Month: June 2012

Creating a Magic Circle

~ themista

From A Philosophy of Solitude (1933), by John Cowper Powys:

The whole trend of our present-day ideas is pitifully wrong. It is all heading in the direction of more and more unhappiness. To tell us “to keep on smiling” as the preachers do, is enough to make us howl like the damned.

Optimistic catchwords combined with the torture of gregariousness are more than the strongest nerves can stand. All this feverish social laughter takes on a theatrical ghastliness, to an eye that has learnt to read the heart. The thing becomes a Mask of Horror, as if the anonymous corpses from the death-slabs of the Morgue were to rise up and mock and mow at us!

The only thing to do is to detach yourself at one stroke from all these agitating too-human interests. Earn your living. Stop competing and self-pitying; and live–even in the midst of all your friends–as if the streets were the Desert and you were alone with the over-arching sky.

From the old great writers of calmer ages, from the race-memories brought to us out of the air, from the ineffable essences of our own gathered-up moments of vision, there can be created, if we bend ourselves to the task, a magic circle around us which none of these invaders can cross. Life is too short, its sublime and tragic grandeur too deep, that we should turn from it to such bagatelles as these crowd-fashions.

The Vanity of Glory

~ themista

The original Themista was one of the most devoted followers of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. She was called the female Solon, and Epicurus dedicated a number of his works to her. She was also one of the first women in history to write a book of philosophy, which she entitled The Vanity of Glory. Her book was widely influential in antiquity–several hundred years after her death Cicero quoted from it in a speech before the Roman senate.

While the book is now lost, its title remains, and its truth has resonated over the centuries. A good philosopher will always understand that there is no more pathetic waste of time and energy than what is now called attention whoring. Those who succumb to the siren call of fame and celebrity are in pursuit of a sad illusion which will never make them happy. How much better to practice the Epicurean virtue of lathe biôsas, kai apobiôsas, which translates as live unknown, die unknown. If you wish to live a harmonious and contented existence, you need to fly under the radar. You’ll be glad you did.

I am now going to start posting an occasional vanity of glory quote, the kind of which Themista would probably have approved. I will start with one of the most memorable sonnets ever written, Ozymandias (1818), by Percy Bysshe Shelley:

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Garden of Serenity

~ themista

From A Chinese Garden of Serenity (1959), by Hung Tzu-ch’eng, translated by Chao Tze-chiang:

Life’s fortune and misfortune are caused entirely by the mind. Shakyamuni said: “A burning desire for gain is a pit of fire, and an indulgence in greed is a sea of suffering. Once our mind is purified, a flame is turned into a pool; and once our mind awakens us from a dream of worldliness, our ship of life is anchored along the shore of the Great Beyond.” Hence, a slight change of the mind can suddenly make a different situation. Should we not be careful?