color makes me happy. What does it take for humans to be happy?
I'm reading The Republic for my "Classical Quest for Justice" course and Socrates goes into a speech about how he believes societies form. You need this, I need this, I make this, you can make that. Let's get together and make our lives easier by providing for each other. One of the most striking portions I've read so far follows:
"First, let's consider what manner of life men so provided for will lead. Won't they make bread, wine, clothing, and shows? And, when they have built houses, they will work in the summer, for the most part naked and without shoes, and in the winter adequately clothed and shod. For food they will prepare barley meal and wheat flour; they will cook it and knead it. Setting out noble loaves of barely and wheat on some reeds or clean leaves, they will stretch out children. Afterwards they will drink wine and, crowned with wreathes, and not produce children beyond their means, keeping an eye out against poverty or war."-Translated by Allan Bloom.
Man risen above the primitive state, yet not so elevated that much technological advancement has taken place. What is wrong with this? Well, as Glaucon, who is speaking with Socrates will point out, it's life without embellishment. No abundance, or advanced medicines, or artists, and so on. Obviously any human whose grown in the last few centuries would think this is an abomination to human excellence, but is it? I don't know.
In my "Evolution" course last semester we we're examining different species and my professor was explaining that despite some of their inabilities to rapidly intellectually advance, they still function as perfect models of what they are. But we're capable of higher thinking, so it makes sense that we would seek to advance our growth-enabled brains as much as possible. What does that mean? Have we progressed as the human species in a way that is most compatible with human excellence?
It seems that there is something very beautiful about the state of life Socrates describes in this entry. Could human excellence be something very different from what is contemporarily envisioned? If such simplicity can be the birthplace of happiness for humans, are we missing something while nature scoffs at our "human progress?" I don't know. But it's something to sit and think about. It might change your life.
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