Perhaps Some Dante To Lighten The Mood

semo perduti, e sol di tanto offesi
che sanza speme vivemo in disio.

We are lost, and only so far punished
that without hope we live in desire.

Canto IV
Dante

Dante's Limbo: Imagine an eternity bereft of hope, suffused with the complete knowledge of incompletion, and aflame with ceaseless desire for it. Sigh. But with Aristotle ("maestro"), Socrates, Plato et. al. in Limbo with you, I'm sure the conversations would not flag. The soul, filled with eros during life, is condemned in death to everlasting eros. The word "hope" in Greek (elpis) had a negative connotation. Happy, happy thoughts I'm having these days. What's worse, an undying soul (pasa psyche athanatos- Plato), or a dying soul and assured extinction i.e., nihilism? In other words, the possibility of hell in the afterlife, or the existence of hell in time, our mortal life, with the certitude that death truly is the end of the picture show? For further happy thoughts, maybe I'll go find my copy of Spengler. Cheers!

Let's Initiate These Proceedings With A Little Cheerful Max Weber

Not summer's bloom lies ahead of us, but rather a polar night of icy darkness...