To anyone who is trying to regularly check this blog in its adolescence, I apologize for posting another entry so swiftly. Also, thank you for reading!
So my incredible friend Twigz and I are on a personal quest to read "The Great Books" following their 10 year track. So far we have read a little of Plato, Aristophanes, and we are now on book 1 of Aristotle's Politics. But our pervious reading was of Aristotle's Ethics (book 1).
Now, if you are looking for a good summery of this reading I would suggest looking into Twigz's blog, because he is documenting in fine detail what we are covering in our readings.
What I am just hoping to cover in this post is just a brief thought over a small segment in book 1. And I must apologize a head of time for this being such a weak thought, I'm afraid it is nothing too deep or insightful. But since I have this blog, I figured I may as well post it and have you make of it as you will.
The other night as I was laying in bed attempting to fall asleep, I couldn't stop my mind from wandering. I couldn't help but start thinking about how wonderful a moment I was caught in. There I was, laying back to back with my beautiful wife ( +Hannah Dégallier ) listening to her sleep and for some reason I was completely over come with joy! How would I describe this moment to my children one day? How would I describe this moment to anyone right now?! I couldn't help but think back to this reading of Aristotle's. He was trying to discover in this book 1 what was the supreme Good, and how that Good was happiness. But later on in his writing he tried to make the debate that you couldn't truly evaluate a person's life as a happy one until they died! Now, while this might immediately catch you funny, he says you can't say that they had a Good and happy life until it is over because you never know what is coming next. You could have everything one moment and lose it all the next.
While I think Aristotle has an interesting point, I had to take myself a small step further. In this case of laying next to Hannah trying to fall asleep, I was happy! It was Good! But that instant died. We move along in life linearly and we don't get to go back to change or re-experience. Every waking moment we have, essentially, dies immediately after that encounter. So can't we justly evaluate these passing moments as good or bad?
I wonder what Aristotle would say. I do think it served as a good reminder to me at the time though to enjoy the 'dying' moments that I'm encountering. I currently live in an area where I know no one, I have no money left because I have no job, I have very little to occupy my days because of both of these perviously listed things........ and yet....... here I was, just laying in bed, thoroughly enjoying this moment passing me by, with my sleepy wife, who loves me! I'm still happy!
Like I said...... nothing too deep this time, but I still have 10 years of these books to read! So I'm sure I'll conjure something up eventually!!! In the mean time, please leave me your thoughts and check out Twigz's blog on our progress through the Great Books!
http://blackbirdwinona.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/unrobed-and-unadorned-thoughts-on-lysistrata/
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