Describing Red To People Born Blind
It is a truism, an axiom, a moot point even, just until it comes alive and bites.
Hello reader, how do you do? I must apologize in this issue for my inconsistency since the start of the year. The way things have turned out has been beyond my control.
As an essayist whose literal duty is “to try,” I cannot afford to say what I do not have to say. For the days I did not publish, it was because I had nothing worthwhile to say. Nonetheless, I have not ceased to write. What I am experiencing instead is that my thoughts are denser and they require more refining time to work through. To me, this is good because I made a commitment to study and think more. If the price means writing less, I am willing to pay it. I only ask out of respect that you understand this.
Anyways, after writing an essay I intended to publish, I realised that it just wasn’t ready. But, I have these quotes and aphorisms to share. It is a hodge-podge of Chesterton, Blaise Pascal, myself, and a Twitter meme. I hope they — as good aphorisms should — inspire you to think. Thank you.
“The wisest thing in the world is to cry out before you are hurt.” G.K Chesterton
“When a natural discourse paints a passion or an effect, one feels within oneself the truth of what one reads, which was there before, although one did not know it. Hence one is inclined to love him who makes us feel it, for he has not shown us his own riches, but ours. And thus this benefit renders him pleasing to us, besides that such community of intellect as we have with him necessarily inclines the heart to love.” — Blaise Pascal
It is a truism, an axiom, a moot point even, just until it comes alive and bites.
It is grey evils, not glaring ones, we must heartily condemn.
Describe "red" to a person born blind.
Learn one thing from football fans: celebrate the moment. Yes, you may eventually lose the game but you should celebrate this early lead that you have got. Relish every moment.
Now, that is the problem with tacit knowledge: I happen to perceive it; it is right here; I perceive it stronger than I perceive many demonstrable facts. But to tell it, to define it, to describe it, I fall short.
The qualities we call "grace" in a woman and "charm" in a man are qualities that we pick up instantaneously without having definitions for them. For if we were to meet someone else who is blind hence who cannot perceive this quality of grace and charm in another person, it is useless to use the words grace and charm. Because grace and charm are words that mean what they mean only because the hearer and the speaker know to presuppose what quality is spoken of.
Scaffolds are unsung heroes of the knowledge world. By the time their benefits come to light, only the construction workers know the part they played in giving us this beautiful world.
Where sacred is the opposite of common, you may sacralise common things by giving thanks.
“Ada Lovelace invented programming. You might disagree. You might even have some evidence to the contrary. But you have to ask yourself: is this really worth losing my job over? Ada Lovelace invented programming.”
Thank you for reading; have a splendid week.