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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
  
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Diogenes the Cynic
« on: 2007-03-12 02:25:24 » |
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[Blunderov] I sometimes like to remind myself that if push really does ever come to shove, then I can live like Diogenes did - in a barrel.
Link with nice pictures
Diogenes the Cynic
Diogenes of Sinope (fourth century BC) is too irascible a character not to share some anecdotes about him from the compendium of Diogenes Laertius on the lives of the philosophers. They illustrate the precepts by which he lived: that personal happiness is satisfied by meeting one's natural needs and that what is natural cannot be shameful or indecent. His life, therefore, was lived with extreme simplicity, inured to want, and without shame. It was this determination to follow his own dictates and not adhere to the conventions of society that he was given the epithet "dog," from which the name "cynic" is derived. Sold as a slave, he pointed and said, "Sell me to this man; he needs a master." The man heeded the advice, and entrusted Diogenes with his household and the education of his children.
Seeing a child drinking from his hands, Diogenes threw away his cup and remarked, "A child has beaten me in plainness of living." When invited to the house of Plato, he trampled upon his carpet, saying that he thereby trampled on the vanity of Plato, to which Plato retorted "How much pride you expose to view, Diogenes, by seeming not to be proud." To Plato's definition of a man as an animal, bipedal and featherless, Diogenes plucked a chicken and declared, "Here is Plato's man."
Alexander the Great was reported to have said, "Had I not been Alexander, I should have liked to be Diogenes." Once, while Diogenes was sunning himself, Alexander came up to him and offered to grant him any request. "Stand out of my light," he replied. When asked why he went about with a lamp in broad daylight, Diogenes confessed, "I am looking for a [honest] man."
Why do people give to beggars, he was asked, but not to philosophers? "Because they think they may one day be lame or blind, but never expect that they will turn to philosophy." To a young man who complained that he was ill suited to study philosophy, Diogenes said "Why then do you live, if you do not care to live well?"
When asked what wine he found most pleasant to drink, Diogenes replied, "That for which other people pay." Reproached for behaving indecently in public, he lamented only that he wished it were as easy to relieve hunger by rubbing one's stomach.
Of the golden statue of Phrynę at Delphi, Diogenes was said to have written upon it: "From the licentiousness of Greece." And, when he saw the child of a courtesan, whom he compared to a "deadly honeyed potion," throwing stones at a crowd, he cried out: "Take care you don't hit your father."
Chided as an old man who ought to rest, he replied, "What, if I were running in the stadium, ought I to slacken my pace when approaching the goal?" When asked from where he came, Diogenes said, "I am a citizen of the world," and, when someone was queried as to what sort of man Diogenes was, the reply was given, "A Socrates gone mad."
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Blunderov
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"We think in generalities, we live in details"
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Re:Diogenes the Cynic
« Reply #1 on: 2007-04-03 10:32:03 » |
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[Blunderov] Did I mention that my barrel must needs be a WIRED barrel? None of your analogue stuff thank you!
Mark Vernon : life in a barrel
Life in a barrel
By Mark, Tuesday 3 April 2007 at; 07:59 :: In the news :: #566 :: rss
You may recall back in March my report on a Dutch philosopher, Eric Hoekstra, who was planning to live for a week in a barrel - following the example of the ancient Greek philosopher Diogenes.
Well he started last Friday. Yesterday he emailed some of his thoughts from the barrel (it is online, of course):
I've been in the barrel on Friday and Saturday, at the times when the shops were open. I didn't dare to sleep in it. In the night from Saturday to Sunday the door was forced and some small stuff I'd left disappeared (table cloth to sit on, writing paper, monk's clothes). Shops open at 13.00, and I'll take some tool to make repairs. Hope the inside is at least clean.
Lots of people visiting me. Some people, who were shy to talk to me, just sneaked a look into the barrel and smiled when they saw me, some small children laughed out loud. Some people just talk very short, asking, 'So you're the one who stays in the barrel for a week - yes - well good luck, or, very good of you.' They are curt while expressing their approval.
Others especially come to talk to me, they introduce themselves, some are sort of hippy's. One of them had travelled through Europe for 2 years with a horse and a cart with a roof (what's the word for that). When I told him it seemed contradictory that I first dreamed of solitude and then put myself in a shopping street, he said it was like yin-yang, because they need each other: I advertise silence by making noise, I go to the market to advertise solitude, I advertise independence by submitting to everybody who wants to talk to me, and so on. He also had the swing of the pendulum metaphor, that one looks for solitude (pendulum to one direction loading up foar going in the other), and then one looks for attention and one is 'exhibitionist' (other direction).
A Maori/New Seeland Dutch who had philosophy for a hobby visited me, somebody who works with mentally retarded and had modern art for a hobby and so on.
If people seem willing to talk, I invite them in the barrel, in which 4 persons fit in lotus sit. I even had a meeting in the barrel with some members of a political party in which I participate (Frisian equivalent of Scottish National Party). Then we closed the door and had a meeting in the dark.
Well, all this sounds terribly unphilosphical, but it is adventurous in a good sense.
On Sunday I wasn't there (shops closed), but still lots of people (I heard) came to have a look at the barrel, discussed the feat or discussed the stress of our society, the addiction to all sorts of luxury and 'genotsbevrediging' (giving in to all sorts of enjoyments, which are repeated so often that they stop being enjoyments - which is one of my favorite themes).
I'm shocked that journalist often haven't heard AT ALL of Diogenes of the Alexander-sun story.
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