Discours.es

I don’t know what happens in other people’s heads, but some days I wake up with fully-formed ideas. Apparently, sleep is good for creativity. Today, however, I woke up with some lines from the pre-Socratic philosopher Democritus ringing in my head:

By convention sweet, by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention color: but in reality atoms and void.

As is often the case, the universe seemed to align around my daily reading which included these passages: 

The universe is change. Life is opinion. —Marcus Aurelius

…and:

The world is all variation and dissimilarity. —Michel de Montaigne

…as well as:

Through laziness and constancy the mind keeps to what it finds easy and attractive; this habit is constantly limiting our knowledge, and no one ever takes the trouble to extend his mind and lead it as far as it could go. —François de La Rochefoucauld

There’s definitely something here about seeing the world as it really is, rather than through the lenses we choose to filter it through.

Image CC BY-NC-SA Ian Usher