Category: de umbris idæarum
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23. Being and its Discontents
In one of the first posts during my initial writing challenge, I made a sort of leap between the indubitability of our being, the fact that we can’t doubt our own existence, to talking about Being with-a-capital-B. Fearing that this leap might seem illegitimate to some, this post is intended to justify that leap, rather […]
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20. Bodies in the Altar
My friend Jason asked me to elaborate further “about graves as the first location markers, the relation with parts of Genesis focusing on burials, the relation to pilgrimage and veneration of saints, and especially if this informs (or is informed by) your medieval travel narrative interests.” A big ask, a big topic, but a journey […]
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19. A Better Post
I’m not happy at all with how Monday’s post turned out. An interesting phenomenon is that the reduced pace of posting has led to a decrease in quality, at least as perceived by me. Extra time to prepare is not bearing fruit, something perhaps to consider going forward. I’d like, therefore, to clarify what I […]
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18. The Universe is not Meaningless, On Objective and Subjective Meaning
People hunger for meaning. We have a profound desire that life not be a “tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”* This can create a problem with the dominant world-view of our age, which is broadly atheistic/materialist, and thus tends to denude the world of meaning. Recognizing this as a […]
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17. Distraction, Despair, Social Belonging, and Resentment
This is a mild re-working of something I wrote a few years ago. I don’t want to spend so much time dwelling on the negative, on critique, but, on the other hand, it’s important to be cognizant of the bad news to grasp the significance of the good. Still, expect less diagnosis and critique going […]
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16. Life
We live in memory and by memory, and our spiritual life is at bottom simply the effort of our memory to persist, to transform itself into hope, the effort of our past to transform itself into our future. Miguel de Unamuno Miguel de Unamuno was a Spanish writer and intellectual. One of the 20th century’s […]
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13. Sea and Forest
Such traditions as belong to the time before the city was founded, or rather was presently to be founded, and are rather adorned with poetic legends than based upon trustworthy historical proofs, I purpose neither to affirm nor to refute. Livy, The History of Rome Foundation establishes place and historical time.* Before foundation there is […]
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12. Reading Tea Leaves
Picking up some threads. Recall that Vico imagined the beginning of society as a consequence of the giants, degenerate humans in the aftermath of the Flood, first encountering thunder and lighting. This encounter terrified them and motivated the institution of marriage and burial. The god of thunder, of the sky, was the first god. Alongside […]
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11. History, Suffering, and Sin
Suffering is simultaneously one of the most manifest facts of history and its greatest offense. Therefore, any schema of history must offer an account of suffering, if it is to be in any way satisfying. I wonder a little bit here, consider this a meditation. Ancient history was essentially cyclical, seeing suffering as baked into […]
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10. Reifying the Model
The problem of abstraction is a perpetual one. We can’t help but abstract, thinking itself would be impossible without it, but despite its tremendous utility, abstraction leads us into trouble when we confuse our abstractions for things themselves. This confusion is an inversion of the hierarchy of being. Abstractions are constructions of our minds. They […]
Dan Yingst 