Welcome to the Time Capsule — a weekly newsletter that discusses the practicalities of life and explores the wisdom, ideas, and events of the past to help you build a better future.
💭 Quote of the Week
The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think.
Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
✏️ Sworn Testimony
The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose, it will defend itself.
Saint Augustine
How we define truth, what constitutes truth, and whether multiple truths are simultaneously possible, are difficult questions with difficult answers. I will not attempt to answer any of them. Instead, examining the inverse of truth, the lie, more specifically the conscious lie, can perhaps shed light on the importance of the truth in walking a life path built on honesty and reality.
A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern the truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
A conscious lie, big or small, degrades the soul. To lie is to say to yourself, "I believe this to be true despite me knowing otherwise" -- to lie is to taint your subconscious mind and the lens through which you see the world. How you act and what you tell yourself and others should be in line with your experience and beliefs -- your thoughts, words and actions should be as one.
Your truth is yours to derive and is best derived solely by you. There is much to learn from the words and works of others, but there comes a point in everything where one must choose what to believe. This is a choice best made alone, and to do so honestly is all that is required. However, it is solely your responsibility to hold yourself accountable with regard to your beliefs and the actualization of those believes in your words and actions. That is not to say one cannot be wrong or change one's mind -- in fact, learning from failure and mistakes and the continual remodelling of oneself is integral to personal development and the truth-seeking process. However, one must be willing to be wholly himself and take what comes as a result of that. To do that, one must accept what they alone want to accept and discard the rest. We are too often tempted to subscribe to the beliefs of the times or those men and women who are esteemed. We must shy away from that urge, and bare our cross alone. To live or die for a cause not your own is a disgrace.
To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men -- that is genius.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Will you choose the honest truth, your honest truth, or what is easy and expedient?
📸 Photo of the Week
📖 Book of the Week — Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard
Kierkegaard wrote this work pseudonymously, like many of his works. In this work, he discusses the story of Abraham, specifically the part when he is asked by God to sacrifice his only son. This request by God, which was completely unethical and contrary to His promise that He would make Abraham the father of nations, was a test of faith. Kierkegaard investigates the story and the various perspectives from which we can understand Abraham’s dilemma.
For Kierkegaard, the story of Abraham is symbolic of the highest level of faith. A faith so strong that one is willing to “teleologically suspend the ethical” to accomplish God’s will. This is not a faith born from resignation, where one seeks God’s will only because He was told to. This is a faith so strong that one is willing to do something as crazy, irrational, and unethical as sacrificing one’s only son, believing that God has something better in store.
💡 Food for Thought
🔭 Sunday Best
Slap Chris Rock — I can’t get over 35km/hr
Nintendo Gamecube Intro — if you know you know
Shifting From Scarcity to Abundance — Alicia Keys discusses her change in perspective, reading from her book More Myself
Until next time,
AT