(or the Lesson of the Parable of the Tortoise and the Hare)

There came a time (Early Modern) when, apparently, life lost the ability to arrange itself. It had to ‘be’ arranged. Intellectuals took this as their job. From, say, Machiavelli’s time to our own this arranging has been the one great gorgeous tantalizing misleading disastrous project.¹

Quite by accident, I stumbled across this statement last summer while I was staying as a guest, lazing around, and searching my hosts’ bookshelf. What I read was self-evident to me because I can see ‘instructions’ on how to ‘arrange our lives’ everywhere. Indeed, we are so overwhelmed with ersatz knowledge on practically any segment of ​​life that we hardly have any practical knowledge of our own anymore, because, obviously, it is not necessary to acquire it ourselves.