spendius wrote:"Worthy",which is the title,and it isn't mine, has a component of value.
A worthy action is an action which has value to others.Others being,in the last analysis,human kind.
A worthy action can have no thought of a return value.
The single most valuable thing to human kind is the ageing process and the ultimate demise of the individual.That is not only obvious but painfully so and,on a philosophy thread,we cannot shirk the painful for fear of undermining the meaning of the word 'philosophy' and,by extension,the very language itself.That would be unworthy if it is assumed that human kind needs purity of language which not everybody would assume.
Stendahl once remarked that we are all going to pass away and thus it is boring and best forgotten about and the way to forget about it is to maintain good cheer.Hence his wit.
There are dangers with words like "love" or "compassion" and a range of others of a similar nature.They may well be strategies.They often are.
They might even be nets or snares and self serving.
Wit is simply an attempt to maintain good cheer in rather desperate circumstances and with true wit love and compassion are taken for granted.A truly witty person has love and compassion built in and worn so lightly that they are hardly visible,if at all.
Philosophers,fiendish beings though they may be,indeed have to be,think in extremes.They might imagine being shot at dawn for example as a useful metaphor for life itself.In answering the question posed by the title of this thread over a glass of port or somesuch after a fine dinner they could well come to the conclusion that they would prefer witty company to love or compassion both of which are likely to render them even more miserable.
How often have we seen James Bond,say,in the direst need of love and compassion opt for wit.And we have flocked in our millions to see it.It is a portrayal,not a very good one I would say,designed to offer a cheerful approach under stress as catharsis for a public self evidently a trifle tired of other values.
So I would vote for wit every time and were I to be before the firing squad at dawn I would have the wits for company especially if they were all being shot alongside me.
When the first vulture alighted on the top of the cross to which Spendius was fastened he turned his face-
"towards Autaritus,and said slowly to him with an unaccountable smile:
'Do you remember the lions on the road to Sicca?'"
Spendius,
Hear hear!
You are in the zone here, sir.
I don't say this easily--I'll divulge under threat of spurious attack that I've been indolent enough to sit through enough endless discussions on literature to attain various sundry educational degrees in that field. I've suffered through my share of prose, whether it be classical, neo-classics, modernism, postmod whatever, blah blah ad infinitum.
S, Whatever you did to write this, keep doing that, when you write. You took it to another level, and all I can say is bravo.
Muse: meet Spendius.
I did not agree with your "Wit" answer initially, but by the end of reading your piece above, I was floating in a cloud of it, considering it.
Get off your rear and start publishing some works. Are you working toward that? Why not? Get thee to a fashioner of books of letters. Seriously.
For those who may not have got this post (as some have mentioned above), try re-reading it. Clearly on its own individual level, whether you agree with its point or not.
Question is: Is it original?
