Friday, April 6, 2012

NICHOMACHEA

When I get this way it seems like the right thing to do is to write down what I think, what I think has nothing to with what I am supposed to be writing about except this:

eudamonia: a state of intellectual, moral and total excellence, a frictionless existence where one's knowledge, feelings, actions and pleasures are aligned in perfect unity

If I'm not sure about something I always talk about it either in the dead particulars or in the super abstract, I hate thinking about it in between because that doesn't seem to be the point, or the right object of observation. Things in between are too volatile and inevitably so since they are neither tied to reality nor removed entirely from it. I drew a circle with my finger while I was talking about what I think of perfect love, I ended where I started. This is the abstract idea of what I think I want from everything in life and my singular conviction to it reinforces the feelings that I derive from what happens in material reality. I cannot draw a circle without going away from the start, but I also cannot draw the circle if I don't eventually come back to it.

It reminds me of another idea which I have shamefully forgotten about mostly but I will say that it has a lot to do with Hegel. The spirit takes on a form which alienates Man from himself and in the alienation he recognizes what he is and when he is self-aware he is truly himself and the process of self-realization is complete. There is perfect freedom to be found in perfect knowledge, but alienation is a part of attaining self-knowledge and so maybe alienation and ignorance is already a step past the initial point but must move further away before it can reach its end.

Not really a good conclusion to this thought but this figures out two things:
1) Why I always feel the need to run from what I want
2) Why I place inordinate significance on things that bring me back to or towards what I had left


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