溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Am I Master of Myself, or Slave to Passion?
Do I become my own master only when reason rules desire within me?
Master of oneself — the one stronger than himself.
Plato pointed out that the common phrase "master of oneself" is strange — it makes sense only if there is a self that conquers and a self that is conquered. So he divided the soul into reason, spirit, and appetite, and said one becomes "master of oneself" when reason rules the rest in harmony. A just soul is a soul ordered within. The question branched. Aristotle probed "weakness of will" (akrasia), losing to desire while knowing better; the Stoics sought to root out passion entirely; and Hume overturned it all — "reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions." Must reason rule desire, or does reason finally move as desire commands? The question of human self-rule divides here.
In an age when a single impulse is satisfied at a fingertip, "am I my own master?" is thrown anew each day.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
I swing daily between these two faces. In the morning the rational self who made a plan seems master; by evening I become a slave dragged by fatigue and impulse. Plato said that ruling is not suppression but harmony — not killing desire but placing it right. The charioteer of reason does not slay the horse of desire but makes it run alongside. Today I look back on which side held the reins. Though I cannot be a perfect master, before the work of raising a hand's width of order within me, I too am standing.
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