Welcome, October

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 “The skies they were ashen and sober;        The leaves they were crispéd and sere—        The leaves they were withering and sere;  It was night in the lonesome October        Of my most immemorial year;  It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,        In the misty mid region of Weir—  It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,        In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.” (First stanza of “Ulalume” by Edgar Allen Poe)

Finished Reading

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  • Judges (Old Testament)
  • Book 1 in Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics”

Sophocles’ last line of “Oedipus The King” is “we must call no one happy who is of mortal race until he has crossed life‘s border free from pain.” Where Sophocles (497-406 BC) ends, Aristotle  (384-322 BC) begins, searching the subject of happiness in “Ethica Nicomachea.” His exploration asks if happiness is the result of what we do, or of who we are? Is happiness the result of having a good time or from living a good life? Is happiness dependent on goods (circumstantial) or self-sufficient in what is good (contentment)? Is happiness an activity or a state of being? The philosopher reasoned that virtuous completion determines happiness and is only measured at the end of life. 

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