The need for wisdom
Single mindedness makes life simple.
The most common single-mindedness extant is that of King Khafre.
DO UNTO THINESELF. THAT IS THE WHOLE OF THE LAW.
And as mentioned here (please watch and share) there is not yet any answer to Khafre but that of practicality.
After all, there is only one Khafre and even today there are a great many more Trump Wannabees than there are Trumps.
And most of them failed and are in prison.
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There are other extremes that people choose in order to simplify their decision making process. There are ascetics for example. These are people who renounce themselves in accordance with the options offered them by their society.
In ages past many chose monasticism and willingly cloistered themselves in tiny cells for the full duration of their existence as they engaged in contemplation, prayer, meditation, philosophy, or trying to spend their sleeping and waking hours overwhelmed by some emotion, or free of any emotion.
That's another way to feel good and confident about yourself.
Then there are individuals - great individuals - who “discover” an ideal and live by it, rarely engaging in re-thinking and thus free from doubt or worry.
Most of them live in solitude and are never heard from again but a few enter History. Diogenes and Hitler fall into this category.
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What they all have in common is a proper worshipful respect of their lives and their selves. No free man or woman negates himself unless he regards himself as so important to require negating. 99.999% of human beings are just bi-pedal beasts eith opposing thumbs. They may accompany their grazing, rutting, and yoke bearing with words but they are the same words oxen and anteaters would use if they were to be granted speech and the requisite cranial components.
In each case, including that of Hitler, these individuals are astonishing and praiseworthy for their egos. There may be much else less exemplary about them but the fact that they chose to fashion themselves and to live their lives differently than the oh so easy civilization-long custom of marrying, bitching about their spouses, providing for their kids by hook and crook, and then dying of old age in the tradition of all their neighbors is an impressive thing!
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In my limited time and experience on Earth (which truth demands I clarify is more extensive than that of anyone I know of but still so limited as to be valueless to The All-Knowing Truth) I have found no more beautiful way for those thus gifted with inner bravery than to not violate the stricter dictates of the communities around them while innerly and outwardly elevating those aspects of their cultures that they themselves best understand and relate to.
Such people are so rare that in all my very attentive life to evidence of such individuals I have found only one I can confidently say fits the bill. His name is Mordechai Machlis and he is an Orthodox Jew.
Seeking to overcome the bias of my own upbringing and the life course it set for me I would also like to enter Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi into evidence.
Of course never having actually met him I can't swear to you that he fits. Besides, were I to offer him as an exemplar I would have a hard time explaining why Menachem Mendel Schneerson is excluded. So I’ll leave him out…
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I began to write with the intention of coming around to Solomon's Prayer.1
What spurred me to write was a complex moment I was just involved in with the dozens of beggar children I’ve come to know. I resolved a complicated violent conflict among them that the adults in the vicinity chose to abstain from but whose resolution brought their admiration and even teary-eyed approval.
Everything above the most recent line break was but a preamble to that and to an exploration of the complex matter of public judgement for those whose gifts and lives incline towards it.
The preamble intended to come around to the importance of keeping your own interests in the equation and how Orthodox Judaism, the religion into which Mordechai Machlis was born, requires engaging in sexual intercourse (he has 14 children). And once you’ve allowed yourself the pleasure of sex (or for a woman bearing and raising children) it's impossible to claim self-negation as an ideal.
That was to lead me into the matter of wisdom and Solomon’s Prayer.
This being an article that as of this unfortunate moment I have no reason to assume will be read by more than 30 people, wisdom and judgement demand I let it end here, with the first ⅓ fleshed out and the final ⅔ described but not as fully resolved.
I hope you enjoyed it and I ask, if you can, to please continue or begin to help out financially and by sharing my content with others.
Have a beautiful day.
Moshe in Egypt III
