I haven’t written here for quite a while. Been focused on writing a paper I’m hoping to publish in an academic journal. It’s a paper arguing that contemplative practices ought to be part of the study of political science. A crazy idea perhaps, but the connection between’ inner’ and ‘outer’ peace totally makes sense to me…

Anyway, in my researches I have come across a wonderful philosopher called Gabriel Marcel and as I was reading yesterday, thought I’d share this quote from his book Men Against Humanity, published in 1952.

“[T]here is nobody at all who is not in a position to encourage, within himself and beyond himself, the spirit of truth and love. But one should immediately add the converse proposition: there is nobody at all who is not in a position through the powers of rejection which he possesses, to put obstacles in the way of such encouragement and thus to maintain in the world a state of blindness, of mutual mistrust… What is asked of all of us… is that we should discover what that sphere is, however restricted it may be, in which our own activity can be vitally connected with that universal purpose, which is the purpose of love and truth in the world. Our error, or our fault, invariably consists in our wanting to persuade ourselves that no such sphere exists and that our contribution to the task that has to be accomplished in the world cannot amount to anything.”