Dear Friends,
It seems to me that in many ways we are like flies trapped in a house. We think we see what is good but it’s only a misdirection. So we keep banging our heads against the window. We see the good, it is right in front of us, but we cannot reach it directly. Like a fly we just bang into the obstruction thinking that it will go away someday…
The problem is that what we think is good is only what we are told and shown is good. We see the Elite having sex with every one they meet and we think that would be good for us. We see the Elite spending gobs of money on foolishness and we think that would be good for us too. We see the Elite living in mansions and we are convinced that is the ticket to happiness.
As a result we fly to what we perceive as good. But we keep hitting a roadblock. Some invisible barrier that stops us from being happy. The Mansion is never big enough, the money is never enough, the joy of things is transitory, and the joy is sexual gratification leads to misery, ala Schopenhauer…
Socrates in his endless discussions about justice always portrayed people as being misdirected to what is really good. The example of the cave is illuminating. Pun intended… We are shown by those that control the projector what to believe. Socrates said that a philosopher is someone who sees the world for what it truly is. Not as we are shown it to be. The reality of what is really good is an example…
He also argued that people are unjust because they do not know better. If they knew what was really good for them… Presumably we would be more like Socrates or Solon and less like Alcibiades or Mineo…
That good is within us. Not outside us. Religions agree that when we seek good externally we find sorrow, when we seek good within us we find happiness. Think about this. Some people who are very poor are happy people. Some people who are very wealthy are unhappy. Some people who are famous are unhappy. Some people who have many things are unhappy. But most tellingly, some people who are sickly, are happy… Obviously wealth, fame, possessions, or even health is not the common denominator. Something else must be…
And so we keep banging our heads against the glass…
