Daily compulsory reading for me includes reading the sayings of Epictetus or Baltasar Gracian which help me get along in life with less stress and with more ease Last year I had found Baltasar Gracian’s ‘The Art of Worldly Wisdom” at a second hand book store and it is a real treasure. There are three hundred aphorisms in it about how to conduct oneself in life. It is useful advice that comes in handy in dealing with people.
The book, also called a “ Pocket Oracle” is a translation by Christopher Maurier. In the introduction it says that ‘it is a book of strategies for knowing, judging, and acting: for making one’s way in the world and achieving distinction and perfection……Its ideal reader is someone whose daily occupation involves dealing with others….like all aphorisms these are meant to be read slowly, a few at a time.'
I read one aphorism a day and there are several I like very much. Today’s aphorism I read is something that is relevant for anyone. This is the one:
Double Your Store of Life’s Necessities: You will double life. Don’t depend on any single thing, or limit any one resource, no matter how rare and excellent. Double everything, especially the sources of benefit, favor, and taste. The moon is transcendently mutable, setting the limits of permanence, and more still are the things that depend on our frail human will. Store up supplies for frailty. It is a great rule for living to double your sources of happiness and profit. Just as nature doubled the most important and most exposed of our bodily limbs, so should art double the things we depend on.
Gracian makes a lot of sense in that aphorism. There are more that I will post in the future but for the time being we can mull over the above one.
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