| On Wisdom
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All poems: copyright by
Nicholas Gordon
Free scrapbook poems
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1. Freedom is a physical impossibility and
a metaphysical necessity.
2. While all events must have causes, being itself
cannot have a cause since nothing can exist outside of, or prior to, being.
At the root of all existence, then, is absolute freedom, which is why, at
every moment of our existence, we experience our own being as beyond cause
and effect.
3. This is true even as we know that we exist
within the flow of cause and effect, and that everything we think, feel,
say, and do has causes and produces effects.
4. Choice exists at the intersection of freedom
and necessity, moving across from one to the other in the temporal act of
choosing.
5. Thus in contemplation the choice seems free,
while in hindsight it seems the effect of circumstance.
6. Because we are simultaneously enslaved and
free, we have the grace and burden of choosing how to view ourselves, though
neither a vision of absolute freedom nor one of total enslavement to cause
and effect can be long sustained.
7. To the extent that we view ourselves as free,
we are sovereign, shards of being itself, existing within but beyond
circumstance, and wholly responsible for who we are and what we do. To the
extent that we view ourselves as enslaved, we are machines, not responsible
for who we are and what we do, helpless to engage our predetermined
destiny.
Next: The Principles
of Wisdom: Hope
Previous: The Attributes of Wisdom: Goal of
Happiness
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