In all honesty...

... if you must take life this seriously, how much more must you take death?


 (Something brief for leap day.)


 

Wise advice for writers as well as for readers

"The book to read is not the one that thinks for you but the one that makes you think."

James McCosh (1811-1894)

Epictetus - 11

From: The Golden Sayings of Epictetus (translated by Hastings Crossley) - from Project Gutenberg.

CXV
Give thyself more diligently to reflection: know thyself: take counsel with the Godhead: without God put thine hand unto nothing!

On travelling to work

There are two ways to get to work: by private transport or by public transport. Private transport usually takes the form of travelling by car; public transport, the bus or the train. (I shall overlook the fact that there are different forms of cycling.) If one can't afford a car, one has little choice than to go by public transport

If one becomes very wealthy one may hire a chauffeur to drive your car for you. Here I think that there is a sense of coming full-circle. Doesn't a bus or train driver chauffeur those who travel by public transport?

So, one must conclude that there is no difference between a poor person and a wealthy one.

(What is more, before I got my bus pass (which allows me free bus travel), all I paid was £10 per week for a weekly bus ticket: a lot less than it costs to hire a chauffeur.)

A Fortunate Man

The book 'A Fortunate Man' by John Berger, I have heard described as "the most important book about general practice ever written". This image taken from it, I find particularly atmospheric. It seems that I am not the only one attracted to this image. It now appears, albeit in a somewhat cropped form, on the cover of the current edition.