To call my pursuit of philosophy purely intellectual is misleading. My quest was anything but a knowledge-for-knowledge-sake adventure, even though this statement always quieted detractors. My aim was always redemption and I studied only to this end. I poured over scores of philosophers and thousands of pages grasping at any and all glimmers of hope.
First, attempting a political correctness to certain leftist doctrines, I quickly discovered the shortcomings. A great psychological price is demanded to produce social equity and this exchange results in basic selflessness. The simple reduction of all art, history, literature, music, etc. to a revolutionary\reactionary hypothesis was exasperating. "Who is the interpreter, and what power does he seek to gain over the text." {Nietzsche} I did feel a degree of moral rectitude during this period but the price extolled on the individual was too great.
The pendulum soon swayed in the opposite direction toward other anti-establishment philosophies. Fleeing from socio-economic equality theories I ventured into the psychological exchange arena. Praxis in this area creates a brutal fatalistic personality. The rites of passage being a Darwinian approach to humanity that requires a non-interventionist laissez-faire social structure. This exchange adversely affected the few moral principles to which I adhere and caused a hasty retreat.
Probably the most devastating, and definitely the most protracted, period of my early philosophical endeavors followed briefly after my misadventures into literal praxis. Following a dogma verbatim was resulting in my giving up more than I gained, so I ventured into the realm of eclectic synthesis. This attempt at combining antagonistic theories was a colossal miscalculation. The exchange principle was unreconcilable, the philosophies were like oil and water in my hands, I was left crushed and completely disillusioned. If redemption required a marriage between two hostile philosophies I was reduced to living in purgatory awaiting the grand fusion by another.
At this point I was the personification of failed desire without direction. Thusly, I entered upon an anarchical-nihilistic period. The void that occupied the once confident desire left me thirsting for destruction, basically a ochlocratic festival. With redemption now a fleeting memory, revenge appeared to be the proper path. This was a tumultuous period where my passions reigned freely over my reason.
Then thumbing through Nietzsche I came to an enlightening question and reply. "What becomes of the impulse that has allowed one to deceive and lie to oneself ........ ideals perish in the cold, and yet the fire of idealism continues to wander about objectless and passionately desiring." With the annulment of redemption I was a roaming specter resigned to participate in a mundane existence I loathed. The possibility of re-enchantment gone I fled philosophy with what remained of my sanity.
My next escapade was into history. This was meant to be a reprieve or sabbatical from the throes of philosophy and redemption. The staid and vapid subject manner was to bring respite to a tormented soul. But what was insipid in print became an animated nightmare in my imagination. The eternal recurrence followed me from stem to stern, not only in histories chronicling of manÕs constant perdition but in the psychological make-up of the actors as well. Kafka kept haunting me, "What is laid upon us is to accomplish the negative; the positive is already given." For me history was the ultimate climax; the culmination of all negative energies. Doubtless, there were virtuous men and periods but they stand naked when confronted by the grand negation.
My feeble brain is largely to blame for this debacle. My nature is to transpose similarities between different situations. The lucky man discerns opposites and can view any similarities as extraneous. So where I discern distressing repetition the man of opposites views difference. My consternation increased as I read the historic follies of human repetition; redemption seemed more distant than ever.
I limped away from history and turned my attention toward novels. I had kept notes on authors and books that were frequently mentioned while floundering around in philosophy; the result being that I had an abundance of prospective reading material. I also had a blacklist of authors from my abandoned philosophic period, as this epithet from Nietzsche demonstrates; Zola: or "the delight in stinking."
I was looking to be sedated but not comatose, so I was reading a steady diet of liberal/leftist literature. The length of my literature phase was in direct proportion to my ability to read literature as entertainment. I probably could have read novels for the rest of my life if I hadn't read Dostoevsky and become thoroughly disillusioned.
Despite Brecht's negative comments about Dostoevsky, I venture into his desolate psychological landscape. The fault wasn't all mine; however, Brecht was one of the few who insisted upon a diet free from the Russian author.
In short, my amateurish deciphering of Dostoevsky's novel revealed the mania this man had for suffering. The concept that individuality is obtained through suffering was not only masochistic but absurd. I chalked up his suffering mania to a vindictive personality that was still destabilized by his romantic fling with the nihilists and subsequent exile to Siberia. Despite the squeamish feeling Dostoevsky produced in me, the seed to explore suffering had now been planted. Since suffering had occupied the majority of my time while researching redemption I felt that there was nothing to lose in this venture.
The one and only subject of my research was the Jew. From the Spanish Inquisition through centuries of pogroms these were a belabored people. My choice of text was the Kabbala and this was due to the Eastern and Spanish Jews' unwavering belief in this approach to Judaism despite their intense suffering.
Indeed, this was a speculative philosophic doctrine with some mystics adhering to numerology and others to divine intervention as means to interpret the Torah. Man's concept of suffering was reduced to his temporal orientation in an infinite world. Insight beginning for the Kabbalist beyond the limits of temporal sense perception, where you begin to unravel the "shells" of reality by "cleaving to the source". But, finding myself earth bound and ineffective at resolving any of these mysteries, I continued to nudge forward.
I must, however, address one major benefit I received from the Kabbala: the ability to re-evaluate my orientation towards concrete results. Occidental thought process idolizes the bottom line; whereas, millenarian thought is focused on the process or travel towards an end. The whole idea being that the journey itself is the reward and not the arrival. The result of that insight was my realization that I had experienced diverse pleasures from my previous studies that were overshadowed by desire for the bottom line. With this idea in tow I returned to philosophy and intended to keep my tumultuous desire in check.
Realizing that my fixation upon some tangible successive approximation toward redemption was the source of my misery, I rejected utopian dreams and began reading the Stoics. "The fierceness and violence of desire hinders more than it serves the performance of what we undertake, fells us with impatience towards things that come out contrary or late, and with bittersweetness and suspicion toward the people we deal with. We never conduct well the thing that possesses and conducts us." {Montaigne}
The Encheiridon of Epictetus discovered while reading Marcus Aurelius was the source of my Stoic travel adventure. Initially, my greatest discovery was the complete ignorance I had for the profundity of their thought. Since my early childhood I had been taught to crystalize those philosophies into one word adjectives (i.e. Stoicism-austere and Epicureanism-hedonism). In fact the principle difference I discovered between Epictetus and Epicurus was their religious beliefs, the former being pantheistic and the latter atomistic. Epicurus deplored pain but like his Stoic counterpart he learned that unbridled desire results in more pain than a measure of austerity.
Desire and aversion were the center topics of study for Epictetus and his school. In fact he summed up my entire anguish in one phrase ,"Desire that fails to get what it wills and aversion that falls into what it would avoid." His school of thought taught that desire and aversion must be kept in accordance with nature to escape the pangs of misfortune and hindrance. The natural objects under our control are :" conception, choice, desire, and aversion", things not under our control and in opposition to nature are: "property, reputation, office, or anything that is dependent on others." To desire the latter , which is incongruous with nature, will ultimately result in unfullfillment or fear of losing what you acquired, following the former leads to serenity and reason void of fear and unnatural desire.
Morality was given a third category along with good and evil. Indifference was added as a pivotal interpretation of actions. Recognizing that the translation of all actions into good and evil opens the flood gates of agitation the Stoics labeled any actions that is outside our immediate control a matter of indifference. Good and evil were reserved for the evaluation of ones own desires and aversions. Thusly, everyman becomes responsible for his own good and evil.
This was but a brief and unsatisfactory summation of Epictetus, and I hope I did him some justice; but this history is about my studies and not his. The weakness that reason endures when it is regulated by passion was the impetus of my noting the Stoic school. As Montaigne states,"I have in my time seen wonders in the undiscerning and prodigious ease with which peoples let their beliefs and hopes be lead and manipulated in whatever way has pleased and served their leaders, passing over phantasms and dreams. I'm no longer amazed at those who are hoodwinked by the monkey tricks of Appollonius and Mohammed. Their sense and understanding is entirely smothered in their passion."
This is where I presently stand in my studies of the classic philosophers. As it is unfortunately my nature to incorporate knowledge into experimentation, I have implemented some of the Stoic tenets to my daily regime. My experiment is meant to be a small litmus test of the viability of this philosophy. I've learned that with about praxis you proceed slowly so that a hasty retreat leaves you feeling stimulated rather than devastated.
These are some of my early conclusions about my experiment. The most important aspect, in regards to the selection of a personal philosophy, is a complete understanding of ones identity. The strengths and weaknesses of oneÕs character is more powerful than any volition to doctrine or cause. I discovered this after numerous romantic flings with passion-filled philosophies. Being inhibited by desire my judgement was guided by passion and not by reason. "It's not the things themselves that disturb men, but their judgement about these things."{Epictetus}
Bridling my passions is a matter of felicity, while anxious desire is contrary to my nature. A singularity of purpose can be a noble virtue, but often accompanying a commitment of this magnitude is the absolute desire for success. If a purpose requires the participation of others for its ultimate success, then the emptiness of resignation or compromise are sure to follow. "I want to hear the thought that dominates you, and not that you escaped the yoke." {Nietzsche} The result being that you blame gods and men for your fortune.
I discovered there is a certain degree of justice. Man continually pays reparations for the incongruence between wanton human nature and nature. All men whose desire concentrates on property, fame, office, etc. are surely tortured people; for even if by chance the object is acquired, fear of the vicissitudes of fate cause continuous paroxysms.
I have chosen to curb my desire and be conscious of any wants that require the participation of others - pursuing these in the role of spectator rather than actor. I'm opting to replace the desire of redemption with the serenity of grasping what is within reach. "Indeed this is what excited the wonder of Ariston the philosopher; that we account those who possess superfluous things more happy than those who abound with what is necessary and useful." {Plutarch}
"He who employees in it only his judgement and skill proceeds more gaily. He feints, he bends, he postpones entirely at his ease according to the occasions; he misses the target without torment or affliction, and remains intact and ready for a new undertaking; he always walks bridle in hand. In the man who is intoxicated with a violent and tyrannical intensity of purpose we see of necessity much imprudence and injustice; the impetuosity of his desire carries him away. {Montaigne}