The Loss

 

 

On Page 125 of his book, The Passionate State of Mind, Eric Hoffer writes three entries which I quote and then comment on.

 

Hoffer: “          229

 

We like to give but hate to lose. What affects is most is the gain and the loss not in substance but in self-esteem.”

 

My response: Hoffer the brilliant psychologist recognizes that no human being can go on living without pride in the self, be that pride fake, a lie, based upon the holy cause one serves as a true believer, or a true, solid, positive pride based on a life well lived morally, where one is fit, competent productive, actually making a difference for the better in the world.

 

We can be generous and give time, money, and resources to others; we are not entirely selfish as the selfless joiners that we are.

 

What impacts or hurts us much more is to lose self-esteem, be it fake, collectivist pride born of bad faith and a bad will, or constructive personal pride or self-esteem, grounded in self-love and personal accomplishment, where one is a person of good will, acting in good faith, betters himself, and the world at the same time, by the same efforts.

 

Hoffer: “          230

 

It is not at all simple to understand the simple.”

 

My response: All of reality can be rationally and empirically studied, defined, and quantified in ways are cognitively meaningful, linguistically communicable, and truth-apt. At times, the nature of reality and the people operating within it can be understood and linguistically characterized with certain truth. Other times it is less obvious what is and what is going on, and, often things are very complex, and we just do not yet have the science, the concept, the words, in short the understanding to capture the essence of what we are observing and experiencing.

 

Ayn Rand, in her epistemology, mentions something like this, that brute or foundational objects, facts and concepts are so basic and original, that they cannot be explained or characterized in terms of causes going back beyond them. These axioms or axiomatic objects are just to be ostensively pointed to and named, and that is as far as humans can go, for now or perhaps ever—though God can and does go much farther than we ever could.

 

It might be that this is what Hoffer is alluding to when he writes that it is not at all simple to understand the simple, for each particular, person, idea, event and object is singular and unique on the one hand, and yet related to everything else and Objective Reality, on the other hand.

 

 

Hoffer: “          231

 

The fear of becoming a ‘has been’ keeps some people from becoming anything.”

 

My response: We lack self-esteem, self-love, courage, will, nerve, ambition, and the willingness to work, from birth, but all these positive character traits can be strengthened until they are our primary, consistent personality characteristics.

 

At that point, if we choose to listen to the Good Spirits, and serve our final cause, to live as an individuating, living angel, serving to grow God’s kingdom on earth, at that point we no longer worry about once having been great and famous, and later lapsing into has-been stature as other surpass us.

 

Success, in God’s eyes, is personally maverizing, and getting as far as one can before one dies, and that is acceptable in God’s eye; to remain nothing, and never do anything is what God frowns upon and will punish us for not doing.