For Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, or Part Five, choose one of these previous links and click.
Salutations and welcome back!
Whew - Christmas is so all-encompassing, and so is moving. I had the privilege and challenge of engaging in both this year, but now both are largely done, and it's time to resurrect this beloved blog once again. Not for the views, but for the reason that I want this blog to exist. Excited!
We're resuming our mining of General Conference, April 1972, for literature or cultural references, and today we've landed on a talk by Elder Paul H. Dunn once again, entitled "Know Thyself, Control Thyself, Give Thyself."
And as I mentioned before, in case someone feels like jumping in and mentioning any controversies around any past leaders' behavior, I'm fully aware of Paul H. Dunn and the controversy that surrounds him. All I know is he ultimately apologized for his missteps, and whatever wrong he did is something the Lord will square up someday. I'm grateful to be on this side of history and have the opportunity to learn from it myself. From all of these speakers.
I make mistakes too, and I hope that when I do, the Lord will forgive me of them as quickly as He will them. And whatever I may think about Paul H. Dunn or any of these leaders as a person, I am very happy when they provide me with lots of references to learn about. He gives us a total of five in this talk.
The first two quotes comprise part of the title of his talk.
The Quote
Socrates said many years ago, “Know thyself,”...
I can buy that Socrates said this - many others probably said it too down through the centuries. But where did he say it?
Socrates himself credits the inscription that was carved over the oracle in Delphi with the saying, and Socrates took this saying to heart and made it central to his own philosophy. This is probably why it's a phrase so closely associated with him.
In Plato's recording of his dialogue with Phaedrus, he says the following, after Phaedrus asks him what he knows about a certain story being told, and whether or not he believes it:
"Now I have no leisure for such enquiries; shall I tell you why?
I must first know myself,
as the Delphian inscription says;
to be curious about that which is not my concern,
while I am still in ignorance of my own self,
would be ridiculous.
And therefore I bid farewell to all this;
the common opinion is enough for me.
For, as I was saying,
I want to know not about this,
but about myself:
am I a monster more complicated and swollen with passion than the serpent Typho,
or a creature of a gentler and simpler sort,
to whom Nature has given a diviner and lowlier destiny?"
There's something to be learned from this, even today. The importance of focus on the things in life that are most important, and simultaneously to let go of the many distractions that keep us from these things.
Over and over in his dialogues, he refuses to lose focus from this mission of learning about himself and seeking truth. Even when he faces death, his pursuit of those qualities of truth in his life took first priority. And so, his work survives even today.
What do you think about Socrates and his focus? Where could that help us today?
