experience, The Mechanics of Virtue, aphorism 307

307

In the pell-mell of experience, if one is obsessed with the goal, nothing needs to be perfect – and this obsession is fortunate, because nothing will ever be as perfect as the strategy from which one began with great confidence.  

If however one is obsessed with the strategy, real conditions must match the plan perfectly throughout application ... or one loses confidence.  In failure, such a person is tempted to blame the strategy and place his confidence entirely upon constructing a new, superior plan, for it is obvious that inadequate information and poor logic undermined the former strategy.  But this would only be half of the solution.  In immediate reality imperfection is the rule, and so the belief in the existence of a “perfect strategy” sets up a confidence which is too easily undermined in the crucial stage of execution. 

Popular posts from this blog

A valuable book, A Human Strategy, aphorism 387

387 A valuable book may be torn to pieces without diminishing the human spirit, just so long as the words have already been read and understood.  To feel the loss of the book — at its material destruction, even though one had already digested its contents fully and had aligned oneself toward its overall direction — is evidence that one values the non-human being over human becoming , the static thing over the dynamic process .  In response to the fear of our unknowable future we would rather freeze ourselves into a single stage of growth at the expense of the entire metamorphosis. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism
Read more
A benefactor's Moral Guide: what do you want that will not result in your ultimate dishonor?      ****    Meditation: "How do I get back to where I want to be?"
Read more

A theory of art

Interest is not in what you see. It’s in what you don’t see. It is sensed incompleteness completed reflexively by the spectator. It is a conflict in the otherwise imperceptible feeling that a sensory organ is “inadequate” … a mastery of scratching irritations, an “I” … “the” I. We love art the most when we scratch ourselves with what we view.  Art is valued at the interest that the passion from the incompletes in the work is instantly and successful satisfied by what the lover needs to sense … every time it senses the art.  A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism
Read more