The Meaning of the Good Life (a Postcard from Ulysses to Telemachus)
Some broad shouldered thinker of the future will suggest that love is a desire for the beautiful.(1) We could then suggest that good action is a desire to live beautifully. Thus a reverent life, a life of good action, is an act of love, an expression of love–for Life.
We should concern ourselves not with what is right or wrong, but instead with what is beautiful, graceful, full of love. Do our actions let the power of Life come through us like a brilliant light? Rightness is less importance than reverence. Not anything put on, like a mask, but a genuine feeling in the heart-mind.
Telemachus, at every moment you can cast a loving glance on all that you see. No one expects perfection of you, just honesty. No one expects perfect awareness, just diligence. No one expects perfect intensity of your effort, just extensive duration.(2) Keep opening and saying Yes to Life. We cannot preserve yesterday’s love. It must emerge fresh and new at every moment.
NOTES:
1. Ulysses is certainly thinking of Plato here. The philosopher’s real name was Aristokles. “Plato” is a nickname meaning “broad-shouldered.”
2. Ulysses may be thinking of Nietzsche, who wrote that, “Not the intensity but the duration of great feelings makes great men.”