a razor's edge

I identify with Larry in Somerset Maugham’s “The Razor’s Edge.” It is an elegant, and rather romantic presentation of a philosophical worldview – It is a discussion and a contrasting of ethics.

I have been thinking a lot about ethic as motive; the internal compass that drives decision-making. It seems, or I tend to imagine rather, that most do not consciously consider the ethic which drives. “What will it be?” “What are the limits I will set?”

The culture has slid so far from judgment that my perception is that the critical eye, the witness, has been largely shut off. The cultural position appears to be that it is ridiculous, antithetical, an exercise in futility to consider the larger significance of decision-making, better to respond, to react. It is more honest, more authentic to go with gut feeling.

I find that talking to myself will tell me, often, the truth of things, if only I will listen. To describe a thing to myself, if I hear those words then I may find the ethic which drives me. What do you want? To say “plenty of money” – first – then it is most likely this that directs my choices.

What do I want? Or rather what do I value?

To think, to talk, to taste good food, to know those who think and talk.
A glass of wine, a good book, a warm place.
To care and be cared for.
To do work and be satisfied with that work.
To breathe, to taste, to think, to have intercourse of all passionate sorts –
To live.