"Seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom;
yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom;
seek learning, even by study and also by faith."
Doctrine and Covenants 88:118

"And the gatherer sought to find pleasing words, worthy writings, words of Truth."
Ecclesiastes 12:10



Thursday, January 25, 2018

Havel's Musings on the Phenomenological Structure of the Universe - 4

"The fourth and final order....is nothing more and nothing less than the real order of things, of human things above all, the reality around us, its rules, customs, circumstances, relationships - just as they are, which means full of variety, contradictions, complexities, with everything that is good and bad, pretty and ugly, meaningful and absurd.  It is simply the 'mishmash of everything' that we call life.  It includes not only the sphere of established practices, customs, conventions, prejudices and habits, etc., but also the sphere of natural and healthy demands and reasonable expectations.  It is a certain system of activity into which one may enter responsibly or irresponsibly, to fulfill the best in oneself or to realize the worst; to change that order for the better or to develop everything in it that is base, distorted and alienating.  But regardless of how he does it or of the quality of his intentions, man may enter and find a place in this order easily, authentically, spontaneously and with supreme confidence, or on the contrary, he may find his efforts from start to finish accompanied by degrees of uncertainty, doubts or a gnawing sensation of his own strangeness."

Vaclav Havel
Letters to Olga

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