aelf
Ashen One
Somewhere in his labyrinthe essay “On Friendship” Michel de Montaigne proclaimed: "O, my friends there is no friend".
This caused me to think about solitude in a certain sense, that friends can become enemies and vice versa, so we must reconcile ourselves to the possibility that there are no friendships that we can rely on as utterly permanent.
This is a contradiction like the quote in my view, but perhaps it can be logically argued that there is no contradiction because there is an element of time involved, which can change everything.
So there is a double meaning: As Aristotle said, "He who has friends can have no true friend", so the man who can call out to his friends loses the only friend he could ever have; himself. But mostly the meaning is found in the mutability of friendship and all things in life. My political and philosophical work, my numerous pieces of notes and thousands of paragraphs, which presented as a diagram forms a vanishing point and lines that extend from and towards the common point, all originate from and point towards the fact that life is full of uncertainty.
Like the parable of Schrödinger's cat, we can never know whether something will turn out one way or another until time has intervened. Your friend today can become your nemesis tomorrow. Or maybe you will die tomorrow, especially if your friend triggered your ruin.
Of course, some people deny this. I do not like how they think. I am pretty sure that they are just deluding themselves and chasing shadows in the form of other people whom they think are friends. Time changes everything and those who deny that are just slaves to time, waiting in the dark in Plato's cave until the fates destroy them utterly.
So, tl;dr version: If you were in the labyrinth of time, you would feel afraid not just because you run the serious risk of being destroyed at any time, but also due to the labyrinth's essence, the minotaur at the center who you might have been walking nearer to with every step, nearer that destroyer of your soul who will rend it with his teeth. But, converted, this also means that if you walk in the labyrinth outside the common time labyrinth, that is the labyrinth of your own imagination, could you perhaps evade this fear and find your soul mate? Is not the very fact that your friends can also be your betrayers revealing of the Idea that man is perhaps destined to be solitary in his quest of seeking immortality through a noble death? As the poet Dylan Thomas once said, "Do not go gentle into that good night". Should we not resist destruction by not giving others the means to hurt us by getting close to them? After all Dylan Thomas would not have been so talented without alcohol, which set his imagination free and triggered his ruin. Perhaps it can be logically argued that alcohol was his friend and betrayer. But that would not make sense because in alcohol he saw a reflection of himself and his genius. Perhaps man is a betrayer of himself, but only if you betray your own life can you be immortal. So now we have a vanishing point with lines extending to and from it that bend back toward the point: Man is his own betrayer who betrays other people for the sake of himself whom he betrays. At the center of this linear labyrinth is the minotaur Betrayal and his twin Solitude. No matter which line you trace, you always end up at the centre, which is either betrayal or solitude depending on your perspective. This reflects my esoterism as I contemplate the meaning of life and death and ultimately fail, like Antisthenes, to see the difference.
Even more tl;dr: Do you think betrayal is at the center of life? Does one ever really know other people? If you believe so, why? And if you don't believe so, how do you cope with your existence?
This caused me to think about solitude in a certain sense, that friends can become enemies and vice versa, so we must reconcile ourselves to the possibility that there are no friendships that we can rely on as utterly permanent.
This is a contradiction like the quote in my view, but perhaps it can be logically argued that there is no contradiction because there is an element of time involved, which can change everything.
So there is a double meaning: As Aristotle said, "He who has friends can have no true friend", so the man who can call out to his friends loses the only friend he could ever have; himself. But mostly the meaning is found in the mutability of friendship and all things in life. My political and philosophical work, my numerous pieces of notes and thousands of paragraphs, which presented as a diagram forms a vanishing point and lines that extend from and towards the common point, all originate from and point towards the fact that life is full of uncertainty.
Like the parable of Schrödinger's cat, we can never know whether something will turn out one way or another until time has intervened. Your friend today can become your nemesis tomorrow. Or maybe you will die tomorrow, especially if your friend triggered your ruin.
Of course, some people deny this. I do not like how they think. I am pretty sure that they are just deluding themselves and chasing shadows in the form of other people whom they think are friends. Time changes everything and those who deny that are just slaves to time, waiting in the dark in Plato's cave until the fates destroy them utterly.
So, tl;dr version: If you were in the labyrinth of time, you would feel afraid not just because you run the serious risk of being destroyed at any time, but also due to the labyrinth's essence, the minotaur at the center who you might have been walking nearer to with every step, nearer that destroyer of your soul who will rend it with his teeth. But, converted, this also means that if you walk in the labyrinth outside the common time labyrinth, that is the labyrinth of your own imagination, could you perhaps evade this fear and find your soul mate? Is not the very fact that your friends can also be your betrayers revealing of the Idea that man is perhaps destined to be solitary in his quest of seeking immortality through a noble death? As the poet Dylan Thomas once said, "Do not go gentle into that good night". Should we not resist destruction by not giving others the means to hurt us by getting close to them? After all Dylan Thomas would not have been so talented without alcohol, which set his imagination free and triggered his ruin. Perhaps it can be logically argued that alcohol was his friend and betrayer. But that would not make sense because in alcohol he saw a reflection of himself and his genius. Perhaps man is a betrayer of himself, but only if you betray your own life can you be immortal. So now we have a vanishing point with lines extending to and from it that bend back toward the point: Man is his own betrayer who betrays other people for the sake of himself whom he betrays. At the center of this linear labyrinth is the minotaur Betrayal and his twin Solitude. No matter which line you trace, you always end up at the centre, which is either betrayal or solitude depending on your perspective. This reflects my esoterism as I contemplate the meaning of life and death and ultimately fail, like Antisthenes, to see the difference.
Even more tl;dr: Do you think betrayal is at the center of life? Does one ever really know other people? If you believe so, why? And if you don't believe so, how do you cope with your existence?
