Meeting Beyond The Greeting

Epictetus [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epictetus] was a first century Graeco-Roman philosopher[http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/epictetu.htm] . He had been born a slave and had earned his freedom. It is easy enough to find collections of his thoughts, thanks solely to the fact they were written down by one of his students.

If Epictetus had managed a blog, this entry would have been one of his favorites.

He was ranting over the number of people who come and “see” him. Granted, philosophers did have rock-star status in that day and people wanted to meet him. Of course, these visits interrupted his thinking and teaching.

People traveling through his town would “take him in” just like running past the Eiffel Tower for a snapshot or walking past THE WALL in DC just to say, “Been there; done that”.

Epictetus and his teaching were famous and people wanted to say that they had met him, but the great philosopher would not let the public off so easily. His observation runs:

But a man who meets a man is one who learns the other's mind, and lets him see his in turn. Learn my mind--show me yours; and then go and say that you met me. Let us try each other; if I have any wrong principle, rid me of it; if you have, out with it. That is what meeting a philosopher means.

Obviously there is much greeting and very little meeting going on.

I am watching, as are we all, a very intelligent, sincere President Barack Obama attempt to meet (according to the definition of Epictetus) with many people. He is trying to engage fellow leaders of a variety of cultures and countries. I believe his mind and heart are open to them and I believe just as sincerely that his efforts are being met with bull-headed opposition. He is dealing with that opposition in our own Senate and House Of Representatives and in the world forum.

For that I am sorry. People are holding onto their biases, won't budge on their budgets and the walls of ancient bigotry don't seem to crack.

He is past his first few months as our nation's leader. We can continue to pray for him as we have prayed for our leaders in the past. We can also pray that there is another world leader that will rise to begin the process of MEETING our President.

Coming back to earth, just how many people have you met (according to the definition of Epictetus) in your span of years?

In THE DAY we called it FORMATION. Those precious few who we know and have known us and have chipped and smoothed and formed us into useful tools in society are on that short list.
Obviously you can't meet (according to the definition of Epictetus) every acquaintance.

However, don't be satisfied with a book of autographs when you could have met the one or the few who could have changed your life and, through you, perhaps the lives of many others. © Tim
www.timjohnsonphoto.com