Loving Philosophy

Are you one of few who desire Truth? Many lips are mouthing, “yes,” yet this itself is counter-evidence: the performance of the lie belies the deception. You profess, “yes,” yet from what foundation do you make such a claim? Do you believe it—that is, do you act as if you love Wisdom, or do you merely claim to while using Her as a means to your ends? Asked another way, are you in possession of integrity? Or are you fragmented, jumping from islet to islet, under imperium of whatever instinct happens to rule that mossy rock awash with frothing sea?

If we dare to speak honestly about ourselves, sincerity at once reveals us all to be little islanders. We hop and, never quite crossing the distance, swim in unconscious motivation between masses of conscious desire. And how rarely do we wash ashore at our determined destination! In the raging waves, we seem always to be turned around. How, then, can any of us really claim to love Truth when genuine belief and integrity, even consistent thought and action, prove elusive? Do we even know what it means to love, let alone the meaning of Truth?

Suppose for a moment that Truth is not something which can or should be possessed. Instead, imagine that Truth is a woman, mysterious, alluring, and terrifying, giver of life and decider of death—like a river, She is constant yet ever-changing; She is tangible, substantial, yet cannot be held or bound. What would it mean to love such a Truth? What would love mean to such a Truth as Her?

Love here cannot be an attained state. One cannot win the love of such a Truth, only pursue it. It is the embarking itself, the acceptance of the quest for all its pains and perils, embracing them, not in spite of but FOR the necessity of that suffering. To love in this way is to flow with the bending Course, not to arrive at any particular destination, but for the joy of wending itself.

From this, what becomes of loving Truth?—an indifference to the islet in affirmative favor of the sea.

Philosophy, the love of Wisdom, becomes both attitude and action. To do philosophy comes to mean anything which emboldens us to brave the waves, anything which steadies our soles on a ship deck wet and rocking under shock of storms. The development of discipline, the savoring of small joys, the asking of dangerous questions, and the confession of uncomfortable answers, all these are the philosopher’s art, his practice, his occupation, his celebration of Life, Truth, Wisdom, and Fate.

Thus we must choose: we can be momentary masters of our tiny islets, or we can become suitors of the sea—disintegrated prisoners or integrated plunderers. Which loves Truth better? Which does She love more truly?