수요일 2026년1월21일	-	The Human Good

Discourses 1.8.15,16:

	Now, do I want to deny you these capacities? Heaven
	forbid! No more than I would wish to deny you the
	capacity to see. All the same, if you ask me what the
	human good is, I can offer you no other reply than to say
	that it lies in a certain quality of choice.

This touches upon the same lesson I mentioned yesterday, which makes sense
as it is a continuation of the same discourse. Wealth, influence, power,
knowledge; these things are not bad, in fact they are often preferrable to
their opposite, but they are not what constitutes the good for a human
being. This lies only in the choices we make, and this truth holds whether
these other factors are in play or not.

Unfortunately, this is not an easy lesson to learn. It is certainly easy
to sit here and nod my head in agreement, but, like an amnesiac, it quickly
dissipates from my thoughts and I carry on the most of my day barely
acknowledging the truth of it in my behavior or attitude. The old patterns
of thought and action are strong and deeply ingrained in me. So, for today
(and perhaps the rest of my life), I will try to renew this idea in my
thoughts as often as I notice it slip away, and hope that in time it's
influence grow more steady and frequent.