The Soul's Cry
Philosophy's
main task is to respond to the soul's cry; to make sense of and thereby free
ourselves from the hold of our griefs and fears. Philosophy
calls us when we've reached the end of our rope. The insistent feeling that
something is not right with our lives and the longing to be restored to our
better selves will not go away. Our fears of death and being alone, our
confusion about love and sex, and our sense of impotence in the face of our
anger and outsized ambitions bring us to ask our first sincere philosophical
questions. It's
true: there is no obviously apparent meaning to our lives. Cruelty, injustice,
bodily discomfort, illness, annoyances, and inconveniences big and small are
the prosaic facts of any day. So what do we do about this? How do we—in spite
of the pain and suffering in the outside world and our own wayward
emotions—live ennobled lives rather than succumbing to a despairing numbness
and merely coping like a mule with tedium and unbidden responsibilities. When
the soul cries out, it is a sign that we have arrived at a necessary, mature
stage of self-reflection. The secret is not to get stuck there dithering or
wringing your hands, but to move forward by resolving to heal yourself.
Philosophy asks us to move into courage. Its remedy is the unblinking
excavation of the faulty and specious premises on which we base our lives and
our personal identity.
The
real purpose of philosophy
True philosophy doesn't involve exotic rituals, mysterious liturgy, or quaint beliefs. Nor is it just abstract theorizing and analysis. It is, of course, the love of wisdom. It is the art of living a good life. As such, it must be rescued from religious gurus and from professional philosophers lest it be exploited as an esoteric cult or as a set of detached intellectual techniques or brain teasers to show how clever you are. Philosophy is intended for everyone, and it is authentically practiced only by those who wed it with action in the world toward a better life for all.
Philosophy's
purpose is to illuminate the ways our soul has been infected by unsound
beliefs, untrained tumultuous desires, and dubious life choices and preferences
that are unworthy of us. Self-scrutiny applied with kindness is the main
antidote. Besides rooting out the soul's corruptions, the life of wisdom is
also meant to stir us from our lassitude and move us in the direction of an
energetic, cheerful life.
Skilled
use of logic, disputation, and the developed ability to name things correctly
are some of the instruments philosophy gives us to achieve abiding
clear-sightedness and inner tranquility, which is true happiness.
This
happiness, which is our aim, must be correctly understood. Happiness is commonly
mistaken for passively experienced pleasure or leisure. That conception of
happiness is good only as far as it goes. The only worthy object of all our
efforts is a flourishing life.
True
happiness is a verb. It's the ongoing dynamic performance of worthy deeds. The
flourishing life, whose foundation is virtuous intention, is something we
continually improvise, and in doing so our souls mature. Our life has
usefulness to ourselves and to the people we touch.
We
become philosophers to discover what is really true and what is merely the
accidental result of flawed reasoning, recklessly acquired erroneous judgments,
well-intentioned but misguided teachings of parents and teachers, and
unexamined acculturation.
Epictetus circa A.D. 100
as interpreted by Sharon Lebelle
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