ethics without principles

4.103. the search for order is not without its merits; not without its demerits.

Confucius say: best form of revenge is to live well.

There are many sayings or things you read that sound all profound and wise at the time but then when you stop and think about them, or when you move on and live a bit, seem quite trivial.

You grow even more suspicious of cliches and general principles as you grow older. 'You', not 'one'. As if the sheer passing of time should confer a stable pattern on things. That seems unreasonable. An 'extravagance', an irrationality, to assume that there is only reason. What you include and what you exclude is surely not exclusively a matter of reason itself, but determined, hinted at, by the way you live?

So, to mention revenge is not to get over revenge. Secondly: 'best'? Thirdly, it's plainly ridiculous: in some minor cases, such as being at the receiving end of a rebuke, the best thing may indeed be to walk away, take things stoically, see the bigger picture. But in other cases, serious cases of injustice, this hardly seems like a very good approach. Anyway, that 'bigger scheme' doesn't appeal to your fundamental temperament and the second thoughts generated by it.

Yes, you are less certain in some things, and more certain in others. Some see you as dogmatic, others as too liberal. Doesn't matter, you have to find your own way and that means letting others find theirs. That, despite all the quotes here, is what you're sure of.

If you will something for yourself then you must for others. Must? Not sure.

The question: what do I know, what should I know, do I know an other's mind, hardly seem the right ones at all. Do you even know yourself? Can you? Surely only God knows who you are?

You live in time, this particular slice of time and space that you occupy, that has been given to you. To be aware of that, is an act of humility. With imagination you can reach out, but not everything can be reduced to system or a concept. And you reach out as a person, not with the mind alone. He who sees Ratio sees only himself.

You cannot legislate for, make certain, the presence of love, friendship, grace.Thankfulness, hospitality, pleasure in the world, the widening of one's horizons, repose, wonder in the presence of the mysterious, delight in genuine human kindness, spontaneity. All can be ruined by the satanic mills. To see, to see now and now.

O taste and see

the subway Bible poster said,
meaning The Lord, meaning
if anything all that lives
to the imagination’s tongue,

grief, mercy, language,
tangerine, weather, to
breathe them, bite,
savor, chew, swallow, transform

into our flesh our
deaths, crossing the street, plum, quince,
living in the orchard and being

hungry, and plucking
the fruit.

---Denise Levertov