Thought for today 

To the mystic St Theresa is attributed the wise saying that "answered prayers cause more grief than unanswered prayers. Truman Capote named a book of his short stories with the same aphorism, with St. Theresa's quote as its frontispiece.  We are own worst enemies and don't know what is best for us. 

The idea is akin to that of unintended consequences--our efforts in one direction often create a contrary result, full of mishap, grief, and if one is of a humorous temperament, ironic self-defeat. We long for what is, if not what is the worst for us, what is irrelevant, toxic, stressful, or illusory, and finally just represent an unproductive expenditure of calories that could be better used.  This is an internalized version of the saying that "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

Along similar lines is the notion that overly planned and ideologically based efforts in a particular direction often create mayhem. The most active, well-meaning people expend much virtuous energy in a direction that has, except in lucky situations, little positive result. This is the basis of the American idea that ideology is suspect--an idea that got reinforcement after WWII and the ideologically fueled horrors in Europe and the Pacific. It is a futile sentiment indeed and renders most political, social, and economic attempts at advancement moot and self-defeating. How many dollars, how much human toil is spent fighting one or another Quixotic goal. Extended into the political realm, the idea may be that attempts to control, govern, and manage are bound to fail. By nature, do-gooders are moving horizontally, not upward. They may feel that they are advancing a more enlightened political line or improving the earth for one or another disadvantaged individual, but generally, those admirable goals are not achieved amidst the noise, generally the noise of relentless but undirect effort, often narcissistically motivated.  Or they are motivated by a hypomanic energy that is unreflective and ill-advised. These people move sideways rather than upward--switch one mediocrity for another instead of ascending into something really better.  Another quote (from inexact memory) from Second Coming by Yeats is that the best lack all intensity while the worst are filled with endless energy. The hypomanics who galvanize the world with their projects half the time  are self-defeating, intent upon fruitless goals, and only occasionally, given the right temperament or sets of ideas or sheer luck, do well. We feel fine as long as we have some sanctioned task to do. We might as well be digging holes and filling them back up. Many of the tasks we set up for ourselves do not do much for the greater good, or even ourselves. All in all, we lack natural grace--the ability to know what is good effort versus a fruitless effort.  This is the banality, not of evil,  but of everyday human effort. Very few people are bad, that is rare, or attempt to harm others--most are set on some path of self-convinced good, expending lots of energy, and generally disrupting, for lack of a better phrase, the harmony of the spheres.  But the manage by their efforts to keep the same old bad situation going.  It is a sort of John Lennon idea--until we improve our minds, if that is possible, the revolution will have to wait. How do we improve our minds--well we probably can't. We can improve our ideas though, that may be a start. Which means probably ignoring three-quarters of what has been published, When I see news of a book-banning being somewhere, I am often appalled at the gross ignorance involved--at the same time when examining the books involved, I have more than once felt that not much in the way of intellectual capital is lost by their conflagration.

Damon LaBarbera