May 28th: Providence Philosophy Club

Join us on Thursday, May 28th from 6-7pm as we host another meeting of Providence Philosophy Club!

About the meet-up:

For our next meeting, our moderator, Matt, has generously put together a list of guiding questions that center comfrot, pain, and freedom as it emerges in Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet. Below, you will find the reading, which is Gibran's text, and the guiding discussion questions that the group will cover on May 28th.

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Reading & Discussion Questions:

Comfort, Pain, Freedom.

I thought this was a relevant topic in a world increasingly optimized for convenience and plagued by cheap dopamine. I hope that you can find in the readings parallels to your own life, and that our session can be a moment of reflection and realignment.

Please read the following (short!) chapters from The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran.

• Houses (pg. 37)
• Pain (pg. 60)
• Freedom (pg. 55)

I intentionally put Freedom last, despite it being in an earlier section than Pain.

Houses (Comfort)

1. Tell us about a comfort in your life that entered as a Guest, but has since become a Master.
2. When do you turn to this comfort? Can you link it to a fear you hold? What dream does this fear underlie, and, perhaps, this comfort betray? How has it ‘tamed’ you?

Pain

1. Reflect on a great pain you have experienced. Have you grown from enduring this pain and working through it? How do you view it now?
2. Contrast this ‘bitter poison of the physician’ with the ‘silken hands and iron heart’ of comfort.

Freedom

1. Are you free? Do you desire more freedom?
2. What rules, denials, avoidances and sacrifices have you made in this pursuit?

About the moderator:

Matt would like to say he's read just enough philosophy to know he knows very little. His qualification to lead this discussion arises more in his (self-proclaimed) ability to facilitate effective meetings than any deep knowledge of differing schools of thought. He finds fiction to be the best source of truth, and conversation to be the best manner of organizing and understanding one's own mind.

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