Tag: Wisdom

• February 26, 2014

  Philosophical portraiture: The common ear

  The screen shot included below is an example of philosophical portraiture by Aleksandra Marcella Lauro. Philosophical portraiture is concerned with the project of self-cultivation–specifically, with how one comes into contact with what is higher. Here, the figure on the viewer’s left is wholesome, earnest, yet naive in the ways of the world. The figure on…
• January 28, 2014

  Dangling on a branch

  Our lives dangle on a branch. While the fool wishes to be held firm or let go, the wise man dangles freely.
• January 29, 2013

  ‘Luckiness is not getting what you want…’

  Luckiness is not getting what you want but realizing that it wasn’t worth wanting after all. This is called adulthood. Unluckiness is getting what you want, only to grow thoughtlessly into old age. This is called childhood. Also: prose.
• December 6, 2012

  Simplicity, silence, natural eloquence

  Porphyry relates this anecdote about his spiritual guide Plotinus: One day, when Origen came into his class, Plotinus blushed from head to toe, and made as if to stand up and put an end to the class. When Origen urged him to continue, Plotinus said, “One’s desire to talk is reduced when one knows that…
• July 10, 2012

  A Yogi in Central Park

  The man claimed to be a Yogi. We were in Central Park when he said this, and we were on our way to meditate beneath a crooked tree. The Yogi asked us questions, all of the “do you know…” form and told anecdotes largely of the folk wisdom variety. Are we yoga practitioners? Do we…