The Experience of Clarity

65 Wouldn’t a private honesty which did not compromise itself in public be indistinguishable from uninhibited behavior?  And wouldn’t such a person be indistinguishable from an idiot?  And then we must consider the alternative: inhibited behavior would be indistinguishable from dishonesty – one does not do what one thinks .   However,  Inhibition is required in any attempt at self-control Conscious thought ... the attempt to understand and guide action is anything but uninhibited. Do self-control and wisdom require public dishonesty? A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

230 Courage or wisdom?  When this becomes the choice, can’t we convince ourselves that pursuing wisdom is, if only within the inner sanctum of the heart, a species of courage?  ... that the common species of courage promotes nothing but fools admired for their luck — and in proportion to the improbability they faced, making it an honor to be as foolish as possible? Yet we cannot withhold our admiration!  ... even when a “cowardly” prudence would have dispensed with the danger more efficiently.  There are those who did not comprehend the danger they faced, and therefore received the glory of being stupid enough.  There are those who did not comprehend the higher aim enabled by restraint and therefore received the glory of not being smart enough.  But it takes a higher species of courage even to see the victory of prudence: an intelligence that leaves our knuckles white with clutching the mundane and never letting go of maximum efficiency ... not even for the sensation of heroi

A Human Strategy, Matt Berry, aphorism 231 A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

231 But I suppose I have to interrupt here and admit that there is no difference between the terms “Courage” and “Wisdom” ... and also that they are not so prodigious of an undertaking as previously thought ... that perhaps they fall under the name of that other obscure phenomenon, of which I still can only speak of metaphorically: timing the mind to the ticks of the surface world ... cultivating a will to synchronize ... tapping the cogs of the illusory to the cadence of the actual.  Both “Courage” and “Wisdom” then would be a type of yielding . A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

232 The “Bold” are not as fearless as they are lazy, for they have not the patience for calculation.  The “Wise” are not as cowardly as they are calculating.  What would become of a boldness which was not lazy?  Of a Bold Calculation ?  Of an existence which was not a spectacular explosion into chaos, but its opposite: a horrible sanity in the midst of chaos ... a strategist with enough courage to avoid the innumerable peripheral enemies in order to turn and march painstakingly toward the center of power ... toward actual control over reality. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

233 So what is courage?  Only a shout?  “Even if!”  We march on ...  A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

66 When one’s strategy is in doubt, blend in with tradition.  One should only gamble on sincerity as a last resort. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism