Tuesday, October 31, 2017
... the pleasures of illusion............................
Vice may be defined as a course of behavior consented to by the will and having results which are bad, primarily because they are God-eclipsing and, secondarily, because they are physically or harmful to the agent or his fellows. Ignorance of the self is something that answers to this description. In its origin it is voluntary; for by introspection and by listening to other people's judgments of our character we can all, if we so desire, come to a very shrewd understanding of our flaws and weaknesses and the real, as opposed to the avowed and advertised, motive of our actions. If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusions.
-Aldous Huxley, as culled from The Perennial Philosophy
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Like. No arguments. Ouch.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes think, as a fairly strong extrovert, I find it very difficult to look within to understand my "flaws and weaknesses."
Or maybe it's not really about my personality preference, but it's about my humanity. Just would rather prefer the pleasures of illusions.
That Huxley was something else. The world was lucky to have him.
E.