Hesiod, Works and Days, lines 11-40

Below is my attempt at "translating" (see notes from earlier on Thomas Merton) Hesiod's Greek (using Perseus) for the second major chunk of his text - lines 11 through 41.


Is there but one kind of strife upon the earth?
No, there are two.  A man who came to know the first
would applaud.  The second he would blame. They are
two souls.  One fosters evil war and ceaseless fights.
Her no mortal loves, but under force, and through
will of deathless gods, men honor deadly strife.
But indeed, the other one dark Night birthed first.
Heaven dwelling Zeus, who sits on high, placed her
in the roots of earth.  Much better to man is she:
rousing work in all alike - the lazy too;
for a man craves work who sees another rich -
of a truth it urges him to plow for crops,
building well his home.  Neighbor with neighbor strives,
goading on to wealth - this strife is good for men.
Potter to potter, carpenter to carpenter
grudges, beggar envies beggar, and poets too resent.


Perses, O put these things within your heart.
Don't let evil strife restrain your heart from work,
watching raptly, hearing quarrels in the court.
For there's little care for arguments and courts
save abundant store has been laid safely down
in due time - Demeter's grain which earth brings forth.
When enough's heaped up, then bring dispute about
someone else's stuff (though you will only once
get that kind of chance).  But here, let us sort out
our fight by justice, godly and most excellent.
For indeed, when we divided inheritance
by large gifts you carried off the greater part,
bribing gold-greedy lords who love to judge such suits.
Fools!  Who cannot discern the half of a thing from the whole,
nor the greatness of mallow or the profit in asphodel.

T. H. White on Education

"The Wart did not know what Merlyn was talking about, but he liked him to talk.  He did not like the grown-ups who talked down to him like a baby, but the ones that just went on talking in their usual way, leaving him to leap along in their wake, jumping at meanings, guessing, clutching at known words, and chuckling at complicated jokes as they suddenly dawned.  He had the glee of the porpoise then, pouring and leaping through strange seas."

...................

"Education is experience, and the essence of experience is self-reliance"

T. H. White
The Sword in the Stone

Chuang Tzu on Winning

When an archer is shooting for nothing
He has all his skill.
If he shoots for a brass buckle
He is already nervous.
If he shoots for a prize of gold
He goes blind.
Or sees two targets-
he is out of his mind!

His skill has not changed.  But the prize
Divides him.  He cares.
He thinks more of winning
Than of shooting-
And the need to win
Drains him of power.

Thomas Merton
The Way of Chuang Tzu

Every Stranger You Meet

"Our purpose in life is spiritual transformation, and every encounter with a stranger is an opportunity to draw closer to that purpose.  Every human being is a universe, and, like all universes, every person is still in the process of creation.  When we come into someone's life, we enter an alternate world, and by entering it we change it....When you cross paths with a stranger, a new dimension comes into being, one in which both of you reside.  Every interaction with a new person is an opportunity to transform both your life and theirs.  This is an immense opportunity, if only we choose to recognize and take advantage of it.  Every encounter with a stranger is a chance to start over."

Rav P. S. Berg
The Essential Zohar

The Philosophy of Walking

The Philosophy of Walking
by Frederic Gros

Gross states that walking brings us three levels of freedom.

Even a short stroll brings "suspensive freedom" - "throwing off the burden of cares, forgetting business for a time."  You are "alienated from speed."  This is a temporary release, we return to our initial condition.

The second freedom is more "aggressive and rebellious."  It's the freedom of an extended road trip.  Kerouac and Snyder "on the road," reassessing civilization and its contents to some degree from the outside.

The third level is the freedom of renunciation.  This is the freedom of permanent drop out, the tramp, the wandering monk.  As Gros is a publishing academic from some French University, I assume he is talking about level three from a theoretical distance.

:)

I'm just sayin'....

Schiller on Creativity

Freud quotes the poet Schiller writing to a friend who complained of a lack of "creative power."

"The reason for your complaint lies, it seems to me, in the constraint which your intellect imposes upon your imagination.  Here I will make an observation, and illustrate it by allegory.  Apparently it is not good-and indeed it hinders the creative work of the mind-if the intellect examines too closely the ideas already pouring in, as it were, at the gates.  Regarded in isolation, and idea might be quite insignificant, and venturesome in the extreme, but it may acquire importance from an idea which follows it; perhaps, in a certain collocation with other ideas, which may seem equally absurd, it may be capable of furnishing a very serviceable link.  The intellect cannot judge all these ideas unless it can retain them until it has considered them in connection with these other ideas.  In the case of a creative mind, it seems to me, the intellect has withdrawn its watchers from the gates, and the ideas rush in pell-mell, and only then does it review and inspect the multitude.  You...are ashamed or afraid of the momentary and passing madness which is found in all real creators, the longer or shorter duration of which distinguishes the thinking artist from the dreamer.  Hence your complaints of unfruitfulness, for you reject too soon and discriminate too severely."

The Interpretation of Dreams

Doing by not Doing

One is never sure he understands aright the mystical experiences of another.  Especially those of a religion not his own.  Over more than a decade of engaging with Taoism I'm still not sure I understand.  The following paraphrase of Chuang Tzu from a fellow Christian (Thomas Merton) I find helpful in approaching the Taoist concept of "doing by not doing."

"The non-action of the wise man is not inaction.
It is not studied.  It is not shaken by anything.
The sage is quiet because he is not moved,
not because he wills to be quiet."

.....

"From emptiness comes the unconditioned.
From this, the conditioned, the individual things.
So from the sage's emptiness, stillness arises:
From stillness, action.  From action, attainment.
From their stillness comes their non-action, which is also action.
And is, therefore, their attainment.
For stillness is joy.  Joy is freedom from care
Fruitful in the long years.
Joy does all things without concern;
For emptiness, stillness, tranquility, tastelessness,
Silence and non-action
Are the root of all things."

The passage brings to mind my experience with Peck's community building exercises.  The quotes and concepts that follow are from The Different Drum.  In Peck's community model a group passes through four stages

• Psuedocommunity
• Chaos
• Emptiness
• Community

 "Chaos always centers around well-intentioned but misguided efforts to heal and convert."

"There are only two ways out of chaos....One is into organization-but organization is never community.  The only other way is into and through emptiness."

For Peck, emptiness in a group setting involves letting go of

• Expectations and Preconceptions
• Prejudices
• Ideology, Theology and Solutions
• The Need to Heal, Convert, Fix and Solve
• The Need to Control

"As a group moves into emptiness, a few of its members begin to share their own brokenness-their defeats, failures, doubts, fears, inadequacies and sins."

At the point when the group is struggling to understand what emptiness means here, the facilitators would offer a few hints or suggestions.  One of them is something to the effect of asking us to consider what it means to be silent until one is moved upon to speak.

"In this final stage a soft quietness descends.  It is a kind of peace.  The room is bathed in peace.  Then, quietly, a member begins to talk about herself.  She is being very vulnerable.  She is speaking of the deepest part of herself.  The group hangs on every word.  No one realized she was capable of such eloquence.
    When she is finished there is a hush.  It goes on a long time.  but it does not seem long.  There is no uneasiness in this silence.  Slowly, out of the silence, another member begins to talk.  He too is speaking very deeply, very personally, about himself."

From my perspective emptiness seems allied with Book of Mormon uses of the terms "humble," "humility," and "nothingness"  in the process of coming unto Christ.  Several intimate descriptions of how the quorum of the twelve operate seem eerily parallel to Peck's community.