Matt - it is the most foolish thing in the world for you to think yourself mediocre!!! Say peace good tickle brain whenever the thought crosses your mind. Wisdom comes from sitting easy with paradox and mystery -

Remember O man thou art dust

Yes - but

Remember O Matt thou art the Son of a King

love

Dick

Well, I’m only showing my true colors

‘But the fool on the hill
Sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head
See the world spinning round’

My pastor says that the spiritual life is a balanced life… maybe this is what he was talking about

Psychedelic ones?

Yes, I must stop nibbling on those magic mushrooms

A Fools’ Wisdom

We’ll set thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there’s no labouring i’ th’ winter. All that follow their noses are led by their eyes but blind men, and there’s not a nose among twenty but can smell him that’s stinking. Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following it; but the great one that goes upward, let him draw thee after. When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again. I would have none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it.
That sir which serves and seeks for gain,
And follows but for form,
Will pack when it begins to rain
And leave thee in the storm.
But I will tarry; the fool will stay,
And let the wise man fly.
The knave turns fool that runs away;
The fool no knave, perdy.

I like that.

Hey Dave - since you’ve been reading Burton’s Anatomy - and are dropping it for Praise of Folly (good choice) - it’s interesting to note what Burton has to say about Erasmus’ view on hellfire sermons-

The greatest harm of all proceeds from those thundering Ministers, a most frequent cause they are of this malady; and do more harm in Church’, says Erasmus, ‘than they that flatter; great danger on both sides, the one lulls them asleep in carnal security, the other drives them to Desperation’’ (Anatomy p. 775)

‘’While in their ordinary sermons they still aggravate sin, thunder out God’s judgments without respect, rail at and pronounce them damned for giving so much to sports and recreations, making every small fault and a thing indifferent an irremissible offence they so wound men’s consciences, that they are almost at their wits ends. ‘Those bitter potions’, says Erasmus, ‘ are still in their mouth nothing but gall and horror, and with a mad noise they make all their listeners desperate’ – many are wounded by this means, and they commonly that are most devout and precise, that follow sermons, that have the least cause, they are most apt to mistake, and fall into these miseries’’ (Anatomy p.776)

Oh man - those are some good words and a good diagnosis.
I’m looking for a copy of Folly - I don’t enjoy reading things like that online near as much as in a good chair with good light and pages to turn.

And I didn’t get that from ploughing all the way through the Anatomy - never done that I’ve read selections from it that’s all - and I found those quotations in an essay on Erasmus and his influence on 16th century English thought Praise of Folly is an easy read and a delight. Anatomy of Melancholy - its’ very long and I leave it to the experts to do some work for me !!!

The Penguin edition is cool. There’s also a really good verse translation by an American scholar - but he’s only got half way through the great work.

My Anatomy is NYRB Classics edition. I have not read all the way through it yet. It’s a very very thick book. I’ll look for the Penguin Folly, and no doubt I’ll praise it.

Beautiful words, Matt. I wish I could have borrowed you for my English homework. You always have very much to add, so like Dick said, dismiss any notion otherwise with, “peace, good tickle brain.”

And, yes, if you’re a spring chicken, then I’m an egg.

Reason #1 that I no longer have a Facebook – quite liberating! And Reason #2 was procrastination.

Great stuff Matt -

The fool finds gold in a ruin while the alchemist dies in pain (from lead poisoning generally)

Speaking of which, one of my ancestors was Surgeon Extraordinaire to George the Third. George went mad, poor man, probably due to heavy metal poisoning, probably from medicines prescribed by his doctor…

Wow - and what an ancestor to have

Yes. Not sure whether I’m proud of him, or not…

This fellow’s grandfather was a Westminster divine tasked to write the commentaries on Isaiah, Jeremiah and Lamentations. In 1619, he wrote the first known treatise on probability (Boswell called it “a learned book of the age”) which caused a great scandal at the time. His life’s work was a commentary on Marcus Aureleus that “stood alone for more than two centuries”, “a monument to 17thC classical scholarship.”

Alas, the smart genes have been watered down somewhat over the ensuing generations…

Rubbish! Balderdash! Piffle! Stuff and nonsense! Tilly vally, and fie for shame!

Genius runs in your blood, Allen! My bloodline’s biggest claim to fame is a pregnant lady-in-waiting who was… ahem… discharged from her position and eventually moved to the States.

That and… ahem… a Madame. So I’d hate to think what runs in my family!