"...Train like an athlete.."

I was considering what to post this evening, when I realized I haven't explained the title of this blog, nor have I explained the epithet.

I have been thinking about "practices" an aweful lot as of late. Nietzsche used this term "Gewissensbisse" to describe the "pangs of consciousness" (which, by the way, Joyce has the best translation of this word: the agenbite of inwit) that ascetics in Christianity attempted to produce in themselves. In addition, he thought they eventually even enjoyed such "pangs," and traced this long genealogy from the Desert Fathers to modern scientists.

I think there is a great deal of truth in this, although I do not think of it in negative terms. In other words, I actually think "exercise" (one translation of the greek word askesis, i.e. ascetic) is the primary way in which we come up with "truth."

Now, some I'm sure don't like this: isn't truth supposed to be "absolute", i.e. indisputable? It is clear, or rather it is something you just have to agree with, or else you're "wrong." If this isn't the case, what about murder? How could you always condemn it if there weren't absolute standards with which to judge?

The big problem for this absolutist positions is that of "verification." We just have to figure out some way, among all the opinions floating around, to "verify" which one is true (let's not get into the circulatiry here - i.e. how is it possible to verify that something is true unless you already know the truth?). This is where Nietzsche's (and indeed, almost the entire ancient philosophical traditions, including Christians) notion of "training" fits: there is no access to truth without first a change in one's being. Or, another way to put it: one must become an ascetic in order to access the truth.

I can still be objected, however, that this is elitist. The problem I have now is just this: how does one have an ascetic practice that is at once actually transformative, but at the same time somehow available to everyone?