Simplicity, complexity

Simple things are often not quite as they look. Take the work of Australian artist Ben Quilty as an example.

From a superficial view a Quilty painting seems remarkably straightforward – a smattering of thick brush strokes on a large canvas producing a fairly uncomplicated depiction of a person or scene.

Yet the emotional power typical of the artist’s work – whether in a portrait of an Australian soldier mentally scarred by service in Afghanistan or in a glimpse of the inner reaches of his own psyche in self-portrait – can only be carried off by an underlying complex mastery of technique.

Such is the way with masters in all fields: they make things look astonishingly simple and elegant, masking the years of training and development of skills and inner resources required to attain such a level of grace.

Simplicity and complexity, like the Taoist yin and yang, are best seen as bedfellows, inseparable in any way you care to see them. Look anywhere and their dual relationship appears: a single lightning bolt can trigger an enormous bushfire; a single car accident can throw a city’s complicated road network into chaos; a small fault can shut down a corporation’s entire computer system; a giant whale is dependent for its survival on tiny plankton; the magnificence of life on Earth arose from the activity of single-cell organisms.

All life is a mixture of the simple and the sophisticated, and even the most basic forms of life – as scientists have discovered – when examined reveal more basic components and antecedents.

American theorist Ken Wilber, in his book The Eye of Spirit, says: “In any developmental sequence, what is whole at one stage becomes merely part of a larger whole at the next stage. A letter is part of a whole word, which is part of a whole sentence, which is part of a whole paragraph, and so on.” The result is a nested hierarchy of being moving towards ever greater sophistication, at the same time reflecting the earlier stages of its own self.

In one sense, simplicity can be seen as a state of rest and complexity one of movement, action. When we experience something pleasing, as say a fine work of art, it is the perfection of simplicity that appeals. Though the work may be of high complexity, of great degree of difficulty, it is the beauty of the final, apparent manifestation that strikes the senses. In a way this is an illusion because nothing is ever static – and this is where complexity comes in to upset our balance. Complexity is always chipping away at what is apparently “final”, always moving on to something new. We may still be emotionally affected by a painting many years after having first seen it, but we and the painting (its colour, consistency of paint etc) would have changed over time and the experience is inevitably different in some way.

The entire dynamic is one of evolution at work – life moving from the simple to the more complex, which at the next stage of development is the simple on the way to greater complexity ... rest, movement, rest, movement, rest, movement.

Of course the process is not a smooth one. Evolution involves tension, the conflict of opposites, and there are snags and inconsistencies along the way. The old does not disappear with the arrival of new forms but may set up points of friction with them, the resolution of which is typically key to further evolutionary stages. In the grand unfolding drama of humanity there are older and newer dynamics in co-existence with each other, older and newer cultures, older and newer modes of living and understanding the world. One or the other ought not to be rejected or treated with disdain: each can learn from the other if the project is the overall wellbeing of humanity and the planet. Ben Quilty could have refused the opportunity that he took to be Australia’s official war artist in Afghanistan in the name of the primitivism and brutality of war, yet what he brought was compassion for the soldiers that in his paintings seeks a liberating path beyond conflict and suffering.

It’s important to be aware of the complex and the simple and the many ways they relate in life not only for what such awareness brings in enriching and deepening experience, but as a kind of mirror to the soul. Behind the manifestation of their duality is a single current of light, a single inscrutable source that shines through the infinite variations of form in the world. We can admire the interplay of the apparent forces or see them as a door to the ultimate font of being.

Immanence and transcendence

Sometimes something small that you see or hear, despite all the distractions that fill up the day, sticks in your mind and gives you cause for reflection.

Not so long ago I went walking in the bush with a friend I hadn’t seen in many years. It was a mild summer’s day, our boots kicking up the quartz stones as we tramped over part of the hill country in central Victoria.

Several times we stopped to look at particular plants or inspect the sweeping lay of the land and met passers-by coming the other way. On a couple of occasions we spoke to the strangers and each time my friend in parting wished them a good day in a pure, heartfelt way.

I was moved by the way she spoke those words. It seemed their quality was spiritual, in the way that a pure heart expresses the life of Spirit, which was fascinating given my friend is a scientist and an avowed atheist. I was reminded of religious goodbyes along the lines of "May God be with you".

It’s a very contemporary development to be able to speak about spirituality and religion as separate things. Once it was thought that organised religion, with its beliefs, rituals and sacraments, provided the only frame through which the inner life could be expressed. Now there is an emerging realisation that spirituality can be autonomous and that for each person it may or may not be expressed through established religious means. Some atheists, like the philosopher AC Grayling, are happy to call themselves spiritual but strongly reject religion.

In this change there is a powerful move towards immanence, where the depth and meaning of life is located through the experience of the individual in the elements of life itself, without reference to a powerful Other – be it God or anything else considered “supernatural”. This shift has occurred alongside the decline of Christianity in the West, which has insisted on belief in a transcendent God no longer relevant to modern culture and upheld only one Truth in an age of multiplicity of beliefs.

The spiritual immanence that is putting down roots in our time appears in a rationalist culture that so often seems inimical to the sacred. And yet people like my friend are able to see and appreciate spiritual quality in nature, in beauty, in relationships and in many other ordinary instances that elevate life beyond basic materiality and make it worth living.

What has happened, then, to the transcendent principle, if we can call it so, that was so important to humanity for so many thousands of years? Where has God gone? Has he disappeared entirely or just in temporary recess, waiting to surface eventually in another guise?

It all depends on the future of the scientific rationalism/empiricism that is so central to the modern West. If over time its exclusivist orientation (mirroring that of the Judeo-Christian tradition) breaks down, as it might with the help of a maturing process of immanence, a new spiritually charged worldview could develop. Immanence and transcendence are really just two sides of the one reality, and ultimately neither is sufficient without the other if the aim is spiritual wholeness.

Transcendence is fundamentally about mystery. It is the great Unknown attached to life, death and ultimate purpose that is also experienced as the generative force of the universe. It is other to created forms but linked intimately to them. It is invoked in the dark, expansive reverence of places of worship. It is Spirit ultimately unnameable and unspeakable that has been given many names throughout history – God being one of them.

The divine is both contained in material form and other to it, imminent and transcendent. God’s downfall has left a tragic void in the Western psyche, felt most acutely by the artists and mystics of our time, those "angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night" as poet Allen Ginsberg beautifully described them in Howl. Many such souls (Ginsberg included) fled the Judeo-Christian tradition to Eastern spirituality – Buddhism and Hinduism – to find transcendence there.

The spiritual challenge of our time is two-sided: recognising and acknowledging the process of immanence, the desire for the in-dwelling sacred; and finding suitable new forms for the urge to transcendence.

Some people are already doing this work, away from mass culture on the fringes of society. They may be coming together for new moon rituals or other neo-Pagan ceremonies that relate humans to the cycles of nature, or meeting in small affinity groups to explore shared spiritual directions, or weaving new ways of understanding the dynamics of plants, animals and the cosmos as a whole. What they share is a calling for the sacred, an orientation towards wholeness, and the capacity to be explorers in the creation of new syntheses of immanence/transcendence.

There's Just Us

I think the media is obsessed with terrorism. It certainly was when I started working as a reporter at The Age newspaper in 2003. Nearly every day at that time one or more journalists were being assigned to stories about terrorists; 9/11 was still fresh in people’s minds, the Bali bombings had happened and politicians and the state security apparatus were trying to keep it at the forefront of public consciousness.

There was a kind of fever in the newsroom, the way that the media can descend into a whirlpool largely of its own making. Only the most tenuous links to terrorism were needed: my first front-page story was an interview with some sheikh in Melbourne’s north whose name had been mentioned in court documents for someone being tried for something in Spain. I had no idea about this man’s background or circumstances, but there I was in what looked like a former warehouse in Brunswick asking him whether he was a member of Al-Qaeda. The day the story appeared a media pack laid siege to his house.

The tendency of news media is towards sensation and maximising polarity – presenting in endless iterations the situations and people that are good and those that are bad. When the media sniffs out a stark polarity of some kind it goes to work. Whether a public existential threat is real or substantial is not so important because the “strong story” is primary.

The black-and-white, “good versus bad” formulations in the media aren’t helpful when it comes to tackling the world’s issues. It’s not that there are no clear problems that need to be addressed – like climate change and security – and people doing good and bad things in a variety of ways, but that the complexity of the world and interconnectedness of everyone and everything calls for a nuanced vision.

In the globalised world of the 21st century there is a strong overarching movement towards unification, the breaking down of boundaries and divisions. With it has come an exposure and meeting of the great variety of cultures and ideas that belong to the whole human family. Such globalised change inevitably produces tensions and brings to the fore aspects of the old order in reaction. When people like Tony Abbott, Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch beat the “us-and-them” drum in relation to Muslims, they are giving voice to the old circumstances of established power and related boundaries and identities. They are trying to reassert a status quo that is changing fast around them and in doing so convey the sense of fear and threat that comes from an old order giving way to the new.

The global age carries a challenging package of unity and diversity that have to be held and nurtured simultaneously. We are one world – ecological reality tells us so – and yet diversity in all its shapes and forms is vital for human and non-human wellbeing. It will be fascinating to see the kinds of global structures that emerge in future to tackle problems like climate change which are properly addressed not by a gaggle of nation states with competing interests but by a body deciding for the welfare of all and the whole.

In the meantime, the dull roar of the purveyors of “us and them” on all sides is likely to get louder, conflicts intensify and suffering increase as we humans blunder our way towards more enlightened ways of being with each other and the planet. There really is no “us and them”. There’s just us.

Available to the metaphor

Recognise what is before your eyes, and what is hidden will be revealed to you.

- Gospel of Thomas

On the train the other evening heading home from work I watched an army of zombies being mercilessly dispatched. The carnage was happening on a man’s computer in the row of seats in front of me. From around his shoulder I could see the creatures being shot or stabbed in the tawdry action flick that was rolling on the screen.

The film seemed to follow the usual depiction of zombies as slow, witless and bloodied creatures who rise en masse from the ground and who must be killed – with plenty of splattering gore – as part of the heroic action of the plot. It made me think about why they appear in films, what their purpose is, what they mean.

Through the lens of depth psychology we could say that the “un-dead” represent unconscious forces in the psyche that rise up to confront the individual or community. Their heavy slowness signifies the weight or gravity with which they are attached to the living. They are bloodied and deformed, a testament to suffering and wrong relationship, to life gone astray. They are ghosts in earthy, visceral and terrifying form. To respond a person must understand what zombies mean in the context of their life and why they have appeared, and take action that either transforms them towards life-affirmation or causes them to sink back down as benign forces of the earth.

Of course in movies such as the one I was peeking at, zombies are usually just monster curiosities that are splatter fodder for the hero’s weapons. They are treated literally and superficially, as “baddies” that must be destroyed.

There is a lot to be said for a more metaphoric viewing of reality, in all circumstances. Seeing into and beyond the literal not only adds depth and meaning to life, it reveals ever more levels of the universe to human consciousness, opening possibilities for inner growth and evolution.

There are two elements to the development of a deeper understanding of life: asking continually the vital question “Why?”, and the quality of attention or awareness one carries in the world.

“Why?” is sometimes a vexed question, a difficult question, and one that is often not asked in relation to many things. I think of the mainstream media in this regard – how much of what is presented as “news” for mass consumption lacks nuance, fails to look at causes or treats them in only the crudest way. When life is experienced superficially, with little depth or meaning, we are constantly surprised by events; we lack the tools to make sense of reality and are dependent on others to shape understanding for us. A commitment to questioning, to the light that “Why?” shines in dark corners, develops an ability in a person to see patterns beneath the surface of reality. These patterns then act as a guide of truth by which we are able to live a good life.

Necessarily a critical consciousness, if honest, faces that which is difficult in the self and human relations; it reveals all that we prefer to hide or don’t want to face. Difficult and daunting, it is nevertheless the process by which humanity’s consciousness evolves; without looking into the shadows we remain tied to ignorance and suffering.

A questioning life does not mean a miserable one beset by doubt or confined to ascetic introspection. It is simply one lived with an open mind and heart willing to accept gratefully whatever comes as a result.

The quality of attention or awareness we give to anything is of utmost importance. Buddhism emphasises attention in the moment as crucial to enlightenment, being fully awake to all that is right here, right now. To be fully awake, we have to work hard to purify and discipline the mind and body so as to be available to everything in the present moment. The attention produced is akin to what Hindus call “buddhi”, a type of consciousness that perceives beyond the surface of things; that has its tap root in the psyche, in the soul that pervades everything.

When more of our life and our world open in this fashion we move towards what might be called “soul embodiment”, where the subtle music of the universe is continuously playing to our senses. Metaphor comes naturally in this state – it’s not that the meaning of things is immediately revealed to us all the time, but that we live in constant perception of beauty, of the dialogue and play of opposites, of the shades and depths of the inner condition, of the holiness of all creation. Most of us connect with soul from time to time, but only for the very few is it a fundamental lived reality.

For all this, metaphor is close at hand. In some sense it is simply about amplifying what is already playing inside us and the world – our dreams and imagination supply us with a rich stream of symbolic content – or being more available to it, giving it greater regard. Soul is a cornerstone of the universe; it’s our birthright and what we move towards in fulfillment of our nature.

Are the gods real?

The following is an imaginary conversation overheard between two men, Lambros and Aristageles, in the agora in Athens sometime in the 4th century BCE.

Lambros: Tell me, Aristageles, are the gods real?

Aristageles: Who says they are not?

Lambros: Well, I have been thinking for some time about this and re-reading some of the great philosophical works. Dangerous though it may be to say so, it seems to me a fair conclusion to deny the existence of all gods.

Aristageles: Ah, friend, you rarely turn away from a controversial line of thought. It is a good thing. By what paths of reasoning have you come to this one, Lambros?

Lambros: Xenophanes pointed out that in different countries gods were represented differently – Thracians see their deities as being like themselves, Negroes picture them with black skin. Xenophanes said that if cows and horses could paint their gods, they would look like cows or horses. It follows that what we call divine beings are simply mental pictures of ourselves, creations of our own mind, particularly when you consider that in stories they display all the human attributes: greed, envy, lust, jealousy, love, fairness, justice and all the others. What conclusion can there be other than they are fictions of the mind?

Aristageles: Yes, but Xenophanes did not throw out divinity. Instead, he put forward a universal intelligence that moved everything. Does this not satisfy you?

Lambros: I must say no. Whether it is one great god or many, it remains that they are products of human thought. Take them all away and the world is no different – there would still be storms and bolts of lightning without Zeus, the sea would not change without Poseidon or the crops cease to grow in the absence of Demeter. It seems to me that fear and ignorance hold people to these fictions, which disappear like flimsy threads under the torch of reason.

Aristageles: So you say reason is the only way to truth?

Lambros: I do. It is clear that reason banishes the gods.

Aristageles: Friend, I think you are mistaken. Reason banishes falsehood, but the gods are neither false nor true.

Lambros: How so?

Aristageles: Well you are right that the gods cannot withstand a purely logical line of thought, but not everything is subject to logos. There are some things that simply are, in and of themselves; and it would be entirely wrong to speak about them any other way. I think the gods are in this category. Let me explain.

What we call Zeus, Poseidon, Demeter, Apollo, Athena are representations of the kinds of power in the universe. There is the power that manifests in the sky, the power of the sea, the generative power of the earth, the power of wisdom and foresight. It is true that we fix certain human-like images to these aspects of power in order to relate to them, and Xenophanes was right to point out that different nations have different images, nevertheless underneath them a real presence of power remains. What can we really say about this power, other than it simply is? When did it come to be and when will it end? It made us and we are its vessels to venerate and honour. Or do you say that reason can explain this and everything?

Lambros: It is possible. Democritus said that the universe was made of atoms, invisible objects that are the building blocks of everything and that are constantly moving. Why should we not hold to this, rather than that Zeus created all?

Aristageles: Democritus may be right, but the gods are not extinguished as a result, for they are the metaphysical mirror to physical reality. Deny them and you reject something essential about the world – the response of the heart and soul. My friend, if you split reason away from soul you are heading towards a kind of tyranny of logos.

Lambros: Logos frees the mind from fairytales and other nonsense. The stories tell us that our Zeus, whom we venerate so much, is a serial adulterer, rapist and liar. All the gods have flaws, and some are said to have done such beastly things that you and I for shame would never contemplate. If these higher beings are in charge of the world, no wonder there is such chaos! Why don’t we just sack the lot of them and find others to worship that are truly virtuous and wise?

Aristageles: You would sack a god? Ha ha! I think you miss the point of our pantheon. Power, in its purest sense, is neither good nor bad but just what it is. It is nature. One day it is kind to humans, the next it is totally destructive. You have been to sea, haven’t you? It can be breathtakingly beautiful on a fair day with Zephyros blowing in the sails, but then a storm appears and suddenly the sea is a seething monster tossing your boat like a toy and threatening doom for everybody. The gods are not to be trifled with.

There is something else revealed in what you describe as the flaws of the gods about which we can say a few words. Power has a dark, corruptive side. Are you well-acquainted with The Bacchae, the drama by Euripides?

Lambros: Yes, but I haven’t seen it for years. I used to have nightmares after every performance.

Aristageles: I can understand. How would you describe Dionysus in the play?

Lambros: Pitiless, vengeful, savage.

Aristageles: Indeed, Euripides does not hold back. Dionysus could simply have taught Pentheus a lesson and let him live. Instead, Pentheus is torn apart by his own crazed mother and even in death utterly humiliated.

Lambros: Just as I said, the gods are a frightfully awful lot.

Aristageles: But look at the truth here: power is corruptible. All power as it manifests in this world has the potential to go astray, to run amok. We humans are the best exemplars of this and war is our chief tool. Countless tyrants have waged war to satisfy their depraved power hunger, murdering and enslaving whole nations in the process. Even our own fair democratic Athens did not rest in the glory of its achievements but had to build an empire and subjugate other Greeks. We must always be on our guard for the ways that power can subvert the human soul.

Lambros: Yes, I see, but my earlier argument about the gods remains – if we stopped praying to Dionysus or Zeus or whoever, how would anything be different?

Aristageles: Well, perhaps immediately afterwards and on the surface of things, not much would change. But you see prayer and sacrifice and every other ritual of worship are about the kinds of relationship we humans have to the divine. If we no longer give thanks and speak to the mysterious power in the world and in us, the power does not disappear. It will continue to move us, to create and destroy and spin the almighty web that is the universe. Whether we embrace it or not, we are still its subjects, so the real question is: What happens to us if we reject the gods? Will we not attempt to usurp their power? What will check our power lust and hubris?

Lambros: You paint a bleak picture of humanity, Aristageles. There will still be love and laughter even after all the fantasies and phantasms are gone.

Aristageles: Maybe so, but the fantasies and phantasms are richly woven into our culture and have been for countless centuries. What do you propose to replace them with, nothing? Take them away and something essential is lost – nay, not lost outright but in us. If we no longer ask Demeter for guidance, will we treat the earth with respect? If we take the goddesses out of the springs and rivers, what will stop us from fouling their waters? Can you imagine the woods without nymphs and muses, Cithaeron without satyrs, Olympus without the gods? Can you imagine what that would be like?

Lambros: I confess at this point I cannot, but maybe one day ...

Aristageles: It will be a sad day indeed, my friend.

A Dialogue on Wisdom

Two men, Aristageles and Caro, meet late one afternoon in the marketplace or agora in Athens, sometime in the 4th century BCE. The following is their conversation. The reader will find that the themes in this mock-Socratic dialogue have a somewhat timeless flavour.

Aristageles: My good man, Caro, it pains me to see you like this. What in Zeus’ name is the matter?

Caro: I wish I knew.

Aristageles: But why such a perplexed look?

Caro: I have just spent a fair time of the day at the home of my friend Philon, and with his companions discussing the nature of wisdom. Having heard many fine arguments I feel little more than a fool.

Aristageles: Why so?

Caro: Many things were said, but of them I can make no difference to say “this is better than that” or “the evidence presented conclusively proves this argument”. I’m afraid that I am completely unwise about wisdom.

Aristageles: Well, what did they say about this most weighty subject?

Caro: Philippus said wisdom was something that could only be acquired by a select few, and only with great learning. The masses had no understanding of what it meant to be wise – only philosophers had this capacity. According to Philippus wisdom is a pure quality of mind, like the finest thread woven after all else is discarded.

Aristageles: Is that so?

Caro: Atharcus set wisdom with knowledge. The more we know, the wiser we are. One who is a blacksmith is wise about metals – their properties, how to handle and shape them. Or one who knows how to please his lovers is wise about love. The more we understand – about anything and everything – the wiser we become. Atharcus believes that wisdom does not exist purely in itself, but only as a higher register of knowledge.

Aristageles: Hmmm. He is a clever fellow.

Caro: Pellius said wisdom was vested in authority and tradition. By following the laws that have come down over the centuries, we take up the accumulated learning of our forebears. Consider the greatness of Athens, he said. Is that not a mark of the fruits of wisdom? All that remains is to obey authority with a respectful and cordial attitude.

Aristageles: I hope Pellius was respectful and cordial when pouring the wine amongst his comrades. Were there others who spoke?

Caro: Agistemon shouted in the middle of Pellius’ speech, his belly full of drink, that we were wasting our time discussing wisdom. He said it belonged to the past when there was war, people were hungry and you needed your wits to survive. Now all that’s required is skill to continue the plentiful supply of food, horses and slaves.

Aristageles: Was that all?

Caro: Yes, more or less. Maurus, Philon and I sat quietly and took it all in without offering an opinion.

Aristageles: And you say out of all that you cannot sort the good grain from the chaff, or tell which line of reasoning most worthy?

Caro: I confess I cannot.

Aristageles: Well, good fellow, will you permit me to entertain you with my thoughts? I hope I will not add to your confusion or plunge your mind into greater darkness.

Caro: Not at all, Aristageles. Your considered opinion is always welcome.

Aristageles: Well, then, let’s first define wisdom and then address the arguments one by one.

I would say there are two types of wisdom: one of the gods and the other of men. Do you see that sparrow over there pecking at crumbs on the ground? Is it not a wise little beast?

Caro: I should say not. It is simply doing what is in its nature – looking for food and eating it.

Aristageles: Come, Caro, you have little faith. The sparrow’s wisdom is of the gods. It is endowed with an instinct for hunting and gathering what is most beneficial to it. When you and I were born, did we not cry out fiercely when taken from our mothers’ wombs? Every newborn cries so that its helpless purple skin is swaddled to keep it warm, so that its mother and everyone else around pay it proper attention to keep it safe and well. How did we know to do this if not granted by the gods? Wisdom consists in knowing the paths of the good, and the gods are supreme in knowledge.

Now, there is a wisdom that belongs properly to men and it also is about recognising the paths of the good. Tell me, would a goatherd take out his animals when he sees a storm brewing in the sky, or a farmer plant seeds on stony ground? I should think not. They know that it would be of no benefit to do so because the conditions are not right. It is wisdom to see the paths of the good and to act accordingly.

Caro: I am with you in your argument thus far, Aristageles, but you are surely debasing wisdom to say that any goatherd or farmer is wise because they act according to plain reason. It has to be more than that.

Aristageles: You are right, it is more; but only by degree. Socrates was the wisest of men because he followed the paths of the good considerably further than the average Athenian. He tracked the good into the mind and pursued it all the way into the refined air of Ideas, that pure realm where the mind touches the gods. Few of us have the brilliance of a Socrates, but all of us can attune ourselves to the good in many different ways. We can be respectful and kind to other people; we can be moderate in our ways and means; we can speak up for what is right in the Assembly so that justice and fairness are the cornerstones of the life of our polis; we can honour and give thanks to the gods with a pure heart. All of these are the basis for wisdom and all are available to the highest and lowest in the land; as much to slaves as to aristocrats, and equally to those with little intellect as to the most learned.

Caro: Your reasoning seems sound, but is it not true that men have different notions of the good? The Persians, for instance, thought it good to conquer Greek cities, whereas we resisted. A man who treats his wife badly can say that he is doing the right thing, or someone who is greedy believe that ownership of houses and jewels leads to happiness.

Aristageles: Yes, fair point, Caro. I would say that the good is that which preserves and benefits life. Let me explain. When the Persians thought it good to attack Greek cities they were thinking of themselves and not the benefit of life in the broadest possible terms. They were hungry for power and wealth and showed remarkable hubris. Eventually they were defeated and in turn conquered and ruined. Had the Persians approached us more humbly, not as invaders but as fellow men wishing to learn from us and trade in goods and ideas, do you think we would have refused them? Such an approach would have been far more in accordance with the good and with true wisdom. It does not benefit life to spread enmity, war and conquest; only peace and mutual interest preserve wellbeing.

So also to one who mistreats his wife or his slaves, or has any other kind of vice and thinks he is doing the right thing – he must ask himself some appropriate questions. Is what I am doing or thinking respectful and kind? Does it benefit wellbeing for all? If he is honest, the answers will reveal the truth. If he cannot work it out, he need speak to others and perhaps together come to a satisfactory conclusion. Sometimes the good is not arrived at easily or won with a minimum of effort, but the rewards are always great.

Caro: It is well reasoned, Aristageles.

Aristageles: Now, what of the arguments of your fellows? It was Philippus, I think you said, who stated that only philosophers and the learned few could be wise. I hope you will not be offended when I say that I have spent many hours at symposia with philosophers and thought afterwards I could have learnt more from watching a sparrow. Bombast, word plays, tortuous arguments that meander with no consequence are too often the shoddy tools of those who think they have something important to say. Dear Caro, to have read much and talked much is no guarantee of wisdom.

Caro: Ha! Then you must have met some of my comrades.

Aristageles: I confess I have not, but the point is that wisdom, like the air we breathe, is pure and is available to everyone regardless of whether they have studied philosophy or even know how to read the word.

Now, Atharcus it was who said that wisdom was knowledge. Would we really think that a blacksmith who is a master in his craft is wise simply because he knows all there is to know about iron and bronze? What if he used his skill to make weapons for the invading Persians? If he does not make use of his talents and knowledge for the good then no wisdom can come from him. It is the good that is the final authority and not cleverness or technical mastery; otherwise we would have no need for laws or justice. But I’m afraid that men are often seduced by knowledge, and fluffing themselves up like cocks because they have mastery in this way or that they behave shamefully to others and displease the gods. Do you remember Arachne, the young Lydian woman whose skill in weaving was so great that she had the temerity to challenge Athena to a contest? Athena changed her into a spider so that her weaving was of true benefit. Knowledge is nothing if it is without humility and aimed at the good.

Caro: Fine, Aristageles. But what about the argument of Pellius, who said that wisdom belonged to authority and tradition? Of all, this one to me has most merit. When I think of Thales, Heraclitus, Pythagoras and all the great philosophers, I see how much I and all Greeks have benefited from their thought. I look at the public buildings of Athens, our grand festivals, our system of democratic government that is envied by so many, our naval fleet, and reflect that no other city remotely rivals this one. Is all this not the product of wisdom, accrued over the ages, for the benefit of all; and should we not acknowledge and celebrate it?

Aristageles: By Zeus, we should! And yet, at the same time, I am troubled. Our fine city put to death Socrates, the greatest mind of his generation, not by a travesty of justice but by the fair working of the celebrated laws of this land. Our fine city sent thousands of good men to their deaths for the folly of supremacy over the Aegean, only to be thwarted and punished. How many mothers, wives, children howled with grief over the barren graves of their loved ones in all those years that we warred with Sparta? Yes, here in Athens there is wisdom in good measure; but also power hunger, greed and ignorance. It is up to young people like you, Caro, to weave the strands of inherited wisdom into a new garment that will sit much more comfortably on the shoulders of all men and women.

Caro: I will reflect on your words, Aristageles. And what of Agistemon, who said we had no need of wisdom anymore?

Aristageles: He profanes the gods. Can we do without the light of the sun or without water to drink? In good times or bad, wisdom is sunlight shining in our soul, pure spring water quenching our thirst for life.

Caro: It is well said.

Aristageles: Thank you, dear friend.

Hope

Do you remember those vivid, stylised posters of Barack Obama emblazoned with the word “HOPE” that appeared just before he was elected president of the United States in 2008?

What happened to the euphoria of hope that swelled like a huge wave at that time, millions of people attending his inauguration and seeing his speech around the world?

As the curtain begins to close on his presidency, Obama has critics on all sides and his popularity is only average. Though he made important steps towards a federal healthcare system, signing cuts to greenhouse gas emissions and speaking out on gun control, some are less than satisfied. They point to his support for Wall Street after the global financial crisis against the calls for radical reform, his tepid response to police shootings of young African Americans, and the escalation of drone attacks in the Middle East which have killed an unknown number of civilians in recent years.

The hope rising with the election of the first black president in American history, a milestone in many respects, evaporated probably as early as his first term in office. Why?

Hope is a powerful emotion that lifts the human spirit; arguably no individual can adequately carry it for millions of people. A president cannot simply do whatever they want, but must work within the system. At the top of the pecking order, they are at the same time a servant of the reality they inherit.

When an exuberance of hope appears like it did in the US around Obama, I think it speaks more about general conditions of despair and entrenched problems than the brilliance of the individual to whom it is attached. Not to diminish the man’s talents or his capacity to ignite feelings with inspiring words, the test of hope is rather its everyday existence in people’s lives and society as a whole, and not simply in the rolling bandwagon of a political campaign.

Investing hope in people and circumstances is fine but we ought to let go the attachment as easily as it was applied in the first place, to not hold too tightly to outcomes; not because of fear that things will not turn out the way we want but in acknowledgement that hope is far more than any single person, idea or institution. The boundless, free experience and expression of hope is what really counts.

The importance of someone like Obama lies more in their capacity to act as a catalyst for positive change broadly than in what they as an individual are able to achieve. Such a person becomes a symbol and a lightning rod for mass unfulfilled desires, but we have to reckon the crescendo of energy that arises for all that comes from it, for the changes and actions large and small that it inspires in millions of people. My sense is that many people are drawn to do good in many different ways in a collective surge of hope, but if our vision is simply on the one who acts as catalyst we miss the vitality of what is being worked and downplay our own empowerment in the process. Holding too tightly to the individual and not what their symbol activates in us, we can become disappointed and cynical or conversely starry-eyed and idolising.

There are parallels here to other people in history who became cult figures – like one of the most significant of them all, Jesus Christ. For many Christians, Jesus is real and extant in a literal way – people pray to him and believe he intervenes beneficially in their life. What occurs, more likely, is a projection of the devotee’s inner hopes and desires onto a symbolic figure, when the real value is the symbol’s ability to inspire and unlock the powers of the believer to improve their life and that of others.

When the focus of hope is turned away from an attachment to an individual or thing and experienced purely in itself, we find its presence more widespread and common than previously imagined. In this regard I look outside where I live in central Victoria. Photos taken of the area in the 19th century show barely a tree for miles – the local box-ironbark forests were decimated during the gold mining boom. Now, decades after mining and intensive agriculture stopped, the forests have reappeared and there is a general respect and valuing of the bush. I find great hope in this as an example of people moving to a much better relationship with nature, which we desperately need at this time of global ecological crisis.

Hope is, in fact, everywhere if we choose to see it: the birth of any living being is an expression of hope; our waking into the beautiful promise of each new day is a sign of hope; having nourishing food to eat and clean water to drink is evidence of hope; as is the ability to smile in the face of good times and bad. Hope is really the goodwill that exists as the cornerstone of all life.