I’m addicted to knowing, to desiring to know, to understanding, to having knowledge. The primary revelation of my addiction is the increasing number of books placed on shelves around my home. I believe this is a very obvious sign of the sin of greed. I am desiring to live in the true freedom of satisfaction. Again, does this make sense?
Sorry for the delay Jeanie ... just got back from a family vacation. What you are saying makes sense. Books are one of the easiest gifts to overdo precisely because the appetite feels so noble! The desire to know is a good desire, I think. God gave it to us. My trouble comes when knowing becomes gorging.
Aristotle is helpful. Every virtue sits between two vices. On one side is excess: greed (As you noted), the endless accumulating of books and ideas, always reaching for the next thing before the last has been digested. I do this quite a bit! On the other side is deficiency: a dull incuriosity that stops desiring to learn at all, that lets my mind go slack. Both miss the mark. The golden mean between them is temperance, the practiced art of enjoying a good thing in right measure. That's what I am trying to aim for.
Applied to reading, temperance might look like reading slower, rereading, letting one book do its work before adding another. With you on the journey.
I’m addicted to knowing, to desiring to know, to understanding, to having knowledge. The primary revelation of my addiction is the increasing number of books placed on shelves around my home. I believe this is a very obvious sign of the sin of greed. I am desiring to live in the true freedom of satisfaction. Again, does this make sense?
Sorry for the delay Jeanie ... just got back from a family vacation. What you are saying makes sense. Books are one of the easiest gifts to overdo precisely because the appetite feels so noble! The desire to know is a good desire, I think. God gave it to us. My trouble comes when knowing becomes gorging.
Aristotle is helpful. Every virtue sits between two vices. On one side is excess: greed (As you noted), the endless accumulating of books and ideas, always reaching for the next thing before the last has been digested. I do this quite a bit! On the other side is deficiency: a dull incuriosity that stops desiring to learn at all, that lets my mind go slack. Both miss the mark. The golden mean between them is temperance, the practiced art of enjoying a good thing in right measure. That's what I am trying to aim for.
Applied to reading, temperance might look like reading slower, rereading, letting one book do its work before adding another. With you on the journey.
From one addict to another,
Jon