Prohibition is Not the Point
Notes Toward Wanting Something Worth Wanting
σωφρονεῖν ἀρετὴ μεγίστη, καὶ σοφίη ἀληθέα λέγειν καὶ ποιεῖν κατὰ φύσιν ἐπαίοντας
Sophrosyne is the greatest virtue, and wisdom is speaking and acting the truth, paying heed to the nature of things — Heraclitus
[in] the Gorgias, ... sophrosyne is identified with the principle of order (kosmos) which holds together earth and heaven ... and [in] the Republic ... sophrosyne in the soul and State is compared to a harmony 'sounding the same note in perfect unison throughout the whole' and to a symphônia of the naturally inferior and the naturally superior on the question of which should rule. (North)1
This is the world in which we with ADHD sit
“tending too easily toward fantasy.”
Each utterance triggering a whirlpool of significance,
You are not only You, but your mother
and hers, and their nations of origin,
their class and their politics —
an identity of voting records and the math, the math
we use as metric in an attempt to understand.
Let’s get under the hood. What hurts
the most, and what behaviors have you developed
in order to cope? Where do you lash out,
ignore, evade, manipulate? The answer is not
a solution — unless you mean some sort of fluid
which can encapsulate the entire situation
and, in doing so, quiet it.
But stasis is not an option. Not
while alive. Not
when one is not hermetic in some cave
in the Himalayas. This
is moving — the same movement which characterized
the most dominant arts
of the Twentieth Century. This
is Us. And without it,
We are nothing.
sophrosyne (n.)
"the quality of wise moderation;" 1889, a Greek word in English, from Greek sōphrosynē, "prudence, moderation in desires, discretion, temperance," from sōphrōn "of sound mind, prudent, temperate" (see Sophronia).
Entries linking to sophrosyne
fem. proper name, from Greek sōphrōnia, from sōphrōn (genitive sōphrōnos) "discreet, prudent, sensible, having control over sensual desires, moderate, chaste," etymologically "of sound mind," from sōs "safe, sound, whole," which is of unknown origin, + phrēn "heart, mind" (see phreno-). etymonline.com
North, Helen. SOPHROSYNE: Self-Knowledge and Self-Restraint in Greek Literature. (Cornell Studies in Classical Philology Volume XXXV.) Cornell University Press. Ithaca, New York. 1966.