I've had the occasion today to look over the history of my life again. For those friends and acquaintances of mine who visit this blog, I recommend self-study. "Where are you coming from, and where are you going?" asks Socrates to Phaedrus.

What has strucken me today is the importance of finding a logos for something. The English word I would use is "account." One of the most striking things to ever occur for me, and grounding of some sort, was the discovery of the truth for my last name. It used to be Chow or Chow-Allen depending on an institution's records, and now it is Allen.

During my senior spring semester in the Torrey Honors Program, I participated in the Divine Comedy metatorrey class. Near the end of that semester I was probably more comfortable in the class to speak of deeper personal things, and in one class it happened that our discussion came across the importance of names. What is the significance of a name? This question arose as a necessary tangent to approach a deeper understanding of the Divine Comedy.

Yet, in that discussion, I was fortunate to look at myself at the same time. I have names as well. But in that moment I awoke and was stunned by the presence of truth. I had not thought about that! Who am I? At the time I perhaps should have asked who I was at that moment, or where I was at that moment, but, that stunning yet beautiful moment opened me to the truth.

I spent the next year thinking over this, and had several conversations with friends and family.

I would not trade that moment for anything. Truth is far beyond the food you eat, the car you drive, the rent-money you slave for, and I should say to Eric Matthew Allen, the video games I play. There are many other things of trivial importance.

But, my reader, if you do not see this, when will you see trivial things as really trivial, and wake up? I have no reason to lie to you and I do not want your money or praise. I do not post often because I have no wish to give you trivial things. This is like the treasure which Dante found in Paradise, open to each of us who can make the journey. I do not know Plato and Dante in comparison, but I can say that the darkest night can be the most liberating moment in light of the truth.

But if you do see this, where have you come from, and where are you going?

Wow. It's not every day that I run into political philosophy. This may make you shift in your seat.

At the library today I checked up on my overdue books. Of course, I have overdue fines, which I don't want to pay. Paying means less money towards things which are necessary and things which are good (I'd like to believe).

I didn't mind the lesser fees, but what I did mind was the unknown fee for a book borrowed by interlibrary loan. It's one of those rare books which seem to be very wise. I would rather keep that book.

And so my desire to keep this book brought me to think, "Perhaps if the fee is the same as the book itself, I will choose to not return it and pay the fine for it." This seems to be fair.

But then again, the book does not belong to me. It belongs to the public. I've agreed to borrow books from libraries, not buy them after trying them. Fines are customary and their purpose is to penalize our negligence that we would return what is not ours.

But I don't understand the basis for these opinions.

Is it morally wrong to pay the 'lost fine' to keep a book which does not belong to me and which is not lost? Is my consumer paradigm just in this situation?

I think for my own good I will keep in mind that desire for the book should not lead my thinking. I will return the book so that I will not have a conflict of interest within me. In that way I will be able to preserve my reasoning.

What is common property? Or what are the laws on common property in the United States? What is private property? etc. Are they good?

It now occurs to me that the same thing has occurred to me at Blockbuster, which is a private property situation rather than a common property situation. In that case I paid the full price of the DVD.

God, I love studying and discussing a text with friends.

The truth awaits.

Face to face, or eye to eye, parallelism is beautiful. To look at one another in such a matter is not only to communicate with words and emotion but to present one's own natural beauty to each other.

No, I'm not dating anyone. I work at Hollywood Video and meet many people.

It's official: I'm going for my dream of professorship. I'm studying Christian Scripture and Greek right now, and my own rule of study includes these two things.

The determination of Vincent of the movie Gattaca is in my mind. Only he could attain his own fate, as he fought for his window of opportunity, much like the window of launch-time of a space shuttle. The stars will align for each of us only if we keep the heavens in sight, and with patient, vigorous long-suffering do whatever is necessary to be fit for our journey.

Tragedy and failure are never options we will choose. They are not important now. The stars are. For all things here are to be seen in their light, and beyond the stellatum lies the Empyrean where my Lord reigns. He has gone before.

-- "Each deed is the worse or the better, but no one of men himself in all respects is wise." (Chase and Phillips' A New Introduction to Greek)

-- “The experiences that do not provoke thought are those that do not at the same time issue in a contradictory perception. Those that do have that effect I set down as provocatives, when the perception no more manifests one thing than its contrary, alike whether its impact comes from nearby or afar." (Republic, 523a ff)

Say I am learning how to shoot a basketball accurately and get a swish every time. I practice every day, and each day increases my precision. Today my shot is better than yesterday, but it is also worse than my shot tomorrow.

My shot today is both better and worse. Tomorrow it will be better and worse.

What is the better?

It seems to me that the better is a movement towards the good and away from the bad. We could investigate more into what is this movement.

A tutor who notices that his student solves a particular type of problem with more ease than before praises him: "Good!" This strikes me as peculiar. It seems at first that we say the better is the good, but this doesn't seem right.

The good, as I understand it in a "strict" sense, is the best, or the perfect. Ho agathos anthropos, the good man. We can say that Jesus Christ is the good man, and we all fall short of His measure of humanity.

To become better in something is good, for how could it be bad? Perhaps someone will say that to become better in lying is not good, but bad. I will attempt a first look at this soon enough -- for now it seems good to say that to become better in lying is to become a worse person.

The better is not the good, but to become better is good. This seems to make sense because where else can imperfection go? For now it seems we have come to the proverb, "the perfect is the enemy of the good."

What about wisdom?

Who ever thought that maxims could suffice for knowing wisdom, which concerns the good of all things? How quickly can our actions be judged? In the complexity of human beings and the blind, ugly opinions we have, what pride we have!

Damn the so-called charity of action! It does without thinking, without consideration, without learning, in fact, it doesn't do much at all, except accidentally! How mechanical our souls have become!

You, wise one, show me charity with wisdom and I'll consider your god.

Nietzche saw some of the truth. Will you consider the criticism of one who sees from the outside?

How innocent are we when we enter this world? Augustine's Confessions tells of the tyranny of children. Children who demand the fulfillment of their desires, and revenge themselves on the disobedient by crying, disobeying, etc. This is reasonable.

But what of the innocence of the intellect? How should anyone understand evil? I see evil, I see a fellow man hurting another intentionally, yet he does it in ignorance. He does not understand what he is doing.

I see this, and I see it in ignorance as well. Why should this be? How will we learn better?

Let me sit in this meditation on evil.

Dare I say this: the prevalence of evil stuns me. It is so near, and even within me. The weight of one crushed life, or one tragedy, is horrible.

Yet how many people exist on Earth today? 6,446,131,400 according to the CIA's estimates: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2119rank.html

Six billion, four hundred and forty-six million, one hundred and thirty-one thousand, and four hundred people suffer. Hatred, envy, incontinence, ignorance...

Humanity reeks in the nostrils of God. We reek in the nostrils of God.