Counterpoint.
The word evokes music: the combining and weaving of different melodic lines in a composition.
If one takes but a few minutes to consider that human life, when viewed from an existential perspective, is truly a unified, intuitive manifestation of spirit, we will also be rewarded in the realization that authentic existence is a perpetual struggle to ascertain and maintain meaning and a sense of purpose.
Such strife is a perfect example of a vital counterpoint. Like music, the careful combination of melody and harmony in human existence creates the necessary coherence that can culminate in contentment.
What we measure in music is the execution of the aforementioned elements. The result – the tangible score - is what we take joy in listening to.
However, unless we are musicians, we are rarely privy to the pathos that is responsible for the finished piece. Pathos is the guiding spirit of the composer, and thus remains unquantifiable, as a lived and private existence.
Such strife is a perfect example of a vital counterpoint. Like music, the careful combination of melody and harmony in human existence creates the necessary coherence that can culminate in contentment.
What we measure in music is the execution of the aforementioned elements. The result – the tangible score - is what we take joy in listening to.
However, unless we are musicians, we are rarely privy to the pathos that is responsible for the finished piece. Pathos is the guiding spirit of the composer, and thus remains unquantifiable, as a lived and private existence.
The best examples of philosophical reflection are those that attempt to make sense of human reality through an operative and guiding joy that refuses to be contained by lifeless, soulless abstractions, and pointless pedantry.
Unfortunately, human existence is never conveyed or understood as a panegyric exercise.
I cannot help but to invoke Nietzsche: “But to lust after honors in this age is even more unworthy of a philosopher than it was in any previous age: today, when the mob rules, when the mob bestows the honors!”
Unfortunately, human existence is never conveyed or understood as a panegyric exercise.
I cannot help but to invoke Nietzsche: “But to lust after honors in this age is even more unworthy of a philosopher than it was in any previous age: today, when the mob rules, when the mob bestows the honors!”
The reality is that human life is best lived as a self-ruling, autonomous existence. The felt and lived vitality that bespeaks to us of our place in the order of things is no less than a perpetual, drawn out act of counterpoint.
The truth of this is easily recognized as long as one is willing to keep the score. In addition to Socrates’ contention that the unexamined life is not worth living, we must also add that the former can only be achieved through the force of sincere and nuanced convictions.
The truth of this is easily recognized as long as one is willing to keep the score. In addition to Socrates’ contention that the unexamined life is not worth living, we must also add that the former can only be achieved through the force of sincere and nuanced convictions.
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