Favorite Stoic quotes:Pursue Worthy Aims--SolonBe Superior to Pleasure--CleobulusI went in Search of Myself--HeraclitusAbout Heraclitus Fragment 18: He who does not expect will not find out the unexpected;for the Path is trackless and unexplored.This fragment comes to us from Clement, Stromateis, II, 17, 4.This fragment is often glossed over, likely because we have heard the saying “expect the unexpected” so often that we are no longer surprised by its advice.But scholar Andrew Mason proposes that “expecting the unexpected” could be transitive, meaning it could in itself cause something to happen to what is otherwise inaccessible and not possible without it. (See, Mason's article: Heraclitus’ Usage of ὅστις in Fragments DK B 5 and B 27, at page 63) and also see Fragment 27: There await men when they die whichever things they do not expect for themselves or even imagine. Omen-Mindedness: Expect a SignHeraclitus tells us that without an effort of preparation on our part, the “expecting,” we will not find what we need to find, which is the “unexpected.” The way to it is unexplored. There is no path. Because we do not prepare by “expecting” (whatever that work of preparation entails) we will always miss it, not see it for what it is, or perhaps be surprised and thrown off balance by it. What is at stake is that once we come face-to-face with the unexpected we are supposed to be finding, we are not ready for it, we don’t recognize what we have just touched upon and the moment has passed us by. Different and again different waters have flown passed. (Fragment 12: Upon those who are stepping into the same rivers, different and again different waters flow).One of the tools the Ancient Greeks offer us is the mindset of being “omen-minded.” This is a mindset we can consider adopting, because it can be a form of preparation along the lines of the psychological approach outlined by Mason. In other words, the preparation itself, the work of becoming omen-minded, will change our coming into contact with the unexpected in a subtle but important way.This is not a suggestion we read about very often! Mostly, what is taken away from this fragment is a vague sense that we need more diligence of some kind, perhaps more or different thinking, or some out-of-the box approach. In short, we continue to look for something outside of ourself rather than a change within. Omen-mindedness can perhaps be an approach to reading the signs of a higher world as Heraclitus describes in Fragment 93: The Lord whose is the oracle in Delphi neither speaks nor hides his meaning, but gives a sign.Omen-mindedness involves not just looking for signs and omens outside of ourselves but it most significantly also involves a looking within because we need to create a receptive space in ourselves. Thus, through our attention, we create a connection between ourselves and with what is outside ourselves. Maintaining that connection is a kind of tension or strife: a bow is being flexed. See, Fragment 48: The name of the bow is life, but its work is death (the death of oblivion).For more about the Greek use of signs and omens, see Bibliography and Further Reading, under Beerden, Dillon, and Flower. Kim Beerden, in Worlds Full of Signs: Ancient Greek Divination in Context, writes:Divination was omnipresent in the ancient world: If the ancient Mediterranean world was full of gods it was full of their messages as well. The mindset of ancient individuals might even be described as a state of “omen-mindedness”, as is testified by the amount and nature of the ancient evidence. (page 9).The occurrence of spontaneous signs was based on an existing reciprocal relationship between the humans and the supernatural. The supernatural was thought to provide a sign voluntarily and because it wanted to. Everyone enjoyed such a reciprocal relationship with the supernatural: this includes women, slaves and children of all ages. The individual had already established a relationship with the supernatural by giving a gift beforehand, or was going to do so at some point in the future. The preexistence of these relationships means that everyone could receive a spontaneous sign without giving the supernatural a particular gift in exchange for the sign. (page 111–footnotes omitted).Being omen-minded can be seen as a state of approaching ourselves, our life and all things in it as getting us ready and open to occurrences and events possibly signifying something to us, showing a direction to us (on this trackless Path). Rather than initially focusing on where these signs or messages comes from and what they could mean, let’s turn to what is happening on our end. With the practice of being omen-minded there is a certain flexing of alertness and readiness: we have to be on the lookout for signs, otherwise we miss most, if not all of them. Being watchful is already a giant step up from oblivion. This is the gift we are giving beforehand.Being on the lookout and taking note of signs, even when there is no sign, or if we are not sure there is a sign, or if there is no immediate or obvious meaning in the sign to be discerned is in itself of incalculable benefit, and probably even more so, because we train our awareness, and by doing so make our senses and soul more receptive to subtle influences, changes, ideas and we can already start to better see the “real nature of things.” (Fragment 112: Thinking soundly is the greatest excellence and wisdom: to act and speak what is true, perceiving things according to their nature).Importantly, we can and should always use any sign we observe (or think we observe) to remind ourself to begin again being on the lookout. In so doing, the omen-mindedness sustains itself.An increase in our awareness is ultimately our goal and that’s the reason it doesn’t matter if the sign “really was a sign” or not. As there is no “proving” of a sign, it will most often only have meaning for the person using the sign. A sign can be something out of the ordinary, but also something quite ordinary and common, such as something said or done by a child or an animal, or our eye falling on something we were just meant to read. In the beginning of this process we may well find ourself without experience (see, Fragment 1).Beerden says:The first element in the divinatory process is a sign: “[…] anything, whether object, sound, action, or event, which is capable of standing for something in some respect. A divinatory sign had to be recognized. It could be something which an individual observed and recognized as being significant: a sign could therefore be a special occurrence, a disruption in the pattern of normality. However, a sign could also be something perfectly normal which only became significant at the moment at which an individual observed it and recognized it as a sign. (Beerden, page 22).While the sign is perceived through our senses, the first step has to be our open attentiveness coming from within, but connected to what is around us. We are now on the lookout and more able to recognize. While some signs can temporarily startle us from our oblivion, we will be far more aware of and receptive to a multitude of less obvious signs. Before we move on to what signs could mean and actions to take, let’s pause here and quote from Bruno Snell’s "The Discovery of the Mind" where the new direction in the history of philosophy and thought Heraclitus took is described so precisely. It very much relates to the depth of this work of attention and explains how Heraclitus had such an impact on science, as this is the foundation of reasoning by analogy. To distill this thread, we will take sentences and parts of sentences in a different order than they are found in the book:This delight in a wealth of experience [enthusiasm for investigation as a basis for theory, i.e., conjecture] which was so prominent in archaic Greece, and which was not to be extinguished until the days of the classical period, met its first adversary in the person of Heraclitus, with whose pronouncement concerning the ignorance of humankind we opened this chapter: Much learning (polymathie) does not teach anyone to have intelligence (noos). (Fragment 40: Much learning does not teach understanding...).Heraclitus rejects the very thing which had become the prime object of human inquiry. In place of extensive searching he demands an intensive approach: Wisdom is the one thing: to understand the Will which steers all through all. (Fragment 41).[Heraclitus’] investigation does not dissipate itself in different directions. All experience, necessary as it is, remains without value unless it leads to an intensive understanding of the logos. The exploration of Heraclitus does not contend itself with the course of experience, the road which leads to the external world. He says: ‘I went in search of myself.’ (Fragment 101).Men are not awake, he says, they resemble those who are in deep sleep or they may be likened to the drunken; they are like children or like the beasts, a charge which recurs time after time.Heraclitus also wants to penetrate to an invisible core, to a reality which needs to be uncovered.For the understanding of this logos he does not propose a mystic communion, nor does he demonstrate a methodical approach, although in his thought too the visible signs are a means of attaining the invisible. He urges man to be watchful, and to pay heed to what nature has to say. In as much as the logos pervades everything, it manifests itself in the individual also; and yet is set apart from all things since it transcends the particular.The mysterious essence, the vital tension, reveals itself through significant particular events which man uses as symbols to apprehend the divine. For Heraclitus they are symbols in which the wise man catches a glimpse of the profound secrets of life.Heraclitus shows us the meaning of the ‘necessary’ metaphor. The truth Heraclitus has set himself to unveil cannot be expressed in any other way than an image. We realize that the truth it expresses lies far below the level of human or animal activity, that it is one with the very roots of our existence. This is the life that cannot be grasped intellectually.It appears to us in the most diverse forms in which it is always complete; and these forms, in turn, are the only channels through which life may establish contact with man. They are its only means of achieving expression. (Snell, from pages 17, 146-149, 218-222).Once we start being more alert to signs...Read more about this authorRead less about this author