Brilliant Minds

Aurelius & the Confessional Life

Consider how the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius express the 5 elements of the Confessional Life as outlined by Prof. H. Mark Roelofs (NYU):

1. a condition of isolation in a universal context
2. an intense inward effort to stay alive (i.e. to affirm life)
3. an attempt to identify that ground of existence which will not give way and from which one need not retreat
4. an ethic: to be and do the right thing with an awareness of one's finitude in a universal context
5. a faith, as opposed to knowledge, which makes life livable in the face of the unknowable

From "The Sermon" (Ch. 9)

'Who's there?' Oh! how that harmless question mangles Jonah!

Moby Dick, Ch. 6

"... but in New Bedford, actual cannibals stand chatting at street corners.... It makes a stranger stare." Move over, werewolves of London.

Follow posts on Moby Dick

To get a head start for our reading of Moby Dick, I'll be posting short quotations and an occasional comment. Here's the latest I've highlighted today in my edition: "But I don't fancy having a man smoking in bed with me. It's dangerous. Besides, I ain't insured." (Ishmael - Ch. 3)