The Greatest Conversation
There is a conversation taking place throughout the corridors of time. A meditative body of work that can only be built upon by listening with acute hearing. Great minds are speaking, asking one another what it all means.
I have a dream where after I pass away off this realm, my spirit floats high above the stratosphere and into a cosmic warmth where strangely, I feel so at home. Once there, I am surrounded by other energies, other spirits, other feelings of warmness, and even though they don't appear to me in flesh and bone, I can sense who they are.
They are my idols. They are the great speakers that have kept this conversation going since the first dawn. They are the minds I envied in my youth, and now that they’re gathered here, I praise them again and hope they know just how deep I listened, how much I absorbed, how heard they were, and always will be.
Averroes—dear brother of secular thought, dear rebel who was touched by the Heavens. You, who brought Aristotelianism back and let it flourish with beauty. You, who together with Avicenna brought about the Golden Age. You kept going against the grain, following your heart. I wanted to be just like you growing up. You are heard.
Descartes—Godfather of modern philosophy, we all kneel at your feet and look into your tired eyes with respect. I'd dream of you, sitting at your cold desk, writing away, even as the frigid air took hold of your frail body. Still, you thought onward. No mind has inked a new chapter since. In all of philosophy, there are only two eras. Before and after you. You are heard.
Saint Augustine—no light in the spiritual sky is brighter than the one which would shine down upon you when you were deep in thought, putting feather to ink. You understood Original Sin like no man ever before. The way you spoke about the body and soul, equating it to marriage made my eyes shimmer: “Caro tua, coniunx tua: your body is your wife.” You are heard.
Spinoza—the great 17th Century rationalist. Author of the last indisputable Latin masterpiece, I used to think it arrogant to go against Descartes, then I read and finally understood your elegance. You died too young, at just 44. They now call you “The 'Prince' of Philosophers." You are heard.
Schopenhauer—who was convinced that the truth had been discovered long ago by the Sages of India. You thought us all continually dissatisfied, that we were driven by will and will alone. I always thought of you as my disenfranchised, angry uncle who’d laugh maybe twice a year. But it'd be a magnificent laugh just the same and whoever was lucky enough to hear it would remember it forever. You are heard.
And of course, in this dream, I am finally able to see Socrates and Aristotle speak to each other. They have a great back and forth. Socrates asks questions. Aristotle answers above and beyond with great detail. But it's Plato that I focus in on. He just watches from the middle, easing back in his chair. A proud mentor, listening to his pupil defending theories against his own teacher from so long ago. It's magic. And everyone in the room knows it.
This is where it started. This is where it all starts again. We are all heard because we listened to them speak first. It's so glorious that I want to explode with questions and laughter and friendship. But then, I wake up and re-open my eyes and again, I’m inside my bedroom, still alive, still alone. The self-pity doesn't last long though, because more often than not, I look at my bookcase and choose another favorite and re-hear one of my idols speak again. It sounds beautiful.
Maybe someday after I’ve lived a bit more, I’ll begin preparing my own voice to speak as well. Hopefully I’ll have something to contribute. Hopefully somebody will listen and fall in love like I have, so many times over. Either way, the conversation continues. Its ability to shape itself with the times is rivaled only by how well it picks its speakers, its thinkers, its minds. It’s an eternal conversation and the most important one mankind will ever have. How amazing that we get to hear it.