philosophy 12 April 2008
Eric of Cape Cod kindly sent me this piece of wisdom from Henry David Thoreau to assuage my conscience re the mental amount of shopping I did yesterday (again, and to reiterate clearly, it was an accident) “Commerce is unexpectedly confident and serene, alert, adventurous, and unwearied. It is very natural in its methods withal, far more so than many fantastic enterprises and sentimental experiments, and hence its singular success.”
I must admit that I had not heard of this 19th century American writer and philosopher so I searched the net and was delighted to discover he was a lifelong abolitionist and that his philosophy of non-violent resistance influenced Tolstoy, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
He had a great line on governments which went ‘I ask for, not at once no government, but AT ONCE a better government’. Sounds good to me.
His birth date, 12 July, put me in mind of something – my maternal grandfather always believed his birthday was July 10 and he was overexcited when my mother was expecting me, his first grandchild, as she was due then. She went a day longer and his nose was a bit out of joint. Years later, he had to get his birth certificate for a passport and when he did it turned out he’d been born on July 12th. Then, of course, he changed his tack to wondering why my mum couldn’t have waited one more day. Mind you, that was unfair as I don’t think she had much choice in the matter – I think I was the one who was in charge of that particular event.
