Weekly Features Post
Issue XXV
We've been reading about a new mental problem: blogging addiction. Sure, so far it's just bloggers joking about it: "How do you stop?" But soon, a psychiatrist will have an actual case, he'll write a journal article about it, a few more enterprising psychiatrists will take note, and–whammo–Eric Scheske will qualify for Medicaid disability payments.
The psychiatric profession has a vested interest in locating different forms of wackiness. After all, at $150.00 an hour for counseling, they'll find a phony mental illness quicker than a lawyer finds whiplash. After enough psychiatrists concur that blogging addiction is a disorder, it'll get escalated to mental illness, which is a disability for Medicaid purposes. Perfect for Eric.
Eric, you see, has become something of an addict. Sure, he still holds down a regular job and doesn't neglect his family (he just finished two hours at the baseball diamond as dugout coach of his kid's little league team), but don't let that fool you. He's got a problem and isn't doing a whole lot to curb it. In a few months, this'll be a full-blown pathology, then he just has to wait for the rest of the country to catch up. At that point, he'll start collecting federal benefits (and why not? he's been putting into the system for twenty years with nothing to show for it except a near guarantee that he won't get any old age social security payments–thanks FDR).
Anyway, y'all can help Eric get addicted by forwarding The Daily Eudemon to others. As the number of visitors and hits grows, so does his vainglory and hunger for more. We hope to bring over 300 visitors tomorrow, which will be the first time TDE has broken that barrier. Together, we can make it happen. Together, we can make Eric a mental cripple.
Stoic's Porch
"Nature bids me to be of use to men whether they are slave or free, freedmen or free born. Wherever there is a human being there is room for benevolence." Seneca
More Anonymous Existentialist Ramblings
The combination of an existentialist character like Socrates with intense wisdom is not an aberration. History gives us many such examples. There's St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the most-learned and wise men in history, but a simple man who never wanted any attention. There's St. Therese; she had little education, but her Little Way was so jammed full of wisdom that she was subsequently declared a doctor of the Catholic Church. Great thinkers–like Henri Bergson, Blaise Pascal, G.K. Chesterton, Etienne Gilson, Edith Stein, to name precious few–are often known for their unassuming and self-effacing characteristics.
But I find the example of St. John Vianney, the Cure d'Ars, one of the most compelling pieces of evidence that wisdom tends to ascend on the unassuming.
Vianney was considered dull-witted most of his adult life. When he entered a make-shift seminary at age 19, the other students (adolescent boys) giggled at his intellectual inability and grew frustrated when he delayed lessons with his slowness. He couldn't meet the intellectual requirements for becoming a priest, even though the requirements were relaxed at that time in order to alleviate a priest shortage following the Napoleonic Wars. He failed his examinations at major seminary and was asked to leave. Given another chance and a vigorous 3-month tutorial by a learned friend, he failed again. He finally passed, after being allowed to take the exam in special surroundings (a relaxed atmosphere, so he wouldn't get too flustered).
But his innate dullness was combined with intense simplicity. As a boy, he worked hard for his father with no thought–much less complaining–about the difficult labor. As a 19-year-old seminarian, John kneeled at the feet of a 12-year-old fellow student who became exasperated with John, and asked the boy to forgive his slowness. As a new parish priest, he declined the help of a household servant. As pastor, he showed little, if any, regard for his own well-being, opting to pray constantly for the salvation of his parishioners' souls and listening to confessions for over eight hours a day. He left his parish only twice during his 29-year stint as pastor of Ars, and spent one of the stints caring for the souls of hundreds of pilgrims who found him as he tried to take a brief, well-merited, break from his duties.
His simplicity instilled in him a penetrating wisdom. This was apparent in his early years at the seminary, when, although he couldn't articulate the lessons well, his application of the lessons was superb. As Pastor at Ars, his constant teaching (he is known as the man who out-talked the Devil) converted a spiritually-moribund village into a sphere of piety. Today, he is widely quoted–his words are fetched by priests hoping to give insight to parishioners and assembled by publishers hoping to sell wisdom.
He was able to pass along truths in words that the simplest person can understand, which is strong evidence of deep understanding.
He did not, for instance, need a lengthy exegesis to explain the philosophy of death and justice (embodied in the Greek word Thanatos). He merely told listeners, “To die well we must live well.” He did not need to understand psychology to note that the “way to destroy bad habits is by watchfulness and by doing often those things which are the opposite to one's besetting sins.” He did not need to study and read the Stoics, Plato and Aristotle to understand the oneness of virtue: “It is only the first step which is hard in the way of abnegation. When we are once fairly entered upon it, all goes smoothly; and when we have this virtue, we have every other.” He understood the principal of connaturality (which says that sin muddles thinking) so well that he could summarize it for his rowdy parishioners as “It is just those who have the least fear of God and his judgments in their hearts that have nothing but pleasure in their heads.” The examples of his simple wisdom could go on and on.
Strays
"During their ridiculous confrontation at the Scopes Trial in 1925, William Jennings Bryan, the Populist protagonist, proclaimed his unhistorical in the Bible, while Clarence Darrow, the Progressive protagonist, proclaimed his, no less unhistorical, belief in Science." John Lukacs
"One single object...[will merit] the endless gratitude of the society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation." Thomas Jefferson
"The high-minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think." Aristotle
"Language should and must change naturally with the years, but it ought not to be emasculated; if the change makes for power and precision, it is good; if for weakness and confusion, it is bad." Dorothy Sayers
The Last Word
Legerity: quickness or agility of mind or body. "Eric Scheske's legerity, such as it is, isn't affected much by beer."
