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Legend has it that Diogenes of Sinope, a true cynic, was once visited in Corinth by Alexander The Great. Diogenes was basking in the afternoon sun when Alexander approached him to ask if there was anything he could do for him, Diogenes’s reply? “Could you please stand out of my sunlight?”
It is a rum tale, probably not true and can be read as a metaphor on a number of levels. Alexander was the center of the world at that time: he represented politics, culture and society. The sunlight, on this reading, was the light of truth. By stepping into the philosopher’s sunlight, Alexander was placing all the worldly things that distract one from the pursuit of the light of truth in front of Diogenes’s rays.
There is a boxing analogy lurking in there somewhere. The fights themselves are the rays of sunlight in the main, but the stuff that goes on around them often casts a shadow to the extent that we spend less and less time basking in the sunlight and most of our time wading through the gloom or with a conflicted viewpoint that is obscured by all the power play and politicking. [Click Here To Read More]
It is a rum tale, probably not true and can be read as a metaphor on a number of levels. Alexander was the center of the world at that time: he represented politics, culture and society. The sunlight, on this reading, was the light of truth. By stepping into the philosopher’s sunlight, Alexander was placing all the worldly things that distract one from the pursuit of the light of truth in front of Diogenes’s rays.
There is a boxing analogy lurking in there somewhere. The fights themselves are the rays of sunlight in the main, but the stuff that goes on around them often casts a shadow to the extent that we spend less and less time basking in the sunlight and most of our time wading through the gloom or with a conflicted viewpoint that is obscured by all the power play and politicking. [Click Here To Read More]
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