FateAndTemperament
Novalis, an elusive German Romantic writer from the eighteenth century, has been quoted writing the following:
"Fate and temperament are two words for one and the same concept."
I have also seen it written this way:
"Fate and soul are two names for the same principle."
The former translation was gotten by way of Herman Hesse, by way of Nietzsche, neither of whom would have needed to translate it at all, which leads me to believe that whoever translated my edition of Demian is the one who decided to write it that way. The latter translation can be found on a number of astrological websites. I prefer the former translation, but will take the time to note that, according to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictonary, the word 'temperament,' like the word 'soul,' can have a certain metaphysical significance:
---"3 a : the peculiar or distinguishing mental or physical character determined by the relative proportions of the humors according to medieval physiology"
The exploration that I wish to pursue, however, centers around the implications of Novalis's words if 'temperament' is taken to mean, as Merriam-Webster puts it:
---"3 b : characteristic or habitual inclination or mode of emotional response <a nervous temperament>"
So, again: "Fate and temperament are two words for one and the same concept." These words contain a simple and powerful message: one's mood, one's disposition, and one's attitude are synonymous with one's destiny. That is to say, a combination of how one responds internally and how one responds externally define one's life.
On one hand, it is obvious that a person's attitude, whether that be good, bad, positive or negative, has a profound impact on that person's life.
On the other hand, could it be that temperament exists as the sole condition of some pre-ordained destiny? That is, could it be that one's destiny is simply and only to be happy, sad, positive, negative, or any combination of such dispositions, and that in being happy, sad, etc., we are merely fulfilling our destiny, and completely so?
Ideas?
p.s. any good links to Novalis translations? I found 'Hymns to the Night' at http://www.logopoeia.com/novalis/hymns.txt , but couldn't find anything else that was translated satisfactorily.
-OutRadulous
Well you could almost say that a person's attitude is their life. Like Im having diarrhea today, but you don't see a frown on my face. you see a grin. Why?
-RozNerd
The two definitions of temperament have a closer relationship than you may think. In medieval medicine, as in the teachings of Galen and Aristotle, the four humors made up what is known as temperament (the four humors being blood, choler, melancholy, and phlegm). All of the humors must be present and balanced within a body for the person to be a balanced individual. The four humors, in balance, sustained a balanced temperament. Should one of those humors become unbalanced, whichever humor was greater became that persons temperament. If one had an excess of choler, for instance, that person became irrational, irascible, warlike and so forth, with the other four humors taking on different characteristics, certain temperaments. So temperament was either a balance of the humors or an imbalance, but what was never good was an imbalance. So, in essence, it was not good to be happy all the time, sad all the time, or irascible all the time. But the definitions, as you read them, reflect both the balance of all four humors and the imbalance if one of those humore should establish dominance over the others.
-FishMonger
Fate and temperament ring of nature and nurture and free will verse determinism.
Indeed these dichotomies are not desirable propositions, and just as death is necessary for life, determinism, or causality is necessary for free will. We cannot say absolutely that they are true or false, perhaps all we can say is they are aspects of the same ultimate reality. Fate and temperament intertwined conceptually have an anthropic, we are what we are, fatalism with an anthropic expectation,because of what we might become. We have many delusions of grandeur in the SeaOfLies, yet in that set of visions there may evolve a vision of such clarity and detail that it becomes objective reality.
-JimScarver
Strangers Meeting And Greeting Strangers And At What Point Are They No Longer A Stranger
How does what you are carry a fatalism to it? There are certain elements of what and who you are that you cannot change. But there are many more elements that you can change.
Second, while one can certainly take the attitude that your life doesn't matter, and that what you do, and will do, is already pre-determined, unless one finds joy in that thinking, it certainly doesn't improve one's life. You have control over what you believe and what you feel. Maybe not perfect control, but you do have control over it. And the more you practice that control, the better you get at it. As far as what you can do... until you have lived your life and died, you cannot truly know what it is you will do. Unless one decides to do nothing and die. Then, you can and will know, for you have surely made a self fulfilling prophesy. To live is to try, to hope, to dream. Such is our hardwired nature.
Don't let a momentary lull in your emotional state continue to keep you at such a down point. It simply isn't fun. ;-)
---StarPilot
Consider this: in the SeaOfLies in which we live, isn't self-determination as good an illusion as any? Many a lawyer went to law school for the purpose of becoming a lawyer. For some of them, the leap into graduate school probably represented quite a turnaround from the way they were living their lives up to that point. Whether such a turnaround was predetermined or not is a moot point. The apparent exercise of free will is an important hallmark of any sound theory of determinism. If our lives are predetermined, there is still no way for us to tell what path has been set out for us. The choice not to exercise free will is just as much an exercise of free will as anything else. Conversely, willfully exercising ones free will is no less a predetermined path than giving up. Lesson: make of your life what you will, because that is what you were going to do anyway.
Another way I'd like to pose the FateAndTemperament question is this:
What do our deeds matter, in terms of personal destiny, if we do not feel as we'd like, or if we are consistently unhappy with our own responses to life's happenings?
Does discontent drive the species? Is the DevilInLaughter ???? -OutRadulous
Good Lesson If I have free will, then why when I willed to remember to get more cereal, I forgot? Why do my actions feelings emotions and circumstances come in such a predictable manner? Why do people who lived like me, raised like me, in similar circumstances so often feel so similar? Ever just close your eyes and keep driving? It goes without you. And maybe you will hit a tree, maybe you would have hit it anyway. Maybe you missed getting rearended cause you didnt stop for that bunny that you didnt see just get caught in your tire. Chances are, for quite a while, you will end up pretty close to where you thought you were going with your eyes closed. Open your eyes, now you have choices. Right turn, left turn, flip that guy the finger====
==
Not really. Some right turns are left turn only. Some left turns are right turn only. Some streets remind you of your painful childhood which you could not control, or your least favorite teacher, or your ex-wife, so you wouldn't will to go there. Some streets remind you of everything great that has ever happened to you. And some streets are just highways, with only the unknown ahead. You want to stay or go? In the end, we all know that all roads go to Newark sooner or later. Free will is a Delusion. -JaLong
Indeed, but free will need not be a delusion. One can accept rule of that with is greater than self, or one can practice a discipline that programs any desired behavior selected by any means, actually manifesting free will. That it is better to rule in hell than serve in heaven is a delusion as the daemon rules you.
You can say that you are destined to not follow the discipline needed to remember your cereal. And it may be that many of us don't really want the responsibility of free will. If we do not act as part of the life organism we may be a cancer to it.
Free or not, each of us has a unique will as we are all DrainBramaiged in our own way and have a unique life experience which together defines who we are and how we will act. All we can really say is our will is both independent and married our being a HumanAnimal ruled largely by survival and sex.
Most of these philosophers that have come up with stuff like "Fate and temperament are two words for one and the same concept.", while presenting an interesting puzzle, it is clear, that they had way too much time on their hands. They are separate words with separate meanings as well. Nostrodemous told a child he would be Pope someday and is came to be so. Was it that it was the childs temperament to be Pope? Sure. Must have been, no-one could become Pope without the temperament to be Pope. Would he have become Pope if Nostrademous did not make the prediction? We can not know. Ordinarily fate implies both internal and external influences while temperament deals with internal only. -JimScarver
Sometimes I look at where my life is right now, and how it ended up that way. And, I dunno, I'm a pretty simple creature, but it is very hard for me to accept that I am here because of free will. I don't feel like I ever had a choice about whether I would meet you and greg and morgan. And the whole thing is based on such a series of near impossibilities. I met a friend at boy scout camp when i was 10 or 11. Never knew him before, never thought i was see him again. Lived about an hour away from me, which for a 10 or 11 year old, is REALLY far. I still only live hardly an hour from where I was born and raised. Turns out the kid within 6 months would move next door to me. At the camp, becoming friends was also completely random. He grabbed me by the leg and dragged me out of a tent, while I had no idea who this kid was. He then said we were sneaking out, and I was like, yeah, let's do it. Bear in mind I had never done anything like that before. So our friendship was based on me being the right leg at the right time. Then he moves next door. Couple years later he drags me out for a walk (not literally this time) and out of total chance, a kid is walking down the opposite way. We stopped for no reason at all to talk to him, and that kid has been my best friend since. Through more series' of unlikely events, I live where I do because of that occurance (Williamsburg, Brooklyn), I work where I do because of that (with greg's dad, JimScarver), most of my friends are related to that in some way. I love who I am, and I am merely the result of a bunch of random events that have given me a pretty good life, with better friends than I really could have hoped for. A friend has been held down by a few people, knowing my safety was in question. A friend has looked the other way when I did some really stupid things, proving that IamAnAsshole. And when I was trying to use a maxed out credit card to buy something to eat, I had a friend there with a big fat check and an even bigger heart. Things like that show me who my friends really are. A problem that I've always had, was figuring that out. Long story short, if I had waited an extra 10 minutes before going for a walk, or happened to not go sneak out of camp as a child, or didn't row in college, or a slew of other random things. My entire life would be re-defined. And I'm willing to admit it, if you think that I am just so attached to my life that I can't imagine it differently. But for myself, I don't believe that it was ever a question. Things choose me. Opportunities for me show themselves in the most obvious ways. I think I have a talent for it in fact. My temperament is merely a manifestation of one aspect of my fate. But fate is not something you can try to manipulate. Its hardly worth thinking about really. It's either real or it isn't, and either way, you are gonna end up somewhere, and nowhere else. You will have made 'choices' or whatever they are, and you will have walked a path in your life. And you will have no idea why. -JaLong