It would not be pragmatically possible to recount the countless rewards derived from decades of personal commitment to acquiring humanistic understanding and its beneficial result, mature perception. The latter quality provides the contemplative individual with the tools to relevantly and appropriately respond to life’s nuanced stimuli and to adjust personal expectations to be in sync with the changing periods of his life. Such an attainment delivers the ultimate reward of a meaningful and fulfilling life.
The acquisition of a formal education itself is certainly significant; however, when supplemented by one’s elective pursuit of enriching activities notably, reading good literature or participation in the “arts,” one travels on the reliable route to the destination of personal wisdom and self-fulfillment.
We have always found ourselves motivated by the beneficial goal of enlightenment, viz., the understanding of ourselves and others in the context of the changing nature of events and human existence. Our reading of ancient literature reveals Man’s existential need to appease the forces of nature by the faithful submission to atavistic belief in supernatural or Deistic causation and ultimate judgment. “Victorian literature” was instructive in articulating the effects, good and evil, of the era of industrial development and newly mechanized travel. In the “Modern School of Literature,” we are inclined to observe the harsh and determinative results of irresponsible moral choices. Significantly revealing was the metaphysical observation that many classic issues of mankind are historically repetitive, irrespective of the passage of time and contextual setting. In sum, the ardent and inquisitive pursuit of reading good literature was our open window to an insightful and contemplative understanding of ourselves and the ever-changing environment.
Recently, we read disturbing authoritative essays attesting to a contemporary decline in the willingness and capability of college students to read books or, no less, lengthy essays. Such a regrettably regressive trend is not, in our view, (as ventured in some of the authoritatively written observations) simply and reductively,, caused by the failures of Secondary School education. We are of the view, rather, that the fundamental problem, concerningly is more fundamental, as being ubiquitously one of contemporaneous society.
The distressing transmogrification of a once empirically- oriented, advancing society to one that now exalts convenience and reductionist solutions over the significance of the inquiry into, and understanding of, Mankind’s universal problems and its classic problems as the underlying root of such disappointing societal regression.
Too many of today’s students thoughtlessly and in short-sighted fashion, attend university, less for the classically relevant purpose of attaining enlightenment and personal growth, but rather, for the mundane purpose of preparing for a desired career. Such foolhardy and reductive dedication wastes and repudiates evolution’s generous gift of intelligence to humankind. Akin to playing computerized games (instead of gainfully reading), this is an inexcusable waste of precious life, shamefully consistent with the apparent crass and ungrateful enthrallment with ephemeral and mindless entertainment, worshiping (overpaid) sports heroes instead of brilliant philosophers, medically successful scientists, recognized fine artists and those of exceptional literary accomplishment. The obscene competition for the personal perception of celebrity status or the publically acknowledged possession of expensive toys, is fundamentally primitive and empirically revelatory of a chronic insecurity that is the cause of the avoidance of the many gifts to Mankind to be derived from the wise conduct of contemplative life.
The beneficial receipt of the many internal rewards to the contemplative citizen predictably leads to the personal franchise of his understanding of the self and other contemporary tenants of the globe, to good character as well contentment with life, and the golden rule, humanistic inclination for empathy; contrasted with the extant, detestable ignorance which, regrettably, has led to an expression of populist grievance, manifested by the victory of the current, undeniably, unsuitable victor of the 2024 American Presidential election.
-p.
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