Wisdom from the ages

I remember sitting around one afternoon with my grandma looking at family trees, and her pointing to various people on the tree reciting a maxim that person used.

I wish I would have paid better attention, because today I only remember one of the maxims grandma repeated that day -- her own.

I still have a card with grandma’s handwriting: "Love many, trust few, and always paddle your own canoe."

As a kid I thought she made it up on her own. Now I know she didn’t. Regardless, it’s still a good one.

Not wanting to copy grandma’s maxim, I set out on an adventure to find my own. I have a couple good books right here.

Marcus Aurelius: "Your life is what your thoughts make it."

Interesting.

Epictetus: "Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already."

Hmmmm.

"How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks."

Cool, but a tongue twister.

"The wise man sees in the misfortune of others what he should avoid."

We could make a whole column on this one.

Epictetus: "Imagine for yourself a character, a model personality, whose example you determine to follow, in private as well as in public."

We all need a positive mentor. There are as many today as 2,000 years ago I’d imagine, despite what some skeptics might say.

Epictetus: "It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows."

As Socrates taught me, I know that I know very little. However, I kind of like this one.

Epictetus: "It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them."

This makes it hard to be wise.

Epictetus: "It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters," and, "Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.."

I’ll have to think about these before I write about them.

Epictetus: "Learn to wish that everything should come to pass exactly as it does."

It may even have been Epictetus who wrote that one should not wish to become popular or famous, that only misfortune comes to those that are.

And, he wrote that one should never go into politics for the same reason.

Okay, I’m getting off track.

Epictetus: "Men are disturbed not by the things that happen, But by their opinion of the things that happen."

So we need to be careful how we form our opinions, or, we need to get our news from more than one source.

"Preach not to others what they should eat, but eat as becomes you, and be silent."

My dad taught by example more so than by his stern hand or his lecture.

A coworker laughed at me when I told her this, but I look at the clock and give myself 30 seconds when lecturing my kids.

I give my kids the same 30 seconds to make a point. This is hard to enforce because my kids are quite loquacious.

Epictetus: "There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will."

Ignorance is bliss. No news is good news. Stupid people are of the happiest lot. I envy them.

"To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete."

I like this one, but I’ll never remember all that.

"When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger."

Or, as the Bible says, "Judge not lest ye be judged."

Epictetus: "Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth, is unhappy, though he be master of the world."

Epictetus: "No man is free who is not master of himself," or, "Only the educated are free."

Here’s a saying I saw in a bar once, "There are more old drunkards than old doctors."

When as kids we tried to get grandpa to quit smoking and drinking, he said, "I’d rather do what makes me happy than be an old man who never enjoyed life."

I agree with him. On the same note, I’ve heard the following many times from my patients at work: "If I’d have known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself."

If I had a dime for every time I heard that, I’d be rich.

Marcus Aurelius: "Do every act of your life as if it were your last."

On the same note, "I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."

Marcus Aurelius: "It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live."

Macus Aurelius: " Live not as though there were a thousand years ahead of you. Fate is at your elbow; make yourself good while life and power are still yours."

Marcus Aurelius: "Every man’s life lies within the present; for the past is spent and done with, and the future is uncertain."

Grandpa would agree with that, as his maxim was, "History belongs in the past."

I certainly didn’t get my love of history from gramps.

And, to end today’s philosophy session with Marcus Aurelius:

"Remember that very little is needed to make a happy life," and, "He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe."

Again, old philosophy, wisdom from the ages, still rings true.

A bottle in front of me...

The legacy of the great Williami F. Buckley Jr.

I learned yesterday afternoon that the so called "father of the conservative movement" had passed away at his home.

After I purchased my first computer in 2001 and gained my first access to the Internet, I saw this advertisement that said, "Free subscription to National Review. Click here." So I did and never thought anything else of it.

To be honest, I had no clue what I was doing; like I said, I was new to the Internet. And, to be honest, I didn't even know it was a conservative magazine.

So when I received the first magazine, and found that the writings in it were way over my head, I pitched it, and I did the same for the next four or five magazines that were sent to my home.

Then one day, probably after I received the bill because I had no clue the "free" part of the subscription was the first two or three magazines, I was really slow at work and needed some reading material. Since I had forgotten to bring my book to work, opted to check out the "National Review" magazine.

I remember the issue to a tee because it was the first issue following the 9-11 attacks. The articles that caught my attention were the ones describing the attacks and who was reportedly responsible: Osama and the radical Islamists.

The writings in this magazine were very in depth, deeper than any readings I had ever read to that point in my busy life, and I found quickly that I loved it. It wasn't so much the conservatism that I loved, but the knowledge I obtained about politics in general, about the world, about history, about people.

What is a paleoconservative? I had never heard of that term before I started reading this magazine. I knew what conservative was, but had no idea there were different types of conservatives.

I had no idea there were liberal republicans and moderate republicans and conservative republicans and libertarian republicans and then paleo conservative republicans and neo conservative republicans and so on and so on, until I started reading this magazine.

The magazine did not brainwash, I'll have you know, because I had already realized that I did not agree with much of what I read in the media. In fact, my college buddies used to tell me that my arguments were wrong because, "that's not what it says in the Detroit Free Press."

That was their proof that I was wrong: the media said otherwise. Since I had no other access to information to prove them wrong, I simply avoided political discussions with them. They were both from Detroit by the way, if that matters. It seems a lot of liberals in Michigan come from the Detroit area, if not most of them.

I didn't realize this when I was in college debating with my friends, but I was beginning to open my mind and observing the "whole picture" rather than just believing things "just because" they were in the media. I was learning, as my parents and grandparents taught me, to "think for yourself."

And when I discovered Rush Limbaugh accidentally after I became bored while traveling to Detroit one day on a business trip, and later when I discovered who William F. Buckley was and what his magazine represented, and later yet when I discovered an array of knowledge on the Internet, I had access to all the news, and not just the media's version of it.

And for that I have to thank Mr. Buckley. Because of the movement he started, people, like me, don't just look at the news verbatim, they take the whole picture in perspective. And that is what I think my parents meant when they preached "think for yourself."

Never in my growing up years did my dad once ever tell me what his political stance was on anything. Everything I learned from him I learned from him was via his disciplinary techniques, his example, and his short and pithy lectures about being frugal with your money, responsible for your own life, responsible for your own actions, and stuff like that.

It was only when I was an adult that I found out he was a conservative. Now, whether he is a paleoconservative or neocon I have no idea. I'd almost tend to think he's paleo, but I may never know. I probably will never ask him. Heck, he probably has no clue what those are. Then again, even though he keeps his opinions to himself, he might impress me with his knowledge.

I imagine by their actions that my dad's parents were relatively conservative, but I would bet my house my mom's parents were democrats to the core, as was my mom until I started discussing politics with her when I was still living at home during the summers when I was in college.

My point here is that I was not brainwashed. While I spent a couple years reading National Review, I still read the newspaper as often as I could, and still tried to keep in perspective the opinions of all Americans, just because I think it's not good to get all your news from one source, as it appeared my college buddies did.

Even after I read NR for over a year, I still lagged on reading Mr. Buckley's columns, more so because his vocabulary was way, way over my head. So, because of him, and because of some of the readings I was now enjoying in my adult life with tons of vocabulary words that I was supposed to learn in school but didn't, I pulled out my old vocabulary books and started studying.

It made me smarter. It gave me greater joy in reading magazines like NR in that I now didn't have to skip over big words I didn't understand, and a greater overall understanding of all the wonderful material in Mr. Buckley's magazine.

Who knows where I would be if not for Mr. Buckley. I would probably still be looking for materials to prove to my friends that I am not alone in my thinking that what's in the media is not all the news. We may not have Rush, and we may not have Fox News and we may never have had Reagan.

Yet, the greatest achievement of Mr. Buckley's life, as far as I'm concerned, is not the conservative movement. It doesn't matter your political stance, what matters is that you look at the whole picture, and not just the information presented before you. You need to use your common sense, and think for yourself.

For that, Mr. Buckley, we thank you. RIP.