People of true learning, and almost Universal knowledge, always compassionate the ignorance of others; but fellows who excel in some little, low, contemptible art, are always certain to despise those who are unacquainted with that art. Philosophers in 156 B.C. held that knowledge came by way of phantasia (representations), not by way of pure, intuitive theoria (knowledge of intelligible forms).The mind in certain cases receives sense representations that irresistibly make the mind assent to them (phantasia kataleptike). The highest degree of probability is possessed by the tested representations. In practical life we must, in various circumstances, be satisfied with varying degrees of probability (an unarmed man confronting a lion in a jungle acts upon a lower level of probability then does a physician confronting a disease). However, we must never forget that this is probability for us and not necessarily the objective truth concerning the external cause or the origin of that representation. In this awareness we remain skeptics and are at the same time capable of practical and moral action. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5

On the evening of a late Autmun’s day in 2004, 56-year-old man lay in an intensive care unit with his wife standing quietly beside him, gently stroking his hand while the flash of each heartbeat on the nurses’ central monitoring station traced out the fact the fact that he had had a severe heart attack earlier that morning. His electrocardiogram was markedly abnormal; runs of arrhythmic heartbeats caused the warning red light to flash brightly but ominously on the monitor, while intravenous needles dripped fluid into both his arms before his life ended my father knew he was going to die, and he had only one simple request—that he did not want to die in the hospital and wanted his loved ones to stay by his side. The pain from a heart that sorely ached from lack of oxygen made it difficult for him to speak, but between us words were not necessary. I gently stroked his hand for hours as his, until I got tired and needed to sit down for a moment. As my back was turned, I heard the agony of agonal respiration. It was very brief, but the echo of death is a sound I will never forget. He died peacefully, ending a lifetime of exquisite dialogue. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5

The grief etched in my face is the price of commitment that knew no limits. My father was my hero and someone I could always trust and count on. He was a Vietnam veteran and a great man, not a day goes by that I do not think about him. He was also one of the few members of the Harris family that I know. Then I turned on my TV and saw Jillian Harris from the successful TV show Love it or List it. I really liked her designs and I wondered was she a natural born Harris or married to a Harris. Unfortunately, I feel on hard times and needed new times for my car and my cable television was the first thing to go. A few years went by and I was online searching for Harris’ and ran across Jillian Harris again, and she had recently had this cute little baby boy called Leo and she is engaged to this incredible guy called Justin and I took a renewed interest in her career and family. And their son is just so amazing, he wakes up at 3am and watches the news, while he sucks on his bottle, and actually loves the news. Leo is their first child, and he is learning to speak, and the expressions on his face are amazing. The joy, pride, and peace the baby brings his parents is amazing. #RyanPhillippe 3 or 5

Within a brief period I have come full circle, witnessing the death of a person loved deeply, then witnessing life renewed. Common to both is human love, and in both cases its expression did not need spoken words. The essence of both of these encounters was dialogue, nonverbal dialogue—communication between those who are alive and in love. Staring at the lifeless body of my father in that bed, I knew what had been lost. No longer could we verbally communicate with each other; our physical dialogue had come to an end.  Between the mother, father, and child it was also clear what had been born—a dialogue of love between a loving family—cuddling an infant in his earliest years. Dialogue is the essential element of every social interaction, it is the elixir of life. The wasting away of children, the broken hearts of adults, the proportionally higher death rates of single, widowed, and divorced individuals—common to all these situations, I believe is a breakdown in dialogue. The elixir of life somehow dries up, and without it people begin to wither away and die. Those who lack the dialogue early in life can perish quickly, while those who lose it as children, adolescents, or adults feel acutely what they have lost and struggle to get it back.  #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5

Here is one of my father’s favourite prayers: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Our lives mark a moral tradition for our individual selves, as the life of humankind at large makes a moral tradition for the race; and to have once acted nobly seems a reason why we should always be noble. For what end are the blessings of life granted us, but to enjoy them? When the mind is made easy, the body will not long suffer; and the love of life is a natural passion that is soon revived when fortune turns about and smiles. There is nothing in life more beautiful than that trancelike quiet dawn which precedes the rising of love in the soul. At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise when we remember our yesterdays. However, God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future. God reminds us of the past to protect us from a very shallow security in the present. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5