Aristotle’s Pernicious Hand

PEOPLE OF EARTH, HEAR ME: There are more than two ways out of this moment.

(Say it with me: “There are more than two ways out of this moment.”)

Some would have you believe that you can only go this way or that way. In fact, you may also go more ways than you can think. “You’re not going this way” doesn’t imply or mandate “you’re going that way.” As if that way were the only other way to go! Aside from this way, of course.

Of course, the mystics would remind us that there is only “this way” — or perhaps that there’s no “way” at all. But by their own admission the mystics know nothing, so who are they to say?

Remember this little piece of banter the next time someone says, “There’s only this way or that way.” It’s not a choice between safe/unsafe, religion/science, Republican/Democrat. THERE IS ALWAYS ANOTHER WAY and it’s usually better, if less easy, than what seems obvious. But it’s worth the struggle. Don’t allow Aristotle another posthumous victory.

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