What Great Minds Need

A great mind needs a simple compass to keep it on track. Theophilus was one such instrument. In fiction Horatio and Watson served the same purpose. A compass is not a muse, not a mistress, but a direction pointer which a great mind needs to avoid itself becoming lost in a mess of tangled thinking and vanity. Even the greatest mind left to its own devices wanders off track.

Logic serves a purpose in this and so does love but love and logic are weak instruments easily muddled and often poorly calibrated. They do not offer the sharp words of friendship which are needed to avoid stepping off the path that a great mind needs to survive and accomplish its fulfilment.

The selfishness of a great mind is enough to make it avoid its destiny while pretending that it has gone to the place where it should go. Vanity may be justified for a great mind but only after the mind has achieved what it was meant to achieve and by then that mind will understand that vanity, whether justified or not, is an empty virtue with no quality and therefore worthless while humility is the rational virtue for those that create or refine great ideas and more perfect ways.

I have seen the places where men who had great minds lived and worked. They were not distracted by luxury in their places, only by simplicity which is no distraction or attraction at all. It does not matter upon which bed you rest because a floor is as good a place rest as any bed when resting is merely a way to start the next day refreshed.