Open to being Open
Always Open for Improvements
The scene is a serene, timeless grove, where the light seems to emanate from the silver leaves of the olive trees themselves. Seated on chairs of polished marble are four figures from across history, deep in conversation. With them is Sophia, the embodiment of wisdom, her presence both calming and invigorating.
Sophia: Welcome, minds of different ages. We gather to discuss a single, unending pursuit: the will to improve. It is a path with many turns and obstacles. Tell me, where does this journey begin?
A handsome man guards his image a while;
a good man will one day take on beauty.
— Sappho (630-570 BC)'s poem; Exhortation to Learning as translated by Willis Barnstone
Sappho: (Her voice is like music, clear and measured) It begins with what we value as beautiful, Sophia. I have seen many a handsome man, his features a perfect sculpture, spend his days guarding that perfection against the slightest flaw, the slightest touch of time. It is a fragile, anxious state. But I have also seen a person of true goodness, whose character is their art. Over the years, their kindness, their integrity, their inner grace begins to shine through their face, their eyes, their very bearing. They do not guard their beauty; they cultivate it from within, and it becomes a thing that time cannot diminish, only deepen. The first improvement, then, is to seek the goodness that one day blossoms into a lasting beauty, rather than clinging to an image that will inevitably fade.
John: (He nods, his expression thoughtful and pragmatic) What you say of the individual soul is profound, Sappho. Yet, when we attempt to improve our collective mind—our society—we face a different kind of vanity: the vanity of the familiar. My observation has been that a new idea is treated as a trespasser. It is met with suspicion and opposition, not because it is proven false, but simply because it is not yet common. People find immense comfort in established opinions, and the effort required to assess a new one is often deemed too great. Thus, society’s improvement is stalled by an irrational fear of the unknown, a preference for the well-worn path, however flawed it may be.
New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
— John Locke (1632-1704)
György: (Leaning forward, his gaze intense) And John, I would argue that even those well-worn paths are not what they seem. You speak of overcoming the suspicion of new ideas, but what if the very concepts we use to judge—both old and new—are the real prison? The ideas we inherit, the "common sense" of our era, often function as a kind of fog. They present themselves as neutral tools for understanding reality, but in truth, they are shaped by the dominant forces of society. They obscure the actual relationships between people, between labor and value, between power and consent. To truly improve our understanding, it is not enough to simply welcome new opinions. We must perform a deeper critique and ask: who do our fundamental concepts serve? Are we seeing the system itself, or merely the ideology presented to us by those who benefit most from it?
Unmediated concepts ... veil the relations between objects. ... They are, therefore, objects of knowledge, but the object which is known through them is not the capitalist system of production itself, but the ideology of its ruling class.
— György Lukács (1885-1971)
Scott: (His expression is gentle, tinged with a deep-seated melancholy) György, your words bring this grand discussion down to a very intimate, human level for me. It reminds me of the simple, flawed impulse to judge another person. When we feel the urge to criticize someone—for their choices, their manners, their perceived failings—we are operating from our own limited viewpoint. It is a powerful act of self-improvement to pause and consider that the world has not offered everyone the same set of advantages. The privileges of birth, of education, of stability, grant us a platform from which judgment seems easy. But true wisdom, true improvement in how we treat one another, begins when we remember the unevenness of the ground we all stand on and temper our criticism with that humbling knowledge.
Sophia: (Smiling, she encompasses them all with a warm gaze) And so, the circle is complete. You have shown that the path to improvement is a constant, multifaceted effort. It begins with the self, as you said, Sappho, by choosing to cultivate an inner goodness that radiates a beauty far more resilient than any physical form. It then moves outward to society, John, requiring the courage to challenge our collective suspicion of the unfamiliar and embrace new ways of thinking.
Whenever you feel like criticizing any one...just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)
But that is not enough. The path demands we look deeper, György, to question the very lenses through which we see the world, recognizing that our most basic assumptions may be veils, not windows. And finally, it is all made meaningful through empathy, Scott. This critical, searching spirit must be balanced with a profound compassion for others, understanding that each person’s journey is shaped by circumstances we may never fully comprehend.
To be always open for improvement is to be a gardener of the self, an explorer of ideas, a critic of illusion, and a compassionate neighbor, all at once. This is the unending, beautiful work of a soul, and a society, in motion.
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