All the influences were lined up,
Waiting for me.
I was born,
And these, they were to form me;
Which is why I tell you more of them,
Than of myself.
( Paul Bellow )
"VIA REGIA" is an Un-common Road.
In medieval times, European Pilgrims, Traders, and Soldiers. Etcetera.
Everyone seeking a safe journey, travelled that route or - "High Road" -
And the social import of that lay in a simple IDEA:
there is an - "Un-common Way" -
VIA REGIA...is the "KING'S ROAD".
In modern times, the World finds itself at a crossroads:
the Church, the State, the Society, Busine$$, and - Individuals -
Men are challenged by a pot-pourri of unconventional problems.
But, the INTELLECT offers a "HIGH ROAD".
Especially in A WORLD that is comfortable with old established routes;
and A PEOPLE who are unfamiliar with the odds-and-ends of a burgeoning CIVILIZATION.
- "Un-mapped" Destinations -
Stock Market shutdown. Ozone layer depletion. Pollution. Hurricane Katrina.
Transgender Surgery. Homosexual Marriages. HIV/AIDS, Sexting. Etcetera.
All of these reminds one of Robert Darnton's 2009 work:
"The Devil in the Holy Water".
To expect TRUTH
To come out of thinking;
Signifies that we mistake the need-to-think,
With the urge-to-know.
Thinking can,
And must be employed;
- In an attempt to KNOW -
Thinking is never itself,
But the handmaiden of,
- an altogether different ENTERPRISE -
( Hannah Adrendt )
IN 1752, the French Philosophers Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert,
wrote the "ENCYCLOPEDIA".
You can find it in Papal Rome. You can locate it in Krushchev's Moscow.
You can read it in Benjamin Franklin's Philadelphia.
It is there in Marx's and Engel's Germany.
It would still be there in Adam Smith's Scotland.
Even in Alexander Hamilton's New York.
Even on Liberty Island.
At the Academies: clerics, nobles, literate people, and erudites
gathered to discuss - IDEAS -
At the Salons: scholars and the elite convened with nobles, while their wives
played hostess. Men sat down to eat and drink, and they discussed - IDEAS -
These so-called "pretty people", these "bourgeois people of education";
they re-examined, they re-analyzed, they philosophized, and even spiritualized the times.
"Life of the Mind" is what Hannah Arendt would prefer to call it.
The Story of the HUMAN MIND, over time, has been passed down to all of us:
as "Intellectual History".
And there are "Greek Classics", by Homer and Sophocles.
As well as "Roman Classics", by Virgil and Horace.
The French have "Classic Texts", by the so-called Old Literary Guard:
Voltaire, Rousseau, D'Alembert, Montesquieu.
The French also have "Prohibited Texts", by the Literary Underground:
Pierre Bissot, Henri Linguet, Nicholas Joseph-Florent Gilbert.
"The Grub Street Hacks".
It's A WORLD of PARADOXES, and that's how we've found it:
including the PHILOSOPHES and the LITERATI.
It was MATHEMATICS,
The non-empirical Science per Excellence;
Wherein the MIND,
Appears to play only with itself;
That turned out to be the Science of sciences -
Delivering thKEY,
To those LAWS of NATURE and UNIVERSE;
That are concealed by,
- Appearances -
( Hannah Adrendt )
INTELLECTUAL HISTORY is a history of BIG IDEAS.
Like the Royal High-way, one idea births another idea, which prompts the
next idea, that leads to the following idea.
Thought produces a chain of ideas.
"The Mobility of the MIND". You can afford to call it that.
By the way, "La Belle France" (1898 ) was written by Georges Darien.
It is one of the most powerful lampoons known to have emanated from Europe.
Criticisms...Lampoons...Satire...Libel.
"The Scandal of REASON", says Albena Azmanova.
And the so-called scandal is but, "A judgement Paradox", she concludes.
"A PARADOX of IDEAS".
The poet has a n-e-w THOUGHT:
He has a whole n-e-w EXPERIENCE,
To unfold;
He will tell you how it was with him.
And all men,
Will be the richer in this fortune.
For the experience,
Of each new age;
- Requires a n-e-w CONFESSION -
And the world seems always,
Waiting for its poet...
( Ralph Waldo Emerson )
In the I8th Century, IDEAS earmarked a niche for themselves in history.
And bequeathed to men, the so-called "Age of Reason".
- Enlightenment -
"What is Enlightenment?", asked Immanuel kant ( Essay, 1784 ).
"It is the emergence from self-imposed immaturity", he answered.
Kant believed that arbitrary rules and formulas tended to limit Reason.
But that the ONLY THING required for ENLIGHTENMENT, was FREEDOM.
It was this freedom that gave birth to two great civilizations, France and America;
where the architects played a vast field of IDEAS.
The signs and credentials of the poet:
Are that he announces,
That which no man foretold;
He is the true and only doctor,
He knows and tells;
He is the only teller of news,
For he was present and privy;
To the appearance which he describes.
He's a beholder of IDEAS,
And an utterer of the necessary and casual.
( Ralph Waldo Emerson )
SOCIAL HISTORY also deals with Man and Ideas.
In fact, the "Social History of Ideas" was a term coined by Peter Gay.
In the 1970s.
It provokes a re-examination of history ; and underscores the inter-play
of "Texts" and "Social Contexts".
In other words, it studies the transfer of "Ideas" among "Men" - along
a "Social Chain" ; determined by selective parameters or events.
For example, paraphrasing Robert Darnton, an American Chronicler of
18th Century events :
men "LIVED the experience of LITERATURE",
by "following THOUGHT, through the entire fabric of SOCIETY ".
In the Age of Reason, "IDEAS" became "ACTORS", says Peter Gay.
By the way, "La Belle France" ( 1898 ) has a Paradoxical Idea - which contravenes Georges Darien's lampoon.
It means, "The Beautiful France" !
"A LIAR'S PARADOX?
Well, if Europe "imagined" the Enlightenment;
for all intents and purposes, it was America that "realized" it.
Only in AMERICA, did the Philosopher become King!
It was in this elation, that John Adams wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson,
his compatriot in the "Declaration of Independence" ( 1776 ) ; American Independence.
Adams wrote, "The Eighteenth Century, notwithstanding all its errors and vices; has been, of all that has past, the most honourable to HUMAN NATURE".
GENIUS
Is the activity which;
REPAIRS
The decay of things;
Whether wholly or partly,
Of a material and finite kind.
NATURE
Through all Kingdoms, insures herself.
( Ralph Waldo Emerson )
In the 21st Century, we re-visit MAN and IDEAS.
Thinkers...Texts...Debates...SYMBOLS...T.H.I.R.T.E.E.N.
Is "13"...A LIAR'S PARADOX?
Does America play Fiction~Fantasy...with the Human Mind?
Is America truly "GOD'S OWN COUNTRY"?
Tell me not in mournful NUMBERS,
Life is but an empty DREAM.
For THE SOUL
Is dead that slumbers;
And THINGS
- Are not what they seem -
Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
- Learn to LABOUR and to WAIT -
( Longfellow, A Psalm of Life )
ON THE SHORES of the UNITED STATES:
precisely on Bedloe's Island, New York Harbour.
There stands...A Mighty Wo-man.
In her right-hand, She holds...A TORCH:
whose radiance quickens the immigrant's weary steps.
Locating her reed-pen from the wilds, the obscurities of history:
Emma Lazarus catches the "Light" from this Wo-man's face.
Her pen elevates her feet above the murky waters of her past, with an ornament of LETTERS:
she christens her for the sake of humanity, for the sake of posterity,
perhaps for the sake of IMMORTALITY,
"Mother of Exiles"!
She's your ultimate rapture, with her beacon-hand raised to Jesus Christ in Heaven.
For her sake, and in the manner of His teaching;
Bedloe's Island becomes: "Liberty Island".
Liberty draws her narrative from the HUMAN...angle.
Liberty weaves storylines that are RICH...in figures.
Metaphors...Similes...Personification;
She dwells in A COUNTRY...of countries.
She embraces the IDEA...of Citizens of the World.
She condones no limits and her Song is, "EMPIRE...State of Mind".
Every line of her story would hold your breath, as much as her awesome figure.
Hers is the historical bloodline, the bottomline, the skyline of New York.
And of America.
Ah,
My silvery beauty -
Ah,
My woolly White-and-Crimson!
Ah,
To sing the Song of You...
( Walt Whitman )
L.e.g.e.n.d.s are human stories.
Recounting them opens doors...
which may elevate the mind into realms of the divine.
Before Liberty migrated to her present abode, she was the refuse of Babylon.
Swept out -
as a whore, and a home wrecker.
So says the legend, the narrative of illuminati-researcher, Dr Stein Monteith.
Was she the torch-bearer of the 1936 Olympic Games or Nazi Flame?
Was she the former torch-bearer called Lucifer?
No, the legend calls her a Scarlet Wo-man!
BUT in AMERICA, she changed. She transfigured...into Lady Liberty:
"Keep ancient land your Storied Pomp,
Cries She, with Silent Lips".
Yesterday, she was in the vagaries of the red-light district.
Today, She dwells safe and sound.
"Almost" safe and sound, perhaps.
But She l-i-v-e-s on "Liberty" Island, most c-e-r-t-a-i-n-l-y!
She would always carry the memories of the Old World.
BUT her duty onwards, is to announce the New World's Birthday : July IV, MDCCLXXVI.
"A New Order of the Ages".
Today, standing on a pedestal:
She wears a flowing garment, and the radiant Crown-of-the-Sun:
"Liberty En-lighting the World"!
L.e.g.e.n.d.s are ultra-human stories, too.
In the hey-day of Greek Mythology, Apollo was the god of Reason.
In that era, Prometheus the god of Fire, gave us humans a G~I~F~T:
"The F.I.R.E of KNOWLEDGE".
The Eternal Flame!
The T.O.R.C.H of the Statue of Liberty shines;
With KNOWLEDGE of many civilizations.
She's been there; She's known hunger and She's known thirst.
Now, She's home to all human aspirations.
Now, She's at the gate of the "Land of Opportunity".
With symbolic pride, Liberty raises her beacon-hand in salute to,
"The P.R.I.N.C.I.P.L.E.S of REASON".
The New Colossus!
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame.
With conquering limbs astride from land to land,
Here at our sea-washed sunset gates;
Shall stand,
A Mighty Wo-man With A T.O.R.C.H.
( Emma Lazarus )
Today, LIBERTY is from "God's Own Country".
She certainly would decline to speak the language of any Greek god!
She holds the so-called Olympic Torch.
Same as the "logo" of Columbia Pictures and Standard Oil.
Same as the "fire" burning at the Rockefeller Plaza.
She illuminates on dogmas; she betrays "Lies and Superstition".
And such...is the LIGHT of LIBERTY.
Her Light shines above the Myth of the Classroom.
She stands for the orthodox, She stands for the heterodox.
Life is about evolution, and the history of our Progress is replete
with ever-changing human Perception.
All persons, She draws near.
Yet her heart belongs to the "Teacher".
And such...is the LOVE of LIBERTY.
Her Light transcends the Myth of the Sacred Cow.
Liberty thrives on the principle of Human Equality;
no preferential skin colour, no idolization of persons.
She takes it personally, and She's offended otherwise!
Liberty is her end-game;
and the same serves the purpose of all human Thought and Struggle.
The Torch of Liberty is about LIGHT and LOVE ( ENLIGHTENMENT ).
Is that not true American-ism?
Is that not the true Spirit of Man?
Is that not GOD speaking, irrespective of Nationality?
In more ways than one, "America is a shining thing in the mind", sings Archibald MacLeish.
How can a wise-man have two countries?
How can a man have the earth,
And then want a land far off,
Alien, smelling of palm-trees?
And the yellow gorse at noon in the long calms?
- It is a strange thing to be an AMERICAN!
America is neither a Land nor a People,
A Word's shape it is, a Wind's sweep;
- America is alone, many together!
Many of one mouth, of one breath,
Dressed as one - and none brothers among them;
Only the taught speech and the aped tongue...
- It's a strange thing to be an AMERICAN!
It's a strange thing to LIVE on the HIGH WORLD,
In the s-t-a-re!
( Archibald MacLeish )
"Symbolic Capital" re-constructs the human IDENTITY.
It even re-shapes the stuff of private and ensemble dreams.
For example, The Statue of Liberty.
As "Liberty Enlightenining the World", America re-examines CULTURE;
and re-defines CAPITAL.
There's Human Capital.
There's Financial Capital.
There's Symbolic Capital.
Etcetera, etcetera.
"Symbolic Capital" is another Paradigm Shift.
The message is simple; we should de-emphasize unearned Privilege and extol Merit.
BUT, what is MERITOCRACY?
Is it a measure of "Who You Know" ( or Social Capital )?
Is it a measure of "What You Know" ( or Cultural Capital )?
America reminds us of a special Symbolic Capital, "Number 13".
In the realm of Lies and Superstition, long has dwelt the number, THIRTEEN.
Is America truly "symbolic" of Meritocracy?
Is AMERICA Fiction~Fantasy?...Or is "Number 13" A LIAR'S PARADOX?
We consider bibles and religions divine -
I do not say they're not divine;
I say they have all grown out of you,
And may grow out of you still;
It is not they who give life,
It is you who give life.
Leaves are not more than they are shed
From the trees;
Or the trees from the earth,
Than they're shed out of you.
( Walt Whitman )
Lies and Superstition...are the stuff of L.e.g.e.n.d.s.
The Pentagram is another example.
It is the schematic representation of the U.S Pentagon -
and with the head of Baphomet at its centre.
Does it make reference to the "Knights Templar"?
Does it symbolize to the contrary, a "Protection against demons"?
Like Number 13,...is The Pentagon A LIAR'S PARADOX?
The French chronicler of transcendental magic, Levis Euphas, dispels the myth.
He says it is the "inverted" pentagram that connotes "evil".
And that the U.S Pentagon is not inverted.
The Pentagon is not a complete Pentagram:
Rhode Island Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue do not coincide...in the pentagram skeleton.
Therefore, Euphas concludes that the streets of Washington D.C are not occultic or Masonic!
There's the L.e.g.e.n.d...of the Pythagorean School -
Which 'morphed' into the "Illuminati", or the so-called "Enlightened Ones".
M.A.T.H.E.M.A.T.I.C.S is one of its Sacred Texts.
Its motto is, "Numbers Rule The Universe".
T.H.I.R.T.E.E.N happens to be a number.
It is the stuff of fable. Perhaps, of Lies and Superstition.
T.H.I.R.T.E.E.N also happens to be a Sacred Number.
It is A Symbolic Capital...at the heart of America.
It is A Sacred Foundation...for one-too-many American Paradigm.
* E Pluribus Unum - 13 Letters ( From Many, One )
* The Bald Eagle - 13 Leaves of the Olive Branch ( Right Claw )
- 13 Arrows out of a Quiver ( Left Claw )
- 13 Stripes on A Shield
- 13 Stars in A Cloud
* The Pyramid - 13 Steps ( Un-finished )
* Annuit Coeptis - 13 Letters
AND GOD HAS FAVOURED OUR UNDERTAKINGS.
Literature...has its l.e.g.e.n.d.s
- A PARADOX of IDEAS -
If we regard Human Progress on the simplistic level of our being;
then it is the "bread of life".
- Our Lives -
If we add to it the Enlightenment Era, then the consequence would be staggering.
Enlightenment is the "butter";
and it makes Progress more digestible.
- Our Dear Lives -
Progress and Enlightenment have travelled the "High Road" of IDEAS.
Take for example, GRUB STREET:
a conglomerate of "hack writers", of 18th Century London and Paris.
These men emerged from the Periphery of Society, to the Centre-stage of Ideas;
with a different "Philososophy of MIND".
The Men of Grub Street were the "refuse" of Journalism, said Voltaire.
They were the anti-thesis of his own ilk.
Men like Rousseau, Diderot, D'Alembert, and Montesquieu belonged to the "illustrious literati" or "literary aristocracy".
NOT Bissot, Jean-Paul Marot, Joseph-Florent Gilbert, Pedansat de Mairobert,
who were the "underground literati" or "literary proletariat".
The "poor hacks", the "famished scribblers", the "ragged rabble".
BUT their one striking feature was a special "Philosophy of LANGUAGE".
The Hack Writers honed a verbiage that was rare and razor-sharp.
Its cutting-edge was free, to tear asunder the flimsy margin between the
flesh and bone of the Old Regime.
Thereby allowing the "crux-of-the-matter", the themes unsavoury,
to bleed out in the nosy Streets.
We are SYMBOLS:
And inhabit SYMBOLS.
WORKMAN:
Workman, Work, and Tools.
- Work and Things -
Birth and death,
All are emblems.
But we sympathize,
With the symbols;
And being infatuated,
With the economic uses of things;
We do not know,
That they are THOUGHTS.
( Ralph Waldo Emerson )
The intellectual origins of the French Revolution (1789 ) sprung more from
"Grub Street", than from the Encyclopedia men.
More of Bissot et al, than Voltaire.
Newspapers, pamphlets, posters, cartoons, songs told their story:
the dwindling moral conduct of the prevailing Monarchy and its cronies.
Their rhetoric swelled with invectives.
They mustered a caustic lingua franca, with sufficient current to sweep
high private lives into the low public gutter.
From boyhood, they held the same sentiments as the philosophes, even Voltaire.
But they were the admirers, of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Their methods were however, almost despicable.
Hence they were called, "Rousseaus du ruisseau" or "Rousseaus of the Gutter".
GRUB STREET battered not men only.
They battled the history of their time,
with a unified temper and tale.
So much so, that Nick Carraway of "The Great Gatsby" would have gazed
upon the Old Parisian night-sky, and called these strange bedfellows:
"The Silver-Pepper of the Stars".
Afterall, these men were the "riff-raff of literature".
They were the so-called "dregs of society".
Well, so they thought; so they had thought...
BUT here's A CAVEAT to their STORY.
It was a two-faced saga, their lives.
Was there something wrong in trading WIT for PROFIT?
Perhaps.
But certainly not the kind that helped to quicken the limbs of a limping nation.
Thus did the "Grub Street Hack" cross from the side of "filthy lucre" -
to become a Man-of-Touch.
In the Right-of-Midas, his great ancestor.
The poets are Men,
Of talents who Sing;
And not the Children of Music.
The argument is secondary,
The finish of the verses is primary.
( Ralph Waldo Emerson )
The Grub Street narrative stretches the idea of PARADIGMS,
to the level of superstition.
Therefore, given the right moment in history,
FILTHY LUCRE knows two STORIES -
the "WAYS-of-the-STREET", and the WAYS-of-the-THRONE!
LIFE is but a story of the MIND.
But the Grub Street Writers take a notorious liberty, and stretch the tale.
These "muckrackers" give us the "yellow pages" of the human BODY.
"A World of Paradoxes"!
Such is the history of ENLIGHTENMENT;
the fact that it could spark off v-a-r-i-a-b-le IDEAS, and spawn very s-t-r-a-n-g-e MEN.
Forward-march is this vehicle always;
and French Philosopher and Mathematician Rene Descartes, enjoys the ride.
"Cogito ergo sum", he writes.
In other words, the test of our Progress lies in the successful translation -
"From external authority to intense certainty or authenticity".
BUT Aristotle holds strongly to the belief that this progression,
this authentic identity, is the result of the SOUL'S ACTIVITY.
Of which Reason is, but NOT the sum-total.
- IDEAS -
Derived from the impressions
Of the Senses;
Can never give us THE KNOWLEDGE,
Of true being -
That is, of THE FORMS.
It can ONLY be obtained
By the SOUL'S ACTIVITY...
( Aristotle )
THE FORMS:
Life, Liberty, Individualism, Equality, Democracy, Capitalism, Laissez-faire,
Philanthropy.
The sum-total of these forms, in the recurring business of the secular world,
is Meritocracy.
Enlightenment provides a bonafide "intellectual infra-structure"
for the growth of MERITOCRACY.
Nevertheless, the foundation of this infra-structure is:
"A New Capacity to r-e-c-o-g-n-i-z-e and i-n-t-e-r-p-r-e-t-e SOCIAL PATTERNS",
opines Bruce Lenman.
To be capable of this, is to conceive N-e-w IDEAS.
And transmit them through LANGUAGE.
In other words, "A Social Pattern" could be expressed as "A Symbolic Language".
THIRTEEN is one such IDEA of the New World that forms a fundamental pattern.
It is a recurring decimal in the American Socio-political, and Economic history.
But "13" is the stuff of fable.
Its story is married to heresy, or mired by lies and superstition.
Taking cues from the achievements of America, "13" seems to belong
to the Order of Meritocracy.
If that be the case, then we should be afraid of nothing:
THIRTEEN would be a "Symbol of Merit" - A LIAR'S PARADOX.
The opposite of heresy!
Talking PARADOXES:
*FREEDOM...or Free-dumb?
*DEMOCRACY...or Dumb-ocracy?
*CAPITALISM...or Crap-italism?
A man's power:
To connect his THOUGHT,
- With its proper SYMBOL.
Depends on the simplicity,
Of his desire;
To communicate it,
- Without loss.
{ The corruption of MAN, }
{ Is followed by the corruption of LANGUAGE! }
( Ralph Waldo Emerson )
In symbolic language, "13" stands at the crossroads of Realism and Idealism.
AMERICA stands with "13":
every pointer and every sign-post, faces idealism.
I-d-e-a-l-i-s-m is the backbone of M-e-r-i-t-o-c-r-a-c-y.
A Meritocratic Society offers a springboard to individuals who are not
brain-washed by attitudes or backgrounds of PARENTS.
It is one in which men are no longer slaves to TRADITION.
Such men relinquish the "others-directed" Self, and embrace the way
of the "inner-directed" SELF.
Meritocratic men are not obsessed with the status symbols of their
NEIGHBOUR.
By beginning with the school boy:
we create the man of learning, who would not only be a man of his Nation,
but a man of his Age, through EDUCATION.
Meritocracy believes in an abundance of goods and services,
but it abhors CONSUMMERISM.
It recognizes that society fails to advance, because talents
and creative individuals, are denied access to CAPITAL.
The Emergent Culture of high-calibre professionals and artisans,
scientists and artists, is the goal of the FUTURE.
"The Great Society" is a way forward, opines Lyndon Baines Johnson.
The GREAT SOCIETY:
Is not -
A safe harbour,
A resting place,
A final objective,
A finished work.
It is A CHALLENGE:
Constantly re-newed,
Beckoning us toward a destiny;
Where the meaning
- Of Our LIVES;
Matches the marvelous products,
- Of Our LABOUR.
( Lyndon Baines Johnson )
Every man, every nation, that wishes to create paradigms of progress
MUST shift his/her gaze to the ideal of meritocracy.
Realism makes do with To-day.
Idealism conceives the i-d-e-a-s for To-morrow.
"13" in the American fable is significant, but not the end of history.
It is the beginning of a transitional c-o-n-v-e-r-s-a-t-i-o-n, on the road to D-e-s-t-i-n-y.
For poetry was all written,
Before time was;
And whenever we're so finely organized,
That we can penetrate into that region,
Where the air is music;
We hear those primal warblings,
And attempt to write them down...
( Ralph Waldo Emerson )
Michael Young's satirical novel bears the title:
"The Rise of Meritocracy: An Essay on Education and Equality" ( 1958 ).
According to him, the future of human society depends on the premium
conversation which holds INTELLECT and EFFORT in high esteem.
{ I } + { E } = { M }
Intellect + Effort = Merit
But Effort is a composite of hardwork, the right attitude, and integrity.
A Meritocratic Society is founded on a "Social Pattern" of IDEAS:
"Dialetic", says Hegel
"Social Contract", says Rousseau
"Republic", says Plato
These IDEAS, we can condense into a single CONVERSATION: that Society
is an interaction amongst persons and/or institutions which is based on REASON. It undergoes CHANGES and creates OPPORTUNITIES, for the ultimate Good-of-All.
The men of more delicate ear:
Write down these CADENCES,
- More faithfully -
And these TRANSCRIPTS,
- Though imperfect -
Become the DOINGS,
- Of Nations -
Words and deeds:
Are quite indifferent modes,
- Of the Divine Energy -
Words are also actions...
Actions are a kind of words.
( Ralph Waldo Emerson )
"The Book of NATURE is written in NUMBERS", says Galileo Galilee.
Numbers are connected to everything;
including Planets, Sounds, and Letters.
With numbers, we can decode the Universe and its secret messages -
which are tied to our destinies.
In mathematics, the "Sieve of Erastothenes" is an ancient algorithm.
It helps to locate prime numbers - like THIRTEEN.
And it prioritizes numbers, in terms of V-a-l-u-e and P-r-o-g-r-e-s-s-i-o-n.
"Sift the Two's,
And sift the Three's -
The Sieve of Erastothenes!
When the multiples Sublime,
The numbers that remain, are Prime.
( Anonymous )
There's the Myth of Meritocracy.
It results from disparate ideas, like material inheritance ( parental wealth ), for example.
Others include Providence ( or luck ) or Social Capital ( having influential friends ). Etcetera.
This myth constitutes the c-h-a-l-l-e-n-g-e of meritocracy.
But the beauty in living, lies in the fact that man was c-r-e-a-t-e-d for such:
to break barriers, for the sake of progress.
I am pressing on the UPWARD WAY,
New heights I am gaining every day;
- Still Praying As I Onward Bound -
Lord, plant my feet on Higher Ground.
My heart has no desire to stay,
Where doubts arise and fears dismay;
Though some may dwell,
Where those abound,
My prayer, my aim, is Higher Ground.
I want to scale the UTMOST HEIGHT,
And catch a glimse of glory bright;
- But Still I'll Pray 'till Heaven I've found -
Lord, plant my feet on Higher Ground.
( John Oatman, Jr. )
At best, Man is only a co-creator in the work of the UNIVERSE .
Whatever beliefs he may hold dear, one thing is for sure: TRUTH.
He DID NOT create himself.
Neither did he create the Universe.
GNOSIS - is the Greek word for "Knowledge".
DEO PROXIMO - is the Latin word for "Close to God".
MAN must strive to gain KNOWLEDGE.
And to apply Knowledge, he must have WISDOM.
Wisdom would solve the manifold problems in the WORLD.
Therefore, Man MUST embrace ideas and concepts that attract
his "immortal nature";
In order to secure Lasting PROGRESS.
Man must get close to his GOD.
That's the Royal Road, VIA REGIA.
The highest form is that
- OF THE GOOD.
Which is the ultimate basis,
Of all the rest.
And the first cause
- OF BEING and KNOWLEDGE.
( Aristotle )
