Silence

The art is knowing when to stop.

I feel silence closing in.

I spent several hours writing an essay for posting here on Francis Bacon; specifically his theory about induction by numeration, and how it relates to his point about intellectual “idols,” erroneous ideas that limit inquiry.

This is an important development in the history of Philosophy, and I thought I might explain it in a way that would benefit people who haven’t studied Philosophy professionally.

To me, Philosophy in what can be broadly called “the West,” is a vast conversation that started well before Plato press-ganged Socrates, and continues to this day. You can participate in this conversation, but as in any conversation of significance, you have to pay attention and participate thoughtfully. Catching up on over two millennia of heavy thought, often tangled in difficult language is daunting, and my contribution, in the classroom, through my writing, and online is, I hoped, a way of giving people an opportunity to experience a useful bit of this; the enterprise that was the midwife of both science and human liberty, and is the primary tool of rational understanding, which is so desperately needed now.

But I have reluctantly come to understand that there is no room for this. I am in the wrong time, and from the wrong culture. The great conversation is drowned out by the Spectacle, by the constant sirens of consumerism and the hectic chase for moments of dopamine saturation.

So I saved my essay on induction, and buried it in the vast archive of essays that will never be read. And I resolved not to write another. What is the point? Is this a good use of my rapidly passing hours, writing essays that are seldom read, and even less seldom heeded?

The great conversation will always be there. My shelves are full of those thoughts, and the thoughts that refine and contradict them, from Thales to Rawls, to Baudrillard and Foucault and beyond. Perhaps, someday, we as a people will turn again to that conversation that made us the best of what we are.

But I don’t think I’ll be around long enough for that to happen.

So, I battle with the growing feeling that I am wasting my time, and yours. To me, the ultimate sin of writing is wasting your reader’s time, a thing I promised to try to avoid.

All those years studying, thinking, teaching, conversing now seem like a burden - a colossal folly.

Lao Tzu rode out the Western gate and never returned. I am not, obviously, Lao Tzu, but I understand why he rode away. I feel the shadow of the Western gate falling upon me.

It both frightens and calls to me. To live in silence, and die in obscurity seems a thought both comforting and discouraging. But it draws me like gravity draws a falling stone - irresistibly, constantly. It says, “Your part in the conversation that you so respected and gave so many years to is over.”

Should you not hear from me again, know this. I will always be grateful for your time. And although I had no effect, though my name is writ in water, you have my deepest thanks.