), listening to his Happy Hour (highly recommend it by the way). And the topic was looking for happiness by way of excitement. Now the precept for happiness Mr. Prager tells us is that it is a moral obligation. And frankly that makes sense to me. And as it happens, I had a conversation with a friend of mind who didn’t so much say that, as he said, “I decided to be happy,” which was astonishing, profound, and simple all at the same time.
I thought I would like to do that, seems like a capital idea. But then I hit the nub of the thing; how does somebody go about deciding, let alone become happy, by self asserted choice?
And so there we are at the beginning. Or rather at this beginning:
Then heaving forth a deep and audible sigh,
Brother!” he thus began, “the world is blind;
And thou in truth comest from it. Ye, who live,
Do so each cause refer to Heaven above,
E’en as its motion, of necessity,
Drew with it all that moves, If this were so,
Free choice in you were none; nor justice would
There should be joy for virtue, woe for ill.
Your movements have their primal bent from Heaven;
Not all: yet said I all; what then ensues?
Light have ye still to follow evil or good,
And of the will free power, which, if it stand
Firm and unwearied in Heaven’s first assay,
Conquers at last, so it be cherish’d well,
Triumphant over all. To mightier force,
To better nature subject, ye abide
Free, not constrain’d by that which forms in you
The reasoning mind uninfluenced of the stars.
If then the present race of mankind err,
Seek in yourselves the cause, and find it there;
As you see our 13nth century friend Dante as translated by Henry F. Cary is no easy read, for me anyway, but then a 19nth century translation into English is (factually printed in 1909), for me, a much easier read than trying to read early renaissance Italian. For that matter Milton is no morning cup of tea either, but then my reading habits are my own and I can choose to frazzle my brain to my own hearts content. Anyway, the difficult can be rewarding regardless of the origin, or activity from which it animates.
So where was I, ah yes, our friend Dante was saying that the origin of our knowing begins with our own free-will, or something to that effect anyway.
What’s that you say? “That quote comes some halfway through the Divine Comedy, Canto 3 of the Purgatory, to be exact, some beginning you quoted.”
Well true, but I thought… Well anyway, I was listening to Mr. Prager as I said, and he brought me to mind of a conversation I had with a friend, who suggested that a decision for being happy was a personal choice. And I was wondering how that could be done--seeing as how we are the result of our environment, biology, and such and all. Besides, all our soothsayers were saying get in touch with your feelings, don’t claim proprietorship of them.
Well naturally that didn’t quite fit the bill so obviously there were a few details to be ironed out. And as it turns out along the way I came to understand free-will as the very premise of our being. Nothing else could come close to a solution: Free-will was the only answer that wasn‘t contingent on my environment. Everything else is/was contingent on something else (good health, new house, new car, girlfriend, riches, and lots of them and that sort of thing). Not that there is anything wrong with a pleasing environment, but you get what I mean.
Anyway, I hit upon the idea that often I am wrapt in thought without being aware that I am so enrapt. That is I’m angry, happy, sad, or other, and then like a window being opened, a breeze enters and I’m aware of my mood and in being aware of my mood, and for that matter my thought, I understand I can change my disposition as I will. If only…
“My mind, that in itself was wrapt,
It’s thought expanded, as with joy restored;”
“Was that that guy Dante again? What’s up with that? The guy’s been dead forever. He’s not today.”
Well yes that’s true, but then Milton said it too. Or in other words--so what! Or in other words you need a better objection (by the way that was from Purgatory Canto 2) .
So anyway, I surmised there are moments, windows of opportunity, that you and I and everyone has that we can take advantage of to amend our disposition in a mode more agreeable to our own liking.
“And full against the steep ascent I set
My face, where highest to heaven its top overflows.”
Now I assume by that our good friend acted of his own volition.
“I’m telling you the guy is dead, and if you can’t find anyone alive, at least come nearer to our own blessed era.”
Alrighty then, so lets chew on this from the banquet [translated by Walter Lowrie--my Danish isn’t so good either]:
They rose from the table. Only a hint from Constantine was needed; the participants understood among themselves with military punctuality when it was time for ‘Right about! Face! With this invisible wand of command, which in his hand was as elastic as a wishing--rod, Constantine touched them once again in order by a fleeting reminiscence to recall the banquet and the mood of sheer enjoyment which had been in a measure suppressed by the reasoning processes of the speakers, and in order that, as in the phenomenon of resonance, the tone of festivity which had vanished might return again to the guests for the brief important of an echo, he gave the parting salute with a full glass, he emptied it, he flung it against the door in the wall behind him. The others followed his example and performed this symbolic act with the solemnity of initiates. The pleasure of breaking off was thus given its rights, this imperial pleasure which, though briefer than any other, is yet emancipating as no other is. With a libation every enjoyment of the table ought to begin, but this oblation wherewith one flings the glass away into annihilation and oblivion and tears oneself passionately away from every remembrance as if one were in mortal danger, this libation is made to the gods of the underworld. One breaks off, and it requires strength to do it, greater strength than to cut a knot with the sword because the difficulty of the knot bestows passion, but the strength required for breaking off one must bestow upon oneself. In a certain outward sense the result is the same, but in an artistic respect there is a heaven-wide difference whether one leaves off (comes to an end) or breaks off by an act of freedom, whether it is an accident or a passionate decision, whether it is all over like a ballad of the schoolmaster when there is no more of it or is brought to an end by the imperial sword-stroke of pleasure, whether it is a triviality everybody has experienced or that mystery which escapes the majority.
That would be Kierkegaard’s banquet. And in that there is also a beginning and an end.
But anyway, something else appeared as I set out to see if I was right, the more one takes advantage of those windows-of-opportunity, the more often they appear and the longer and stronger their appearance. I surmise the opposite is the result of not taking advantage of opportunity. Use it or lose it as they say.
Naturally, I’m not saying that we have absolute control over our environment, that might or might not be fun, but people who actually believe that usually end up in a sponsored residence. Still, not only can we control our response to our environment, but we must of necessity.
But plainly, nothing I've said hasn't in some way or another already been said. I have no doubt that I could find examples too numerous to count that in some way or another refers to free-human volition. I'm sure that if I re-opened St. Augustine or Boethius, closed for so many years, I would recognize thoughts that have tinctured my own. But then I believe the truth is latent in language and for that matter in existence itself, just waiting to be plucked, regardless of the happenstance.
I guess truth is enduring after all. But some elaborate on it this way or that; take the Banquet for instance, he’s not speaking merely of free-will but too to the integrity of the event. Every discrete moment has its own integrity. Do the thing for itself so to speak. Catch the pass; do it because that’s the thing to do; the play has its own integrity. Every drive has its own integrity; every game has its own integrity; every season and so on. The integrity of the event within the event honors the integrity, fits within the integrity, of the larger context. Do the thing because that is the right thing to do and not for some derivative meaning.
And so I turn back to that passage from Mark: “Thus, when you give alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men.”
And it seems to me that the idea of doing the thing for the legitimacy of itself best serves the purpose of that thing named action.
“What’s that you say? What was that sound?”
Oh, I flung my glass against the door.