Initial Post-Setting Sail

May we journey together to a land of beautiful music. A land where we all speak from the heart. A land where our thoughts express our essences, and our essences delight in spirited conversation. A land where what our lesser aspects call disagreements our finer aspects recognize as differences in understanding. A land where we strive to learn from our differences in understanding, and express those differences without rancor or resentment. A land where we exult in our common humanity and in our equality as beings on the same plane of creation. A land where we take each other seriously and don't take ourselves seriously. A land where the flowering of beautiful thoughts from the buds of our musings is always in season. A land where our community of seekers provides a haven from the coarser aspects of our souls. A land where our conversation builds a hermetic seal around our souls so that our finer aspects can be nurtured from within and our lesser aspects are banished to a junkyard.

My primary purpose in starting this blog is to learn from my betters. Who are my betters? Anyone who leaves a comment, that's who. Although at times I might like to think of myself as a unified being, much of the time I function as a multiplicity of scattered aspects. I hope by this blog to enlist and receive your help in putting these aspects in a finer order than they are at present. What do I offer in return? I don't know that I have anything to offer. I hope that each of you who takes the time to read this blog finds something of use for your being, whether or not you choose to leave a comment.

A word on the title of this blog. Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, College Edition (The New World Publishing Company, 1957), defines "statecraft" as "the art of, or skill in, the managing of state affairs; statesmanship." With your indulgence, I plan, for purposes of this blog, to expand "statecraft" to include not only the art of ruling a state, but also the art of ruling oneself. This approach has support in Plato's Republic, in which Plato describes a conversation in which Socrates and some of his pals analogize the nature of justice within an ancient Greek city-state to the nature of justice within an individual soul. The "Socratic" part of this blog's title is most assuredly not intended as an assertion that by a series of Socratic questions I will lead blog readers to a higher state of being, but to suggest that the Socratic quest of exploring the essence and elements of the cosmos, the political bodies and the human souls is as fine an activity today as it was over 2,000 years ago, and at the same time as problematical (you might recall that Socrates was sentenced to death for this activity).

If on occasion a few days or a week elapse between posts, please don't take offense; the issues I hope we will discuss are eternal, so what's a few days between friends?

So, let me start by asking for help with a question that on occasion I ponder, namely, what does it mean to know myself? When I ponder this question, I invariably come back to the question of whether I can even start from the point of assuming that what I am calling "myself" is a unity. I stumble out of bed in the morning. If I am lucky I get through shaving, showering and dressing without cutting my face, slipping in the bathtub or putting on socks that clearly don't match. I negotiate brewing coffee, sip it, and feel pretty good. I am on top of the day. I am fully prepared for my conference call at 11 am. I am off to the train. As I wait for the train, I hear a couple of people discussing the football scores. My mind in quick succession flips through index cards of recalled impressions: a youth throwing around a footbal with his father in the back yard, finishing runner-up two years in a row in the local Punt, Pass and Kick competition, and playing intramural footbal in college, a nonentity envious of glamorous athletes and other celebrities.

Wait a minute. Throw away that index card. That's not me. I don't engage in mindless envy. Not me. That thought couldn't be me, or any part of me. Correct?

Now I am on the train. Someone I think I know doesn't acknowledge me. He must be stuck up. Wait another minute. Maybe he is thinking about an ill family member and is distracted. The conductor comes. I have forgotten to take my pass out. The conductor looks at me disapprovingly. I finally fish my pass out of my wallet and show it to the conductor. I take my book out, open the pages and escape to another world.Time to walk to the office. I am in my office. There is an emergency voice mail. Why does the rest of the world not organize their affairs so as not to create unnecessary emergencies? I deal with the emergency and call in to my 11 am conference call. The call goes well, but my brilliantly prepared analyses are met with an "of course, I knew that" attitude by some on the call. The call is over at 11:30 am.

All right, from the time I awoke to the end of the conference call, what is the "myself" that I am supposed to know? Barely coordinated, high on caffeine, suppressing resentment at lack of celebrity, taking umbrage at not being recognized, unorganized in the simple task of getting my train pass out of my wallet, contemptuous of the disorganized world (without remembering that on the train, I was disorganized), and annoyed that my analytical brilliance is unrecognized? Now remember, all in all, the day has gone pretty well. If this is my internal state on a good day, what happens on a bad day? Perhaps before I explore the wonderful unity that is myself, I would do well, in a nonjudgmental clinical way (or perhaps even in a lighthearted way), to observe in a clear manner my disunity. What do you think? Does anything I have said about myself resonate with you? Any comments for this scattered creature?