Status Updates From The Consolation of Philosophy

I thought I would finish it today 👎

Omg this book is so so so fricking good

“Do you try to satisfy your desires with external goods which are foreign to you because you have no good within you which belongs to you?”

This book genuinely tries to make sense of evil and suffering and justice

This translation is very readable so far. I am especially enjoying the poetry. I may like to memorize some of it. In the first book we find Boethius writing poetry and lamenting his imprisonment. Lady Philosophy arrives and banishes the muses, who cannot offer true comfort, and begins diagnosing Boethius’ sickness.

This intellectualizes the “upside down kingdom” in a really good way.

In this chapter Boethius was like “Sorry, but why does injustice exist? Why does evil go unpunished and justice overlooked?” And Lady Philosophy was like “it doesn’t”

And then breaks into the classic poem using old school science again.

Argues that those who seek to preserve their essence (viz., by seeking the Good) uphold that which constitutes their nature. However, those that willingly or ignorantly seek evil, do no uphold their nature and therefore cannot properly be called human (walking dead).

God=Good=existence=sufficiency=happiness
Therefore evil is the lack of all these things.
And then there is a random ass poem about Orpheus and Eurydice for some reason.

After reading two very fun books you would think that this would be boring in comparison, but it’s actually more fun to read now.