tranquility

“St. Augustine’s language is rich and colorful,
but often lacking in precision. His was not a didactic mind,
and preoccupations of scientific methodology
were foreign to his outlook.
He wrote giving free reign to his thought.”

~ Maurice de Wulf, History of Medieval Philosophy, vol. 1, ch. 38

Maybe we have it in common that for a long time people have been telling you not to work too hard. Perhaps you’ve also regularly shrugged it off, when those around you tell you to get rest, slow down, and- perish the thought- “don’t worry so much.” And my habitual dismissiveness is automatic and reflexive, similar to waving off a gnat. But suddenly, between strings of tasks and obligations, fatigue brings all those friendly observations to mind. During those pauses, it becomes evident how slowing-down can be daunting. Striving and reaching for a day off, the result is a kind of reverse-inertia: instead of efforts to get moving, it takes focused intention to be able to stop. Within the pausing are detectable elements of fear, especially as the distractions are insistently pared away. Perhaps “don’t work too hard” can be recast as “make sure you listen to your thoughts.”

Even as we cordon off our privacies- and especially so- there remains a universal need for healthful silence. This is to say settling those thoughts, and doing so without things purporting to be “smart” devices. It can be disarming, but I’ve found it to be worthwhile. The observation of contrasts serves as a good teacher, and in this case the classroom is aboard public transit. I saw the positive side of things during subway rides on the day of a downtown festival. Boarding an early Red Line, as usual with a book, the size of the crowd was noticeable. What was even more striking to me were the sounds of jovial chatting and laughter on the trains. Instead of siloed phone-fiddling, most of the riders were animatedly facing one another, many using their phones to take pictures. I really enjoyed seeing this. At my own destination, atop the Boston Athenaeum, I savoured both the celebratory commotion I witnessed earlier, along with the quiet of wafting treetops at terrace level. Reading and writing material in front of me, I still know to look around and just listen to my thoughts.

Nobody will dare us to be idle; we have to be self-aware enough to find opportunities around the busyness for tranquility. Finding opportunities means somehow finding parcels of time and making space. All too rare! But, essentially, the proliferation of resorts and spas demonstrates how so many crave some sort of therapeutic downtime- albeit at high costs. Valuable as stillness is, there needn’t be great expense to pause and reflect.

Being able to unplug the stimuli and simply air my thoughts allows me to perceive with a wider perspective. Before the pandemic, for many years I regularly made pilgrimage retreats, often twice a year. With the combination of compounded work commitments, being on a diminished staff, and various communities’ lodging limitations, I’ve had to be especially resourceful- sometimes succeeding to briefly get away to peaceful and contemplative surroundings. For the most part, aside from a few hours on a weekend, time to simply abide (as differentiated from the more active aspects of journaling my thoughts) happens between lines of reflective reading during my workday commutes. As philosophical historians go, de Wulf (quoted above) was much less admiring of Saint Augustine than Copleston. Well, I prefer Copleston- both as writer and historian. Admittedly, my own thinking is also much more speculative and metaphysical, and less mathematical. And I’ve never found Augustine to be “lacking in precision.” But I’ve still enjoyed de Wulf’s works nonetheless, and really relished his criticism of the great North African philosopher saint: “He wrote giving free reign to his thought.” This is indeed as the motto posted at the Maine Turnpike entrance affirms, “The Way Life Should Be.” Speaking for myself, I wouldn’t bother writing if I couldn’t give free reign to my thoughts!

I like to remind my philosophy students that we converge at the meeting-point of the ideal and the visible world, which is to say the conceptual and the physical. But in philosophy the ideal is solid in its own right. Giving free reign to our thoughts allows for understanding to accompany our perceptions. Let ideals be practical, even if simply in our musings. There’s more than enough to limit our aspirations; it’s for the individual to choose contemplative ways. Release the margins, as possible, and muse. Simply being is not so simple, as our scattered thoughts can over-occupy us, and need to be somehow directed. In his Breviloquium, Bonaventure described human capacity as “born to magnificently grasp great and numerous ideas.” With inspiration, grasp means we can calm them, too. Healthful silence serves to nourish, but we must each know to make the kind of space which is both physical and metaphorical. The Psalmist articulated the wish for a fully renewed heart and spirit. And the heart, Saint Gregory observed in the Philokalia, is the “shrine and chief intellectual organ of the body.” Not only can learning can reach our depths, in contemplative stillness, but as well our yearnings become most evident to us. “Less is more” surely has a spiritual application- if anything, as time and space fillers get cleared away in favor of unstructured attentiveness.