Following up on my post about a Soul Workout, I've hit the spiritual gym and done some reflective reps on my personal practices. So far I've focused on three of the six questions I gleaned from Eric Hoffer's book The Passionate State of Mind:
Hoffer connects these questions with susceptibility to both flattery and calumny. On reflection, I'd say that I don't seem to be overly governed by what other people think of me, which implies that I don't tend to be swayed by other people's opinions about me, whether positive or negative. In fact this has been my way for a long time, perhaps out of personal stubbornness (a family trait on my mother's side!) or perhaps out of agreement with the Epicurean maxim to live unknown.
As to that last point, self-deception appears to be an occupational hazard for anyone who pursues fame, power, status, influence, or importance. Yet if you can accept that your actions will have no impact on present-day society or the course of history, and even accept that at the end of your life you will quickly pass out of human memory, then most people's opinions of you won't matter. Personally I honor the opinions only of the dear people (φίλοι) who truly care about me. In general this doesn't necessarily solve the problem - after all, one could be surrounded by flatterers or fault-finders - but it does limit the scope. Moreover, although I strive to be gracious about receiving praise and open-minded about receiving criticism, I also tend to keep my own counsel about my own worth.
With my recent turn toward an ever-deeper personalism in mind, it strikes me that the foregoing practices are essentially a private application of the principles of intellectual honesty that Walter Kaufmann enunciated in his book The Faith of a Heretic. However, I find that they're not always easy to follow, even for someone like me who seems to be constitutionally quite immune to outside influence.
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
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