| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Lysis by Plato: intermediate 'indifferent' position the philosopher or lover of wisdom
stands: he is not wise, and yet not unwise, but he has ignorance
accidentally clinging to him, and he yearns for wisdom as the cure of the
evil. (Symp.)
After this explanation has been received with triumphant accord, a fresh
dissatisfaction begins to steal over the mind of Socrates: Must not
friendship be for the sake of some ulterior end? and what can that final
cause or end of friendship be, other than the good? But the good is
desired by us only as the cure of evil; and therefore if there were no evil
there would be no friendship. Some other explanation then has to be
devised. May not desire be the source of friendship? And desire is of
Lysis |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The First Men In The Moon by H. G. Wells: Enough of this remarkable phase of my experiences! I tell it here simply
to show how one's isolation and departure from this planet touched not
only the functions and feeling of every organ of the body, but indeed also
the very fabric of the mind, with strange and unanticipated disturbances.
All through the major portion of that vast space journey I hung thinking
of such immaterial things as these, hung dissociated and apathetic, a
cloudy megalomaniac, as it were, amidst the stars and planets in the void
of space; and not only the world to which I was returning, but the
blue-lit caverns of the Selenites, their helmet faces, their gigantic and
wonderful machines, and the fate of Cavor, dragged helpless into that
world, seemed infinitely minute and altogether trivial things to me.
The First Men In The Moon |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Hellenica by Xenophon: call to mind against you the time when you reached Cynoscephelae and
did not ravage a square foot of Theban territory; and again, a
subsequent expedition when you were driven back foiled in your attempt
to make an entry into the enemy's country--while Agesilaus on each
occasion found his entry by Mount Cithaeron. If then you have any care
for yourself, or any attachment to your fatherland, march you against
the enemy." That was what his friends urged. As to his opponents, what
they said was, "Now our fine friend will show whether he really is so
concerned on behalf of the Thebans as he is said to be."
Cleombrotus, with these words ringing in his ears, felt driven[3] to
join battle. On their side the leaders of Thebes calculated that, if
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