Humility Precedes Wisdom

This is something any wise person could tell me if I'd the inclination to listen. I've read this idea in multiple places. It never sank in until recently.

Wisdom is found only when one loses one's sense of pride. This is not to say one should not or can not have pride and also be wise. However, when one loses pride and is "cowed" by awe into humility one has taken a step towards sophia (AKA wisdom). There are many other steps on the path, some I've taken, some I've yet to choose. I feel a new sense of pride, one that comes from having found my humility and then rebuilt myself as a new "man."

When one loses pride one is forced to find it again from a different route. One finds pride and, in turn, wisdom only after having lost one's vain pride. This, as I've (re)discovered, is a different sort of "pride" and comes from a different source than vanity  (or self-pride). This pride feels as if it comes from simply being oneself and not from being "prideful" of oneself. In this way, I can say I am humble and bow before God but still say I am proud.

Humility (and, in order, pride) can often be found in:
a) realizing one's flaws
b) accepting and owning one's flaws
c) seeking a way to overcome one's flaws
d) overcoming one's flaws (or turning flaws into positive characteristics)

All philosophers (seekers or lovers of wisdom) must, and usually do, come to this realization at some point in their growth. A wise woman is humble, a hubristic man is not wise. Hubris has been defined fairly specifically and in different ways over the decades. For me, it is a simple concept. To commit hubris is to feel excessive pride in oneself or in humanity in general. To have true pride, and not hubris, is to feel a humble satisfaction that comes from simply being.

One may find "true pride" in other ways, but for me, it was found through having my existing prideful vanity torn down and cast away in spite of myself. When that happened I felt bare but empowered. I had lost the restrictions of my own vainglory and was free to feel both humility AND pride.

This, is one step of many in my search for Sophia. May you find these words helpful in your own seeking.

-Lykeios - AKA Adam -

True Freedom Comes From Within and Without

What constitutes true "freedom" has been in contention amongst humans for centuries. Is it simply not being subject to another man? Is it choosing whether or not to be subject to another man or being? Is it simply knowing things?

I don't know the answers to all those questions and I hold that no one has ever really known. However, there are different concepts of "freedom" that can work for different individuals. "Freedom," as most human concepts are, is a subjective term. It can mean about anything one wants it to mean.

As I've begun a journey of self redefinition or self "rediscovery," as I tend to put it, I began thinking on the subjectivity in language more. What one man calls freedom may not mean freedom to another. Just as one woman's "evil" could be another's "good." Its all a personally impersonal form of lexicography. Your personal "dictionary" as I've come to think of it, is different from mine and from anyone's. It is part of what makes each of us an individual.

A few things I have recently realized about freedom are these:

True Freedom comes from within oneself as well as from without:

• From the "self" but NOT the "ego"
• From one's spiritual beliefs (usually this means from a "deity" or "deities")
• From meditations
• From practicing daily health and well-being

While I believe those things are true, this last is the most important to me:

True Freedom and Liberty means being no more or less than what YOU are.

All other definitions of those two terms, to me, fall short of their true meanings.

Blessings,

- Lykeios - AKA Adam -

Quote(s) of the Day
"If, therefore, any man be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone." - Epictetus