I don't generally discuss matters that are quietly raised in hushed voices during Closed Conclaves of Bishops, but there have been whispers that in a certain region in Tuscany in the 18th century, Bishops on horseback used to joust with their mitres.

I hope to Heaven these are just rumors...

(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)

(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)

Tuscan priests, those funny fighters,
jousted with their mighty mitres.

Men of War do hack and slash
But Men of Peace inflict whiplash!

Men of War do strive for Power
They're here today, but gone to-mowwer!

Whilst Men of Peace, of mission joint
Just help their Foe to get their Point!

(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)

StPeter: who's there?
Paul Morphy: Paul
StP: Paul who?
PM: Morphy
StP: How you spell that?
PM: M...o..
StP: Welcome Paul Charles! Your coronation as Chess Monarch of the World's and Heavens is scheduled over at the Chess Temple. Here are your chess fever heightening pills.

PM: Morphy.
St.P: how you spell that?
PM: M...o...
St.P: Paul Charles?
P M: correct.
St.P: Welcome to heaven Champ.

... " whose celebrity extended far beyond Louisiana. In New York and Paris, the young Morphy was besieged by female admirers and sought out by artists and aristocrats."

Do you have a copy of Léona Queyrouse's manuscript "First and Last Days of Paul Morphy"??

She was family friend of the Morphy's. She wrote her pamphlet late in her life (I think it was around 1938) but she was 23 when Paul Morphy died. That same year she gave a lecture at the Athénée Louisianais, entitled "Indulgence." It was the very first public lecture ever given by a Creole woman in Louisiana. She herself was a remarkable woman for her times. A writer and a poetess, she also translated plays into French.

I've never read her reminiscences of Morphy though I've always wanted to have that opportunity as I imagine her insight would be sharp.

So often, genius seems to result not from a heightening of mental activity, not from an increase in striving and effort, but more from a relaxation of the mind, from a lessening of effort, from a simple, childlike apperception.

The ancient Indian sages spoke of "the Paramatman", the "Supreme Soul". Ralph Waldo Emerson spoke of "the Oversoul". Carl Gustav Jung spoke of "the Collective Unconscious". One model of genius, or at least of genius of a certain immediate, primal sort (so often the sort that manifests itself in precocious children) is that genius really isn't a characteristic of the individual: it is a common human heritage. We each have a "back door" into the Grand Colliseum of Human Genius, but the busyness of life, the frenzy of existence, or any number of other aspects of the day-to-day hustle and bustle have caused most of us to forget this magical portal.

I think one reason there is delight in beholding manifestations of human genius is that they are not only glories to the one displaying them, they are reminders of the potential glory that lies within our struggling species. As Camus observed, human life may be miserable [at times], but it may also be magnficent.

I am reminded of a favorite passage from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

"A man is the fasade of a temple wherein all wisdom and all good abide. What we commonly call man, the eating, drinking, planting, counting man, does not, as we know him, represent himself, but misrepresents himself. Him we do not respect, but the soul, whose organ he is, would he let it appear through his action, would make our knees bend. When it breathes through his intellect, it is genius; when it breathes through his will, it is virtue; when it flows through his affection, it is love...."

http://classiclit.about.com/library...

And elsewhere, in a more pedagogical essay Emerson notes:

"Another element of the modern poetry akin to this subjective tendency, or rather the direction of that same on the question of resources, is, the Feeling of the Infinite. Of the perception now fast becoming a conscious fact, — that there is One Mind, and that all the powers and privileges which lie in any, lie in all; that I as a man may claim and appropriate whatever of true or fair or good or strong has anywhere been exhibited; that Moses and Confucius, Montaigne and Leibnitz are not so much individuals as they are parts of man and parts of me, and my intelligence proves them my own, — literature is far the best expression...."

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.a...

Perhaps the elder sisters and brothers of the human race, those who are a bit more advanced in insight or virtue, really are a part of us. At the very least, it may be that they are related to us by bonds so intimate that we feel an immediate connection with them when we learn of them, when we behold their sublime gifts.

(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)

<that I as a man may claim and appropriate whatever of true or fair or good or strong has anywhere been exhibited>

Emerson might have also pointed out the Unfortunate Inverse.

But I tend to think in a different way here. What is often called "evil" (what I think of rather as "unskillful action") is usually the result of a tiny ego-self trying to exalt itself above other tiny ego-selves. When this is not the case, evil is often the result of ignorance or superstition.

Amoral gifts, such as genius at mathematics, at Chess, at music or literature, etc. seem to be available to the "evil" (or "unskillful") as well as to the "good" (or "skillful"). Even so, at least in my experience, they do not seem to be divided equally among these. The virtuous do seem more abundantly blessed with all varieties of genius (in my experience) though one can think of conspicuous exceptions to this (and one might suggest that Chess genius in particular is fertile ground for such exceptions!)

As for moral gifts, or manifestations of moral genius, seers and visionaries of the highest kind seem to pay a kind of "moral cover charge" to have access to their visions. They often seem, both by behavior and by insight, to be "elder sisters and brothers" in the ethical sense: the Gandhis, and Blakes, and Emersons of the world.

Of course, one might say that I am playing a trick on myself: that unless the "vision" of the visionary is to my liking, is a vision that I regard as ethically wholesome, I am not willing to consider the visionary one of the highest sort! One can play all sorts of subtle tricks like this one oneself, and philosophical vigilence is always in order!

But in quick summary, one might argue that the further one moves toward the "contractile self" (the tiny ego-self), the more one is liable to evil, perversity, and "unskillful action" (since this "mini-self" is often seen as "self versus others"); while the further one moves in the direction of the "expansive self" (the larger conception of Mind-in-the-Universe), the more one is necessarily prone to goodness, virtue, and "skillful action" (since the momentary self is often seen as the "self alongside others").

Indeed, from the point of view of the expansive self, altruism and enlightened self interest wholly converge: they become identical! What's in my highest interest is necessarily also in your highest interest!

Of course, this assumes certain metaphysical "realities" (if indeed they be realities) that are far from obvious.

Just a few musings on one other way of seeing Emerson's thoughts in this connection...

Thanks!

(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)

Thanks <hintza>!

(: ♗ Bishop Berkeley ♗ :)

(But should one be moderate in ones moderation?!)

...swept me up in his arms, with one of his wild, quizzical gazes, and began preparing to recite the entire Civil Code of Louisiana again. Before that, I again tripped over the young ladie's shoes arranged all over the bedroom floor. I asked why all the shoes all over the floor. He said it was part of an overall master plan he had, to discover if there was a path through the darkest bush, to the source of the 'Original Move.' And that the shoes had to be the right kind, right colour, right row, and so on, in order to fit the plan. When he had 365 pairs he intended to mark them down on a pre-destined, designated map board of old squares that he kept under his bed. A pair for a day. A quest, on the first very expedition, to the very lost lands, of the very lost time, of the very lost move, in the backlands of the lost forests of...of.. 'La Demarche Initiale!' The Original Move. The search for the thought and strategy behind the original mover's move, when making the 'Original Move.', and what it was, and what it is... That, after all, was not Man all he was, and if a move is a move, was that all it was, or is? If Man was all he is, is not a move of Man's all it was, or is? Was is, was, or is was, is, or was is, is? If is, is is, was is not was is? Was is, and if is, is was was, was was is, is, if what is was, was? Is was was, or was is, or was is, was, was was that, was is was, and was is? If that is was, what is what was, that is, is is,is? And if that was not that, then what is what? That is to what is, is also what also was.. Is what, was? Is was, what? What was is? Was it what? What was it? Was what is? What was, is what, is? What is, if what was? Oh.. The endless.... endless waste..

-Learned chess early and competed against siblings.
-Talent almost fully formed by age 13.
-Strove for open positions but had struggles against elite positional players.

see http://www.chesscafe.com/skittles/s...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...