Enneads I vii: On the Primal Good (Revised)

Rereading Enneads I vii "On the Primal Good," I think my previous summary is fine. I wanted only to add a comment:

This was the very last essay that Plotinus wrote before his death (due to a plague, believed to be leprosy, that broke out in Rome). It seems his worsening health may have been on his mind, as this essay is short and a substantial portion of it is dedicated to how even though life is a good, death is not an evil.

In §3 Plotinus writes, "If life is a good, does every living thing have this good? No: in the bad, life limps. It is like an eye in one who does not see clearly: it is not doing its proper job." My health wasn't good a year and a half ago, when I first went through this essay, but I didn't make much note of this, then. (Though I do still recall MacKenna's rather vicious use of "vile" rather than "bad!") It struck a chord with me this time, though; perhaps because my health has gone sharply downhill since then. But you know, just as death isn't an evil, neither is ill health: while life has not been pleasurable, it has made me a philosopher—most people have to fight very hard to turn away from pleasures, but I get such benefits handed to me for free!

One of my favorite parables comes from Zhuangzi:

One day, elderly Master Yu got sick. His friend, Master Ssu, went to visit him and asked, "How are you doing?"

Master Yu replied, "Amazing! Look at how the Creator has bent me out of shape. My back is so curved that my gut is over my head! My chin digs into my belly button, my shoulders arch upward, and my neck bones point to the sky!" Yet he seemed peaceful and unconcerned. Hobbling over to the mirror, he looked at himself and said, "My, my! How totally He has bent me out of shape!"

"Aren't you discouraged?" asked Master Ssu.

Master Yu answered, "Not at all! Why should I be? If things go on like this, maybe He'll change my left arm into a rooster and I'll announce the dawn! Or, maybe He'll change my right arm into a crossbow and I'll shoot a duck for dinner! Or, maybe He'll change my butt cheeks into wheels and I'll drive myself around like a chariot—I'll never need a wagon again!

"No, I received life when the time came, and I'll give it back when the time comes. Anyone who understands that everything happens exactly when it's supposed to will be untouched by sorrow or joy. When you argue with God, you lose: that's just the way it is. That's why I have no complaint whatsoever."

Socrates said that "hunger is the best sauce." If life is deficient here, it means only that Life There will be all the sweeter.