Quick Thoughts on The Symposium

I just finished The Symposium by Plato last night. It was probably the third or fourth time I've read it in my recent (and slow paced) journey through all of Plato's works. I've taken notes in my notebooks that will eventually find their way on to this blog in the future, so I won't spend too much time here other than to give my overarching thoughts on it. Here is what I wrote on my Goodreads page: "In the Symposium not all speeches are equal. This is one of my favorite dialogues of Plato, but surprisingly not because of Socrates. Aristophanes' speech about the fantastically weird original humans and Alcibiades' drunken entrance are exceptional pieces of literature - humorously and babbingly brilliant". I'm not going to add much more to this here, but I read this book again, even though I had read this particular dialogue in two or three collections of dialogues earlier because I wanted to reread the speech of Aristophanes. I don't know why it is so fascinating to me. It could be that it's just so odd I can't help just be attracted to it.

Two verses from Acts 3

I've been rather neglectful of a number of things in my life recently. I've been intellectually, spiritually, physically and creatively lazy over the past few months. This is nothing new - and it tends to coincide with dips in form in my struggles. This in turn creates tension in my marriage, putting more pressure on my inability to overcome my baser desires and intentional forgetfulness. That in turn, makes me a bit depressed and I turn to my well worn stress relievers putting more tension on my marriage and the carousel continues to spin faster and faster, sucking me in deeper and deeper to the middle and everything seems to get worse and worse. And so on and so on. But, if I push through and am not intellectually, physically, creatively or most importantly, spiritually lazy than none of this happens. Mistakes are still made, but these are incidents rather than cycles.

I often work in platitudes or hastily announced, unachievable goals. This drives my wife insane and sets me up for failure. I'm trying not to do this again. I've ran or worked out the last three days, finished another book (40 of my 60 goal this year) and read some from Acts last night. I'm hoping to just make incremental progress this week and work on creating a more virtuous circle rather than getting sucked into the aforementioned negative merry-go-round. But - as you can see, that last sentence is rather close to a hastily announced, unachievable goal. Is it my own personal jargon? Who am I announcing these platitudes towards? I think I'm only saying them to ease my own unrest. But, I digress.

I read the first three chapters of Acts last night after finishing The Symposium by Plato and reading 20 pages of Ulysses by Joyce. It took me nearly a month to finish the Plato piece (which marks my intellectual laziness as of late). It will take me longer to finish Joyce (which is because it's a gargantuan 700 plus pages and difficult to read). But, two verses stood out to me from Acts 3.

Acts 3:16

"It is Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him".

I'm not sure that I'm ready or willing to call my self-inflicted frustrations a disease. It's more of an issue of will. But, there is definitely some healing that needs to take place in me. Whether it is biological or spiritual in nature is a question of semantics. There is something broken inside of me. And it struck me that my spiritual laziness is leading me to reject complete healing. What also struck me about this verse is that faith comes through Jesus. In order for man to have faith it must come through Jesus. It isn't a strength of a man reaching out to Jesus, but rather Jesus preceding the faith that the man can have. So I prayed for that faith that comes only through Jesus last night and I echo that prayer again today.

Acts 3:26

"When God raised up His servant, He sent him first to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways".

My struggles are my struggles. They have impacted my social life, my career life, my physical life to an extent, my spiritual life and my love life. To be blunt, they have sucked. Yet, I derive a weird pleasure while going through them. I know it's wrong but I do it anyway for the moments of escape they provide. However, this verse jumped out at me because I never thought of getting out of these struggles as a blessing. I just figured when I grew out of this struggle that I could return to a sort of base line normalcy. I now see it - when I am turned by Jesus from my wicked way, I won't be returning to some base line normalcy, but an elevated state of being blessed.

Odysseus: A Life

From my Goodreads review...

It feels somewhat wrong to give the same number of stars to this book as The Iliad and The Odyssey; however, I've done just that because Charles Rowan Beye has made Odysseus extremely accessible without this book being overly scholarly, and thus, overly dry. The style of the work is good and reconstructs Odysseus' life and times that a neophyte Greek historian like myself can digest. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to understand either of Homer's works a little more clearly.

I had just finished up the aforementioned books before getting into this one and it was very good to get a recap at the end. I only wish I had read the Aeneid prior, but chest la vie? Now it's on to Ulysses (and if my previous encounter with Joyce is a harbinger of things to come, a commentary on that as well).

Assessment of the Odyssey

I finished The Odyssey earlier this month, but I've been slack on my digitization and compiling of my notes on this here blog. But, I'm trying to catch up. Here is what I wrote, in my Goodreads review.

What a slog! Going back to back on The Iliad and The Odyssey. Don't get me wrong, they are both great. They're just big, wordy books. I think that I prefer The Odyssey, but just slightly.

There are a number of great stories wrapped up into The Odyssey. Some are triumphant, others gory, others happy and some sad. The whole thing oozes emotion. One short little one stuck out to me thought. The little interaction between Argos, Odysseus' dog, was especially poignant. In that tiny bit of a minor passage you see how Homer can weave contradictory powerful emotions together into a unity.

Assessment of the Iliad

I finished The Iliad by Homer over my vacation and am nearly done with The Odyssey. Once upon a time I had read The Odyssey but I don't think I've ever read the unabridged version of The Iliad. Here was my quick goodreads assessment:

"There are few storytellers throughout history who can spar with Homer. The Iliad is a riveting tale of war, love, hate and every emotion that lies between. My only complaint about this book (and this is true of many ancient works or epic poetry in general) is when a commander or a god informs some underling or mortal of some plan of action and on the next page that underling or mortal relays that message in full. The repetition is sometimes a bit much. Otherwise it's a great story, full of complex characters".

It's really amazing to see the violent swings in emotions in the characters in the story. I found myself at times really rooting against Achilles or Agamemnon. Achilles seemed a spoiled brat and Agamemnon is just really unlikeable at times. But then Agamemnon sort of redeems himself. Achilles really doesn't redeem himself too much in the story. I know it's a cultural thing - but I just find Achilles' petulance his most remarkable characteristic.

The Four Socratic Dialogues of Plato

I finished The Four Socratic Dialogues of Plato last night after nearly two months of reading it at a start and stop pace. This was my Goodreads entry: "My goodness! That took me a long time to read! I'll admit I was a bit slack; but, goodness gracious. I like to have two books going at a time - a story format and a non-story, non-fiction one. (When I'm on my A game I have a third religious one going too). But I have utterly neglected that latter two recently.

Anyway, this has four of Plato's dialogues in it: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo. All of them are good. I think Apology and Phaedo are stellar. This is the second and third reading of each dialogue in my recent attempt to read all of Plato cycle. What makes this particular book so great is that it is a Benjamin Jowett translation (one that most other translations look to) with Jowett's own notes and prefaces. It's an edition from 1928 based on the first printing from 1903. If you're lucky enough like me to find one collecting dust in a long-neglected corner of some rundown bookshop for $4 bucks snap it up!

Half-Hearted Creatures

There is a tendency in this age (Lewis states) for us to substitute a negative term for a positive one. I cannot speak for this age; but, I can for myself agree with Lewis. He takes for example the notion of Unselfishness as a virtue replacing Love. To be unselfish is to deny ourselves some good for other's. To Love that other is to do something positive for that other (which may include some self-denial). But, the purpose or intention is totally different and because of that so is the psychological outcome. I may be unselfish with my wife and not do the thing that I wanted to do. She may derive some pleasure from that. In the long-term I will not and will grow bitter. But, if I do something for my wife out of love and she derives pleasure from it, I will derive pleasure from hers and will be acting in love and inherently selflessly.

Interestingly, Lewis points out that we do not suffer from an overactive or too strong sense of desire. God does not want to curb our desires or to weaken them. Instead he wants to repurpose them and strengthen it. "We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased" (Lewis, 109).

I am far too easily pleased, fooling around with all sorts of trivialities. I am that child playing in the mud because I cannot envision the trip to the Ocean that God has offered me. Lord, help me to see the higher things. Take away not my desire, but my ability to be satiated by lesser things than you.