HEAD(hed), (n.) 1. the top part of the human body or the front part of an animal where the eyes, nose, east and mouth are. "Your brain is in your head." DIBS(dibz), (n.) 2. a thick, sweet syrup made in countries of the East, especially the Middle East, from grape juice or dates. [Arabic "debs"]--World Book Dictionary, 1976.
"G. K. Chesterton, the "Prince of Paradox," is at his witty best in this collection of twenty essays and articles from the turn of the twentieth century. Focusing on "heretics" - those who pride themselves on their superiority to Christian views - Chesterton appraises prominent figures who fall into that category from the literary and art worlds... those who hold incomplete and inadequate views about "life, the universe, and everything." He is, in short, criticizing all that host of non-Christian views of reality, as he demonstrated in his follow-up book Orthodoxy. The book is both an easy read and a difficult read. But he manages to demonstrate, among other things, that our new 21st century heresies are really not new because he himself deals with most of them." (Goodreads)
"Hecato says : 'I can show you a philtre [potion], compounded without drugs, herbs, or any witch's incantation: 'If you be loved, love.' " And what is love? Later in this letter, Seneca defines love as "friendship run mad."
He goes on:
"Now there is great pleasure, not only in maintaining old and established friendships, but also in beginning and acquiring new ones. There is the same difference between winning a new friend and having already won him, as there is between the farmer who sows and the farmer who reaps. The philosopher Attalus used to say: 'It is more pleasant to make than to keep a friend, as it is more pleasant to the artist to paint than to have finished painting.'"
What is the purpose of friendship? Is it to collect people for the purpose of support or help? Seneca suggests the purpose of friendship is to nurture virtue. How does one do that? By gathering people in order to provide comfort to one who is sick, to share what you have with someone who is need.
There is a difference between mere existence and a happy existence. Mere existence is self-serving and uses people that could be friends. A happy existence does not seek it's own fortune but serves others; that is, it is an existence that relates to, contributes to, invests in others and is able to call them "friends." And one can still say he or she is self-sufficient.
But there is another factor to consider:
Should a man lose his property, his family, his friends--has he lost everything? No!
He had property and now it is gone.
He had family and they are gone.
He had friends and they are gone.
Has one lost or merely "returned" what was given for a little while? The people and property one has is for a time (the Stoics said that nothing that can be taken is "good"), but he is happiest when able to nurture virtue with others. So one needs relationships, friends, in order for this to happen.
But when friends, family, property are gone, he "can retire into himself and give himself over to his own thoughts."
Legend has it that the astronomer Ptolemy (1st century A.D.) suggested that falling stars were caused by the gods moving in the heavens, thus knocking stars out of their places. Somehow people reasoned that that if the gods were moving, they must be getting close to earth so they would lift their "prayers" or "wishes" (literally, "desires") whenever they saw the stars falling in hopes the gods would notice and grant a favorable answer. But how does one wish on falling star? Once you see it, it's gone before the wish or prayer can be made! The answer is simple: meteor shower. That's how to get your wish. Mrs. Ann Hodges had a wish fall right into her lap. Sort of. In 1954 Mrs. Hodges was sleeping on the couch when a 8 1/2 pound meteorite fell through her house and into her living room where it bounced off the radio and struck her left hip leaving her with a bruise. Not sure what she was wishing, but that's not how to do it. Epictetus hel...
“Keep constant guard over your perceptions, for it is no small thing you are protecting, but your respect, trustworthiness and steadiness, peace of mind, freedom from pain and fear, in a word your freedom. For what would you sell these things?” EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 4.3.6 b –8
