…or, the art of living:
Our Emergent Being is a process of becoming.
To cease to become is to die. Life (and the process of becoming) entails suffering. To live and to become is to involve oneself in a state of perpetual struggle.
Suffering is intensified when we attempt positive progression (transcendence of limitations, overcoming of self) or to stem the tide of regression (fight against atrophy or death).
Rather than numbing the pain or attempting to eliminate suffering (symptoms of weakness; willful mediocrity, passivity), one ought to embrace their suffering for the sake of progress (symptoms of strength; pursuit of excellence, activity).
Our lives, that is, the lives of human beings are processes of conscious and, ideally, intentional becoming. In the soil of ones yesterday developed the emergent self of today, and in today develops ones tomorrow. This process is long and arduous…an agony. This agony is needful to the development of the self into it’s fullness, and yet many not only shirk that which is discomforting, they curse it. What growth is there without discomfort? Not only should we accept the suffering inherent in our becoming, but we should embrace it, as it is in our suffering, in our agony, that our flaws are made manifest so as to be excised. It is our becoming, our art, for which we suffer, and not for sufferings sake alone.
The art of living involves the cultivation of truth, righteousness, justice, goodness, and beauty. Such are the characteristics of a productive life, and are cultivated through instruction and discipline.
Instruction and discipline in ethics cultivates righteousness
Instruction and discipline in epistemology and logic cultivates truth
Instruction and discipline in politics and law cultivates justice
Instruction and discipline in aesthetics/art cultivates beauty
The cultivated life is the good life, a life of good art.
JVS