Finding daily gratitude and an attitude of service with a smile, is the theme of this week's gathering. Knowing the frailty and vulnerability of the human body, and knowing the unknown mystery of life itself, the Stoic's nearly always awoke with a state of gratitude, From this they thought upon the day and set their intentions for their daily walk. Recognizing the cruel nature of charity, the "seeker's" of Pythagorus and Socrates never rang bells at the entry to shopping malls to raise money for the poor. In fact they lived outside the monetary system's of the times. The seeker's would give up all their wealth when they became initiates, and if they showed their continence, they were allowed to continue for a second year, if not, they were discharged, as figuratively dead, and given twice their initial wealth, and left to walk their lives on their own.
To my knowledge and study, there was never a "take the money and run" mentality among the Stoics. Though not considered "evil", money was considered irrelevant to the stoic's, and their's was one of the first movements of volunteer poverty. They lived simply, rarely spoke in public and never wrote down their words and philosophies, leaving a mystery, but little temptation for those not in their movement. Their movement survives today, primarily due to their influence on the Jewish Nazarite's and particularly the teachings of Jesus. It floated like a butterfly, weaved and dodged through time, and remained true to form as Europe went through new, and then discarded philosophical movement's. The humanistic movement was about 400 years ago, and lasted around a hundred years until its failing were understood. The humanistic movement is the primary pillar of the American democratic party of today. Instead of removing knives from the hands of violent members of our society, they subsidize bandaid factory's and do little good for the society as whole.. The "might make's right" philosophy is the counter-balance, now called the RNP. Neither system proved itself, philosopher's moved on and nation's whipped a dead horse. And still they encourage us to register to vote, and to make our vote count. The hope of a true democracy is the cry of the despot's as they hope we all have faith in thing's un-scene. Today's podcast reveals a "trick" used by Maridith Wilson in the play/movie The Music Man.
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