December 21
The time of life is a point, existence in flux, perception dim, the body perishable, posthumous fame oblivion. What, then, can be our guide? One thing alone: philosophy.
Meditations II,17
Listening mode
The time of life is a point, existence in flux, perception dim, the body perishable, posthumous fame oblivion. What, then, can be our guide? One thing alone: philosophy.
When you read a letter you wrote years ago, you recognise your handwriting at once, but not always your certainties. Some things seemed unambiguous to you then that you would think about for longer today. Presumably some of what seems clear to you now will strike you the same way later.
This might suggest that your judgement can't be trusted. Only, you have no other. You can't step outside your perception to examine it from without. The blur you notice, you notice with the same eyes.
What is curious, though, is that the old letter shows you anything at all. Something in you has moved and gained distance in the process, so that the earlier error becomes visible. This distance is not a fixed vantage point. It comes about rather by reading your own sentences once more without straight away defending or dismissing them.
You put the letter back in the drawer. What you thought about it today, you write down nowhere. Someday it will be just as old all the same.
