Commonplaces: January/February 2024

 

"All warfare is based on deception.”

“In war, then, let your great object be victory, not lengthy campaigns.”

“Hence the saying: if you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

“The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat, and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy.”

“To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.”

“To see victory only when it is within the ken of the common herd is not the acme of excellence.”

Book of the Month February 2024: Full-Time

 

Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life by David Bahnsen is written by a Christian to Christians, and we desperately need to pay attention to every bit of what he has to say. This book has a pretty simple thesis: everything pop culture has told you about work has probably been wrong.

Overview

"I think we are all familiar with the cliched Hollywood setup of a man 'married to his career' who over the course of the movie slowly realizes that he is missing out on the 'important' things in life and eventually picks an alternative (a romance, his kids, more frequent walks through a garden, mentoring a troubled high school youth) over the 'evils' of careerism and personal ambition." (17)

Now, Bahnsen stresses (over and over again) that there is nothing wrong with these 'important' things. Rather, the problem is in making work and these things enemies. Can you have both work and a healthy life, without downgrading work or the life? Why are we always told we have to choose between them? Shouldn't it be possible to do both?